A Day in the Life of Singapore: Our Homestay with the Tan Family

Adam Glasser, Paul Ashton and myself with Sharon Tan at her home, which is festively decorated for the Chinese New Year!

The Singapore homestay is probably one of the most meaningful travel experiences of the Carolina Southeast Asia Summer Program (SEAS) program. This year, the program is staying on campus at the National University of Singapore for about a month before dashing off to Thailand for another three weeks. The program, a combination of Asian Studies courses and tourist explorations, seeks to help us understand what we see on the streets from an academic perspective.

But only through the eyes of our local hosts are we are able to see what Singapore is really like for the people who live there. How easy it is to say, “I’d like to move to Singapore,” when all we see are clean streets, posh hotels and the tourist-friendly areas of Chinatown and the colonial district.

But these descriptions depict only one side of Singapore. When I found out I’d be traveling in Singapore this summer, my friends made jokes about the country’s strict government and all of the “ridiculous” rules there: no chewing gum (this is no longer true) or peeing on the elevator. But is the government really as strict as people say, and how stringent are the rules and fines anyway? What is it like to live in a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat? Where do people go to school and worship? What do they enjoy cooking? What are their day-to-day lives really like?

SEAS program participants Adam Glasser, Paul Ashton and I had the opportunity to directly ask and even just observe the answers to these and other questions during our homestay with the Tan family. Sharon Tan invited us to her flat in Yishun, a part of the heartlands of Singapore, to meet her family, bake homemade pizzas and go exploring.

An excellent bread-baker, Sharon had already made the pizza crust before we arrived; all we had to do was to knead the air out, flatten it into a thin sheet and cover it with sauce, cheese and our chosen assortment of toppings (diced green peppers, mushrooms and pineapple). It took only a few seconds in the kitchen to determine that the boys were better at eating the diced toppings than actually chopping them. And their cutting skills made us appreciate that, thanks to the government’s careful planning of every HDB neighborhood, a hospital was located right down the road.

You Tiao anyone?

Luckily, we managed to bake our pizzas without any bodily harm. Lunch was delicious but it could hardly match the large assortment of desserts that Sharon’s family had collected for us to try: tua suan, an amber porridge-like soup with bits of You Tiao (fried dough); bo bo char char, a soup with yam and sweet potato in a coconut milk broth; tau hway, a slimey tofu/ pudding-esque concoction; pulut hitam, a glutinous black rice with coconut milk; and butterfly dough, or literally sweet bread in the shape of a butterfly. My favorite was the tua suan by a long-shot: the sweet, chunky soup reminded me of apricot preserves and the You Tiao added an interesting sour-dough element that left the taste buds tingling.

After lunch, I had the chance to interview Sharon and her sister, Esther, and mother, Goh, for my Singaporean identity research project. Their two-generational perspective gave me really great insight on not only what it means to be a Singaporean now, but also what it meant to grow up Singaporean before the People’s Action Party (PAP) and Lee Kuan Yew reshaped the country. Goh talked about the good ol’ days when she lived in a kampong village and everyone shared with one another; she lamented the loss of such close neighbors and the inexpensive livelihoods they led, which are now only a distant memory.

Through the interview, I was struck not only by the high (and expensive!) standard of living valued by many Singaporeans, but also by the ability many Singaporeans have of bettering themselves. Goh said that she stopped going to school after Primary 6, and her husband stopped after Primary 3. Still, as a pool manager, he supports the entire family (wife and three daughters) in a four-room flat and they enjoy a comfortable middle-class status. Esther is already a secondary school teacher, and Sharon is also studying to teach chemistry and biology at the secondary level. Certainly, this is a part of the Singaporean Dream, kampong or not.

After our discussion, we got to see the city through our hosts’ eyes. So, we headed off to Bugis station for some shopping. I needed a watch (which I bought for $S6, including the cost of resizing). I also found a fantastic pair of powder blue heels which, while not completely necessary, considering my UNC ties, seemed at the time, almost compulsory, and at the price of $S15, a good steal. Meanwhile, Adam snagged some t-shirts for his sisters, one of which depicted a penguin carrying a gigantic Merlion, which said, ‘hi,’ and Paul began a three-hour search for a pair of long pants because apparently he wanted to poach in the Singaporean heat and humidity. (Or maybe it had something to do with a particular nightclub refusing him entrance in a pair of shorts?)

Standing outside Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, where
the Tan family worships.

