Ang Mo signing off, soon

Seemingly many Asian cultures have their own special term coined for foreigners often specifically targeting Westerners. Japanese have a racial epithet for outsiders called gaijin while in China it is laowai (or gweilo in Cantonese) whereas in Thailand it is farang. The Singaporean equivalent would be Ang Mo (红毛). While these terms may not have originated from derogatory nature, there is a pretty strong connotation of exclusiveness (ie. us vs. the outsiders) and depending on the context the term can also be used with intentionally offensive undertone.

Ang Mo literally means "red haired" and the etymology can be pretty easily guessed. The first usages of the term date back to 16th and 17th century in the Fujian province in China with Hokkien speakers (which is still the prevalent dialect in Singapore) and it was referring to the Portuguese and Dutch people most probably for apparent reasons.

This particular Ang Mo is about to let go his honorable title very soon. For the past 2 years I have been clearly in minority. According to the most recently published demographics I would belong to the ethnic group called Others, which represent only 3,3 percentage of the total population. For the record, I have not really had any issues whatsoever about belonging to the minority over here. Perhaps I do have a gnawing suspicion that my landlord did squeeze every last penny from the Ang Mo expat when reviewing what fixing needs to be done in the apartment before the hand over. But then again Chinese businessmen tend to have the penny squeezing reputation no matter the customer ethnicity.

Within a week I will be disappearing back into the majority. In the wake of World War II European countries shy away from tracking the ethnicity of their population like they do very transparently in Singapore. However I will be back in the 89,33 percentage of the people who speak Finnish as their mother tongue. The 3 other biggest language groups after Finnish are Swedish, Russian and Estonian (in that order), thus I am probably not far off when estimating that as a Caucasian I belong to the 97% of the population.

After all this time living in Singapore I would still proudly consider myself a proper Ang Mo rather than a true Singaporean. See what I mean by looking at this Wah Banana clip below:

A blast from the past

This day goes down in history. I believe this was the first time ever that I have queued for a cashier and deposited a paper form cheque to my bank account. I am of the generation of people raised in Finland who never had to engage with check books or checking accounts. I had my first debit card when I was 15 and was later using a crude pre-internet bank over 36,6 Kbps modem connection (who remembers the infernal noise?) for all my bill payments and money transfers.

Honestly Singapore is not the worst place in terms of advances in banking. Actually there is a fierce competition between the regional and global banks to demonstrate who are seen as the most innovative and cutting edge with rolling out new services like NFC payments. I can get by using mostly my credit card including for small purchases like taxi trips. But still everyday bill payment through electronic means is not as straightforward and everywhere accepted as I have grown to expect.

Also there is some inherent weirdness and unnecessary level of complexity in the way electronic banking is set up here. I can pay a bill normally (provided that I have added a new payee) or choose to use GIRO, bank transfer, credit card, standing instruction, online cheque (!!! if I had a checking account)  or advance pay. All of these modes of payments are hidden in various parts of the navigational hierarchy of my internet bank UI. In Finland in my bills I have two pieces of information: recipients bank account and typically reference code and after that I set it to run automatically if it is a reoccurring payment. I see all transactions (past and upcoming) in one place. How hard can that be?

Effective guards

Is it just me or is this warning sign a bit too definitive. Typically you would expect to see trespassers detained rather than shot at sight.

Galloping into the future

"Meaning of year of the Horse...

The new Moon on January 30 at 11:20 pm PST (but listed as January 31 in many calendars) begins the year of the Wood Horse. Chinese New Year is a spring festival that begins on the second new Moon after Winter Solstice, with the Sun and Moon in Aquarius. This new Moon also starts the month of the Fire Tiger making energy very strong and lively as Horse year begins, a clear departure from the slower energy of the previous Water Snake year 2013.

The Wood Horse year is a time of fast victories, unexpected adventure, and surprising romance. It is an excellent year for travel, and the more far away and off the beaten path the better. Energy is high and production is rewarded. Decisive action, not procrastination, brings victory. But you have to act fast in a Horse year. If you are not 100% secure about a decision, then don’t do it. Events move so quickly in a Horse year that you don’t want to gallop off in the wrong direction."

(source unknown as I received this from a colleague)

Opposite of draconian

Only in the Nordic countries you can expect something like this: convict serving a prison sentence decided he didn't quite feel like coming back while on vacation (!) from the prison. This episode was recently reported in a Finnish newspaper.

This convict in question happened to be just a murderer who had hacked his business associate to pieces. Furthermore, he had tried to escape already a couple of years ago while visiting the city to apply for university. 

Police announced that this is not such a big thing as the prisoner had already served 6 years (out of which they had subtracted the time he went AWOL the previous time). Also they mentioned that there is no need for any public concern as this particular criminal is hardly the most dangerous villain out there right now.

