Never Have I Ever … Yet

Hui Qian Tan and I pose at B*Dazzle after our first ear piercing!

Growing up, I enjoyed playing a game called “Never Have I Ever.” The point of the game is to come up with something you’ve never done, that everyone else in the group probably has. I was particularly good at this game. Never have I ever ridden a bike. Never have I ever gotten my driver’s license. Never have I ever pierced my ears.

That’s right. There are a few things in life that most people my age have done, but I just haven’t gotten around to yet, like: learning to ride a bicycle, getting my driver’s license and piercing my ears. Like most kids, I started learning to ride a bike, but when my parents said that the training wheels should come off, I said I’d just hop off instead. Similar story with the license; I survived driver’s ed, but never bothered to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles. I guess you could say that I have a fear of wheels. I also have a fear of needles, which explains why I never got my ears pierced … until my return trip to Singapore.

Last summer I traveled with the Carolina Southeast Asia Summer program (SEAS) to Singapore, Brunei and India. I came back to Southeast Asia this summer as the research fellow for the same program, and during my stay, I met up with the Summer 2011 SEAS program assistant, Hui Qian Tan. She, too, had never gotten her ears pierced.

Chicken foot, anyone?

We reunited at a dim sum lunch with the rest of the SEAS program, and from the beginning it was a day of firsts: my first Chinese dumplings, my first taste of chicken’s foot (actually, quite tasty, if you can get around all the toe bones) and my first (and probably last) piercing. The idea to get my ears pierced was completely spontaneous. During lunch, Hui Qian mentioned that she’d finally decided to break down and pierce her ears. (Her mother had told her that the first daughter to get her ears pierced would receive her grandmother’s fabulous earrings, and the bribe had been enough to convince her.) With the excitement of trying new things urging me along, I suddenly heard myself announcing that I’d be joining Hui Qian. I’d pierce my ears, too. Once the announcement was made, there was no going back. Spontaneity isn’t really my style, but there’s something fun in going against your own style occasionally, and I’m glad I did. After all, when would I next have the chance to get my ears pierced with someone about my own age (and a few years older, to top that!) who was also a first-timer?

Many people would urge you against getting your ears (or anything else for that matter) pierced abroad. A fair enough warning, in general, but it’s certainly not applicable in Singapore. The first day that I toured the country, I actually saw a street sweeper with nothing but flower petals in his bin. And with a $S1,000 fine for littering, trash on the roadside is almost obsolete. With spotless streets, you can imagine the quality of the hygiene everywhere else. Getting my ears pierced in Singapore would probably beat going to UNC Hospitals and getting the top surgeon to pierce my ears himself.

So, when the last of the dumplings and liu sha bao (or salted egg yolk custard buns) had been enjoyed, Hui Qian and I made our way to B*dazzle Jewelry, a ritzy shop on Somerset Road, which Hui Qian had picked out for our debut piercing. Once there, we looked through an assortment of studs – pure gold, titanium, nickel-free, all the way down the line, and we both selected the purple titanium with crystals. The piercing itself took much less time (and pain!) than the selection process. With the click of a high-tech disposable cartridge ear piercing system, I lost one of my sure-fire “Never Have I Ever” game-winners and gained instead a beautiful set of earrings and a great memory.

Our ear piercings also came with three complimentary check-ups. So last week, shortly before I left Singapore, Hui Qian and I got together again. Of course, our visit began, as usual, with a delicious meal, this time at a delightful Hawker Center, where we feasted on chicken rice with mango bean curd for dessert. And then we headed to B*dazzle for our check-up, where I discovered that one of my earrings was too tight, and I was about to have a gaged look instead of a traditional piercing. Imagine my parents’ surprise if I’d come home with gaping holes in my ears instead of some simple crystals!

I was relieved I’d returned for the check-up. But I’m even happier that I finally got my ears pierced and with a good friend, no less. And now that I have the thrill of trying new things still fresh in my mind, I have my sights set towards that bike and car back home. 

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.   

That's What Happens When You Come for Tea, Lah

Enjoying tea with my hosts Alexius and Isabel Yeo. Pictured
here are Singaporean delicacies, which represent the Chinese
and Malay cultural mix in the country: Chinese buns with kaya,
Chinese sweet potatoes and green bean soup with coconut milk. 

Before I post numerous accounts of all of the sights and sounds of Singapore, I would be remiss if I did not explain what I am doing here. And what I mean by that, is that unlike the other 25 students of the Carolina Southeast Asia (SEAS) program, I am not a first-year student, and I even traveled to Singapore just last year. You see, I completed the SEAS program last summer and liked it so much that I decided to apply again to return as the research fellow.