After a bit of shopping (we took several breathers from the quest to find Paul pants), we wandered inside a Buddhist temple, where Esther and her husband often worship. The Tans being Buddhist, we were treated to an excellent discourse on the worship ceremony. Each of us lit three incense sticks (we were told that any odd-number of sticks would suffice) and then held them to our foreheads to let the smoke carry our prayers to the heavens.

We entered the temple to the sound of shaking and rattling. We asked what the others were doing and Sharon explained that during prayers, worshippers would often shake a cylinder filled with bamboo fortune sticks until a single one fell out. Then, they would take the fortune sticks, each marked with a Chinese character number, to a side table, where someone would give them a fortune corresponding to the numbers on their chopsticks. Good fortunes you keep, but bad ones you burn away.

I shook my fortune sticks energetically – with so much energy that I shook three out at a time. Carefully, I chose the first stick to have dropped and then rolled two crescent-shaped jiaobei blocks to determine if the fortune were correct. If both half moons fell to the same side, then I’d received the correct fortune. Otherwise, I’d have to try again.

Unfortunately, my jiaobei blocks supported my first fortune, which warned me that I was on a long and treacherous journey. Aside from the poetic language, the gist of the fortune read: Stop. Turn back. Don’t proceed. With my upcoming travels to Brunei and Thailand, I was only too happy to torch that fortune.

But Paul beat me to the burner. His fortune warned of impending death. Only Adam skipped and grinned as he read his fortune, which likened him to a bird that could fly to any distance or height and achieve success in all he did. Needless to say, Adam did NOT burn his fortune, but stowed it safely away in his wallet.

Luckily, the burning seems to have (so far) done the trick for Paul and me. Neither of us has met with horrific danger. And, aside from one incident in which the two of us (along with a few other misfortunates) got stuck on a trolley at the Singapore Zoo and held up the entire group by 15 minutes, we have not suffered under too many mishaps. Paul and I are quite alive and healthy, thank you very much. We’re still waiting on Adam’s flight to kick in though.

In need of some good luck, post bad fortunes,
we rubbed the Buddha's belly--- will let you
if it's effective!

With our fortunes told, we rubbed the Buddha’s golden belly shiny for good luck and then proceeded to a Hawker Center for a few “light snacks” – or rather a fantastic sampling of Singaporean cultural delights: chwee kueh, or rice cake with fried pickles and garlic; png kueh, a pink and white triangular rice cake filled with dried prawns; ondeh ondeh, a sweet green ball covered in brown sugar and coconut and gushing sweet juice; and gu cai kueh and soon kueh, both dumpling-esque dishes filled with green vegetables and jicama (a Chinese green vegetable), respectively.

Refreshed by our international special, we continued the long quest for Paul’s pants and finally stopped at – no joke – the Mickey Mouse store, where Paul not only found a pair of pants that fit his waist, but also managed to get the legs personally tailored. We celebrated his success with dinner at an excellent Vegan restaurant, that managed to prepare a meatless, cheese-less lasagna that was out of this world.

Saying goodbye to our homestays at the MRT station.

As we bid our hosts goodbye at the MRT station and headed back to PGP, we were filled, not only with good Singaporean cuisine, but also with the happy knowledge that we had forged lasting friendships. And as we took the MRT back to our campus dorms, we were already planning the next time we’d see our homestays.    

If Cinderella Traveled to Singapore

Kristin Kent, Dinesh McCoy, Adam Glasser and myself enjoying
Singapore Slings at the Raffles Courtyard.

I’ve never been good at making bucket lists. There are so many things that I want to do in life, but I never take the time to write them all down. Usually, the places I want to go and the things I want to do come out in casual conversation but never actually make it to paper, which means that I’d be better off creating a retroactive bucket list so that I could actually check things off. Counter-intuitive? Maybe. Satisfying? Definitely.

The opportunity to return to Singapore with the Carolina Southeast Asia Summer Program (SEAS) only a year after my first visit called for some diligent list-making. At the top of that list was riding the Singapore Flyer and ordering a drink at The Raffles Hotel. Doing a combination of the two? That would be a Cinderella dream come true.

Friday evening, my friend Leeann Chen, who is also traveling with SEAS, and I made our way to Marina Bay, to go on the Singapore Flyer, the largest observation wheel in the world. (It’s almost 100 feet taller than the London Eye!) We arrived around 8 p.m., just as the lights around Marina Bay flashed into life.

