6 Things I Hate About Singapore

The blog has been waxing poetic of late. On the flip side, here are some things that periodically make me want to pack my bags and grab my passport:

1. Milk. When we visited Singapore, people asked me, “Is there anything you’re worried about not being able to find?” And everything I thought of, I’ve found here - or can have someone send me. Except for milk that tastes like...well, American milk. I drink milk the way Southerners drink sweet tea, so this is a considerable problem. I don’t know what they feed the cows in Indonesia and Australia; it must be some strange stuff. And even when I find a brand that tastes okay, I have to drink whole milk. “Lowfat” milk doesn’t exist here; in its place is an appalling gooey substance called “Hi-Lo” milk, which is essentially skim milk with various “milk solids” added to bulk up the texture and add calcium. They don’t even try to call it milk - it’s a “milk drink.”

2. Dodgy home air-conditioning. Singapore’s public buildings are thoroughly, reliably, even arctically air-conditioned. But rather than pay for aircon at home, people tend to suffer through the heat, so home air-conditioning systems are far behind the technology used in malls and offices. Ours is comparatively state-of-the-art, but it’s still a temperamental system of eight interconnected units, any of which can (and frequently do) start flashing and kill the whole system at any moment.

3. Rude people. People who leave their extra sacks of garbage in my yard by my garbage can. People who back out of a driveway across the street and smash into my garbage can so hard it’s hurled across the lawn and then roar off, leaving it lying there. People who park right in front of our gate so we can’t get into or out of our home. People who “chope” (save) food-center tables for family members who won’t be showing up for an hour - and who refuse to allow us to sit, even when we promise to eat and leave within 15 minutes. People who leave the entire family’s freshly washed tennis shoes out to dry on our garden wall.

4. Loud motorcycles. Singapore has noise laws that prevent anyone from selling motorcycles fitted with engines big enough that they sound like jet planes. But that doesn’t stop motorcycle repair shops from refitting the bikes with bigger engines.

5. The 10-minute radius. Many “city” people, though not at all rude (see point 3), are politely aghast at where we live. We live less than 30 minutes’ drive away from even the far side of the city, but I’ve seen at least one person’s jaw literally drop when we told them how far east we live. It’s true that you can get everywhere in the city in less than 10 minutes, but 25 is still worth a visit!...Right?

6. Workmen who don’t speak English. I’d sympathize if we had moved to China or Malaysia or Indonesia or something. But we’re in Singapore, where - as we’re constantly being told - “Everyone speaks English. It’s so easy to communicate!” We’ve mostly adjusted to the Singlish; at least it’s decipherable, even if you have to listen a little harder. But unfortunately the people I really need to speak any kind of English - repairmen, landscapers, the guy connecting the phone - do not. “Do you speak Chinese?” asked the head lawn guy, as I tried to explain a problem. And I do, a little bit: I can say hello, offer you something to drink, tell you I’m hungry. But I just don’t have the vocabulary to say, “How can I stop the caterpillars from eating my mango tree without killing them, thus cutting off my future supply of lovely butterflies?” Mang guo (the word for “mango,” go figure) is about as far as I can get.

...

Edit: See this more recent post for some thoughts on the comments below.