What could I be researching in Singapore that I couldn’t research in North Carolina, you might ask. Well, many things. Singapore is a tiny, efficient, cosmopolitan country, more closely resembling New York City than the quiet neighborhoods of Chapel Hill. Singapore also has a bustling business industry, best described by the Singaporean word kiasu, which infers a fear of losing and a fiercely competitive edge. And anyone interested in studying the culinary arts would certainly do well to take a few lessons from the cooks behind the Hawker food stalls, creating such delicacies as chicken rice, nasi lemak and laksa. But I am not studying city planning, business, nor cooking in Singapore.

Rather, as a Global Studies and Multimedia Journalism double major, I’m more interested in the very people passing me by in the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station, at the Hawker centers, and at Marina Bay Sands. And what better way to learn more about Singaporeans than to construct a research project in which I get the opportunity to ask them personal questions – questions I might not be able to ask without a reporter’s notebook and a recorder.

I rather enjoy meeting new people, and I’ve been known to meet some of my best friends while waiting in line or sitting in a packed auditorium. And since we began our study abroad, I’ve pulled the “I’m new, what’s cool around here?” card, as an excuse to introduce myself, a few too many times. But my research project tops all excuses to get the nitty-gritty details of what makes each person to whom I talk unique.

I’m studying how gender, ethnicity, age and socio-economic status shape and inform Singaporean identity. For my first interview, I spoke with the mother of my friend, Alexius, who earned a joint degree program from the National University of Singapore and our very own UNC. His mother, Isabel Yeo, is a Chinese-Singaporean in her 60s with a knack for being able to talk about everything. She invited me to her home – the first home in Singapore I’d ever visited – for tea.

Upon entering, I was mesmerized by shelf-upon-shelf of Chinese teapots, each of which appeared to hold no more than a cup of tea. Alexius told me that his father enjoys a three-cup tea ceremony from those tiny teapots twice a day. He and his mother then went on to explain the four-part Chinese tea-brewing ceremony. According to tradition, you don’t drink the first brew, as it’s too potent; instead, you just wash your tea utensils and cups with them so that they assume the tea’s essence. The second brew, which tastes wild and gamy, reminds you of your youth. The third brew is perfect, so you drink it and think of your prime. And by the fourth brew the tea is bitter and alkaline, serving to remind you of your old age and all of the things you want to do before you die.

We also drank tea – the first brew – as Isabel prefers strong tea and so do I – while I interviewed her. What connects the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society of Singapore? I asked her. The country, which is comprised of over 70 percent Chinese, also has a large minority of Indians and Malays, but according to Isabel, all the ethnicities bond over food and language.

Isabel had invited me for tea, but I hadn’t expected a beautiful spread of Singaporean dishes along with it. She’d fixed an array of uniquely Singaporean dishes, many a fusion between Chinese and Malay culture, which she felt expressed Singaporean identity to a T: steaming Chinese buns filled with a thick green custard called kaya, Chinese sweet potatoes (which were cooked in their purple jackets) and a green pea soup in coconut milk. After just a few bites, I understood how the different ethnicities could so easily come together over food.

And then Isabel told me a story, which demonstrated that bond perfectly. She told me that in the summer of 2011, an immigrant family from China, living in a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat, had complained about the potent smell of curry wafting into their apartment when their neighbors, Indian-Singaporeans, cooked dinner. The Chinese family took their complaint to the mediation court to ban the Indian-Singaporeans from cooking curry. Fellow Singaporeans were outraged! And many bloggers took to the net to host a nation-wide Cook Curry Day on August 21, in which family and friends got together at each other’s houses to do just that – cook curry – in protest.

“I think it was a very interesting event,” Isabel said, adding that Singaporeans had learned to live in racial harmony. “Because that showed … you don’t complain about peoples’ cooking next door.”

And why should you complain? One of the aspects I missed most when I left Singapore last summer was the variety of dishes available for such inexpensive prices at the Hawker Center – prawn noodle soup for $S2, tempura udon for $S3.50, chicken biryani for $S4. So what if that variety comes at the expense of strong aromas? Some of our favorite dishes back in the South have distinct smells as well – fried chicken, jambalaya, barbeque … And you don’t hear many people complaining about those!

Isabel also mentioned language as a unifying factor when it comes to Singaporean identity. With four national languages – English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil – all spoken in Singapore, the country houses a cacophony of lingoes and dialects. But you can tell true Singaporeans by their use of Singlish – a mixture of English and uniquely Singaporean words – inspired by Chinese and Malay.

“The way we speak in English to our own people can be quite different from the British English, or the, you know, Queen’s English, you see,” Isabel said. “It is injected with lots of local terms, which really gives the accurate feeling or meaning to the word you want to say, the idea you want to express.”