From our glassed-in perch we could enjoy the bay’s view, including the Sands Hotel, a two-building hotel with a rooftop boat connecting them and offering an un-obscured view of the city from its infinity pool; the Esplanade, a performing arts venue shaped like a durian; the purple-lighted Helix Bridge with red and green AT and GC lights to guide your path and the Merlion – that’s half fish and half lion – Fountain spouting water from its mouth. During the 30-minute ride we barely even noticed the traffic whizzing beneath us. In fact, except for the ever-changing scenery, I couldn’t even tell I was moving.

A fairy godmother surely looked after my plans for the evening; after the Flyer, I headed to the Merlion Fountain, where I was to meet several friends to head over to the Raffles Hotel at 9:00 p.m. I was late, they were later, and our plans proceeded without any further glitches.

In front of the Raffles Hotel. Oh yeah, we definitely belong here!

And so, the Raffles Hotel, a colonial 19^th century-style hotel, which has welcomed the likes of Rudyard Kipling, Queen Elizabeth II and Michael Jackson, has now also hosted four incredibly talented SEAS students. We approached the 3-story white columned front in awe. A butler in extensive regalia was busy helping a well-to-do family from a Mercedes Benz taxi. We’d walked to the hotel, so we didn’t receive much notice.

I asked for the location of the Long Bar – apparently the only venue where people who can’t afford to pay at least US $671 a night can take a peak at the historic venue from the peanut shell-covered floor of a casual-styled bar. As we were not escourted inside, we luckily never found the Long Bar until we’d stumbled across yet another bar – this one in the Raffles Courtyard, surrounded by tall white columns and filled with fanned palm trees, frangipani, orchids and bougainvillea in bright orange, red, pink and white shades. (Turns out, not having a horse-drawn carriage comes with its benefits!)

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the infamous Singapore
Sling, which was created by bartender Chow Hoo Siong at the
Long Bar in 1985. The drink consists of (among other things)
pineapple and lime juice, Grenadine syrup, Angostura bitters
and gin and cherry brandy. In other words, sweet and potent!

We took a seat and proceeded to empty our wallets and order Singapore Slings. (Or rather, to save face and avoid excessive coinage, we put it all on one credit card and proceeded to write extensive IOUs to our gracious card-holder.) Each glass of the national (pink!) cocktail cost over $S30, or the equivalent of half a week’s worth of satisfying Hawker Center fare. But the drink – which includes gin and cherry brandy, as well as pineapple and lime juice and a menagerie of other liqueurs – and is served with a slice of pineapple and a cherry, was well worth the expense.

The tangy-sweet mixture perfectly complemented the small dishes of peanuts that came alongside it, and, moreover, added to the ambiance of our surroundings. To be sitting in the lap of history, surrounded by balconies graced by such people as Ernest Hemingway, Ingrid Bergman and Elizabeth Taylor! To be sitting at perhaps the very umbrella-covered tables as Beyonce Knowles and the Black Eyed Peas! To be enjoying the same views as countless international royalty and dignitaries!

The courtyard-- a view from above.

For the duration of one drink, we could revel in the significance of our surroundings. We could smell the gunpowder that in 1902 made the tiger extinct in Singapore, after it escaped from a showcase and made a short guest appearance at the Long Bar before a patron shot it between the eyes. We could see William Somerset Maugham, the English playwright and novelist, sitting under the frangipani as he worked away at a draft in the early morning light. We could overhear Peter van Stein Callendels, the well-known Dutch archaeologist and a regular guest at the hotel proceed to order every dish off the menu and then repeat the process in reverse order.

As we polished off our drinks, we adjourned to the Long Bar, where, sure enough, peanut shells littered the floor. A beautiful view of the street fell below the terraced porch, but as we walked back down the stairs and passed the white marble floors to the front of the hotel, we were only too happy that our fairy godmother had changed our plans.

The evening proceeded in perfect bliss, walking past St. Andrew’s Cathedral, which is part of the Diocese of Singapore, and towards the Marina Bay area, until we realized that the night – or rather the weather – was in fact too perfect. The heat and humidity had lifted, unusual even around midnight in Singapore. So we hopped into a taxi just as rain pelted the streets. We would have been a sad show – four students in their best (now dripping) attire under the protection of an undersized UNC umbrella. But even the downpour could not wash away the magic of the evening – it clung to the air and carried us swiftly back to our castle, which is just so aptly named Prince George’s Park.