All this sounds quite otherworldly after living in a society which has one of the most draconian legislative system in the world and reportedly inhumane conditions for inmates serving time.

No squating allowed

I have already blogged about Singaporean toilet adventures a few times before. I promise you this will be the last time!

Just wanted to share a warning sign which you probably would not expect to see in a workplace toilet in Finland.

Then again Finns can have part of the action with funny signs. This one was apparently found in one restaurant toilet in Finland. Obviously makes you wonder that there must have been a good reason(s) for a sign defining an appropriate toilet behaviour to appear on the wall in the first place.

Found this from imgur.com --> http://imgur.com/QKLuVtN

Now if I really put my mind to it, I guess squating over Western type toilet bowl is not that bad offense after all...

Closing in on half year mark

Well, whaddya know! I just started my 6th month living and working in Singapore. Funny how time flies when having fun in the office, basking in the sun and relaxing in the pool.

Quirky motion sensor AKA set your toilets to stun

Quick personal gripe for this lovely Wednesday morning: It hardly comes as a surprise that in this fine city failing to flush a toilet after use is yet another punishable offence (modest 150 SGD compared to say riding your bike through an underpass, which forces you to cough up a cool 1000 dollars if you get caught). Thankfully opportunities for this form of improper conduct has been prevented by installing infrared motion detectors in most if not all public toilets. These detectors practically flush the toilet for you...

...Provided that they practically work in the first place. In some toilets like in our office they have set the detector on extra stringent mode, flushing the toilet repeatedly even during use as a pre-emptive measure to make sure any fines avoided. I can only attest that it can be rather unpleasant (yet strangely refreshing) experience.

What a fine city

It makes sense not to transfer your Durian fruits in a bus.

Totally recalling the original initial feelings

Commuting to work this morning -- by bus mind you -- I picked up interesting comment from morning radio show: "PIE is congested, affecting TPE and quite possibly ECP". Singapore is very fond of TLAs (three letter acronyms). The list of acronyms in SG seems endless. Over the last few days I have come across at least  MOM, HBD, MRT, DBS, ERP, GST, NRIC, EP and also the names of the highways as mentioned over the radio.  The plethora of acronyms borders on the extend of acronym usage within one specific global IT conglomerate.

It's not only acronyms, but having visited Singapore previously on private trips, there are number of apparent things which didn't surprise me anymore. In terms of comprehensiveness, I try to memorize some of the very first impressions I had on my previous visits. I am not planning to rephrase wikipedia entry of Singapore as such, but emphasizing on some of my original initial feelings.

Singapore seems to be a model society when it comes to harmoniously integrating different ethnicities and religions. There is probably more to this when digging in deeper into the society, but the first impression is definitely a positive one. On any given street one can spot a hindu temple right next to a mosque right next to a catholic church. There are total of 4 official languages used (Mandarin, Malay and Tamil) in addition to English being shared by all groups, which seemingly increases internal unity among the population. The accent of local English takes a while to get used to, but level of English is very good compared to any other Asian country I have visited. For example all taxi drivers speak English -- which is not the case for example in New York! Taxi drivers tend to be often actually a very chatty bunch of people. I just got an extensive marketing speech for Asus padphone during my latest Taxi trip.

One thing that cannot be left unnoticed on the very first trip to Singapore is the amount of trees, flowers and overall greenery left in between the buildings. Too often in the concrete jungles of any major metropolitan cities the trees are strictly confided to their own areas within fenced parks, but over here the city planners have had the sense of not hiding the tropical nature of the geographical location of the country. Just for example the East Coast Parkway (aforementioned ECP) -- highway leading from the airport to the city -- is surrounded by umbrella trees giving shade and cut in half with endless bushes and flower beds.

Another apparent finding is the general cleanliness of the surroundings. One doesn't really find any rubbish or trash whatsoever thrown on ground anywhere within the city. There is not a one broken public property (like a bus stop or trash cans) in sight. After visiting a public park in Berlin during one weekend, I have seen the other end of the same axis. There are most likely couple of explanations for this: primary one being the draconian nature of law interpretation in the country. The punishments for any devious activity no matter how minor in nature (like jaywalking, littering, driving a car with black smoke coming out of the exhausting pipe...) can be very severe from extensive fines to public caning and eventually to capital punishment. So as long as I'm able to resist my urges of random acts of vandalism like spray painting over a diplomats car, I am happily enjoying very safe and clean surroundings. But in addition to fear of punishment, I believe, one main motivation of upholding to these virtues is the positive feedback loop: as long as everybody puts out their cigarettes in the provided ash trays nobody wants to be the first one to start littering the grounds.

Finally I could go on and on about the first impressions around different cuisines served around here, but I'll save that as a completely separate blog entry -- perhaps multiple entries.