A few examples? Lah, which used as a full stop at the end of the sentence, is one of the most common terms. (For example: “The food here is good, lah.”) And another word you’ll quickly become familiar with in Singapore – or if you’re not familiar with the word, you’ll at least become familiar with the consequences – is chope. It means “to reserve,” and is often demonstrated by the vast number of tissue packs and umbrellas you’ll see on Hawker Center tables meaning “this seat is taken, proceed at your own risk.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better first interview to jumpstart my project. But more even than the interview, I’ll always remember the hospitality Isabel’s family showed me. Over tea, we talked about her travels to the United States and Australia, as well as stories about her family. She not only opened the door to her home and gave me an inside peak into her everyday life, but she so seamlessly integrated me into her afternoon – I stayed at her house for over four hours! – that I felt as if I were a part of that life, instead of a mere observer.  

Isabel wasn’t the only person to mention food and language as two of the key factors that unite all Singaporeans – Malay and Chinese women of all ages, from 15 to mid 60s and from low- and middle-income families all talked about food and Singlish. But they forgot to mention their hospitality and willingness to share their culture and stories. I guess I should add those commonalities to the list, too, lah.

OverSEAS Perspective-- A Look Back

As I enjoyed the comforts of Singapore Air – rated the best airlines in the world – an enjoyment only diminished by the sheer length of the 21-hour plus plane ride from New York to Singapore – two weekends ago with other Carolina Southeast Asia Summer (SEAS) program students, UNC alumni were gathering in Chapel Hill to reminisce over their own travels aboard the S.S. France, a luxury liner, to Lyon, France 40 years ago. The reunion, which included a number of alumni from ’68-’69 and ’70-’71, began on Friday night with a wine and cheese social at The Carolina Inn and progressed with a Saturday dinner at the French restaurant Provence and a Sunday breakfast back at The Carolina Inn.

Marina Bay Sands at night--- Take a look at
the Sands Hotel and the Merlion fountain!

Boasting a silk district and the Presqu'île, home to architecture spanning from the 12^th century to the modern era and now deemed an UNESCO World Heritage site, Lyon hosts a booming tourist industry. But for Vivian Lutian (’70-’71), who helped organize the reunion, Lyon was more than a place where she traveled – it was her home for a year. Lutian told me that she still often thinks about her year abroad in Lyon. “I have had many dreams about walking around the old town in Lyon, taking in the historic buildings, being transported back into the middle ages, window shopping, looking at all of the passers-by, sitting in a lovely little French cafe enjoying coffee, taking in the atmosphere, listening to everyone speaking French as they walked by.”

I understand where she’s coming from, as I feel similarly about Singapore. This is not my first trip to Southeast Asia. Last summer I traveled to Singapore, India and Brunei with the SEAS program. Over the course of this past year, I’ve continually thought back to the things that I missed most about Singapore: watching the city wake up during early morning runs; trying new dishes like barbequed stingray, chili crab, and jelly made with turtle shells; biking through Pulau Ubin – a tiny coastal island off Singapore – and standing an arm’s length away from monkeys at MacRitchie; celebrating the 4^th of July at Marina Bay Sands with fireworks and Milo King Kongs (an ice cream drink complete with mounds of Milo- an Asian version of Nesquik); getting fitted for a white silk suit in Chinatown; and going to the top of the Sands Hotel to watch the sun set over the city and to enjoy a breathtaking view of Singapore, stretching to the foggy edges of Malaysia.

And that’s why I decided to return with the SEAS program this year – and probably why Vivian and her classmates met twice over the past 40 years for reunions in Lyon – because the country made an imprint on my heart and I didn’t want to simply imagine how it had changed and what it was like – I wanted to return and be a part of it.

As the program’s research fellow, I’ve had the unique opportunity to conduct my own research – studying Singaporean national identity from a female perspective through a series of in-depth interviews with women spanning the ethnic, socio-economic and age spectrum in order to understand how Singaporean women define themselves and to determine common threads between the ethnic groups. But I’ve also had the chance to show a new group of students some of my favorite places in Singapore: like the shops in Chinatown, the fruit market in Little India, and the perfume shop on Arab Street. When I told my friends from SEAS 2011 that I was returning with the program, several of them asked me how I’d adjust to seeing some of the same places with different people. I’d anticipated that a different group dynamic would pose challenging, but it has actually helped open my eyes to different aspects of Singapore.

Before leaving for our trip this year, we’d been reminded that places will change in our absence even as we tend to keep them stationary in our minds. This truth has never been more evident than in my return to Singapore.

So much has changed in a year! The dormitory where I have stayed both years – Prince George’s Park – has undergone considerable renovations, adding a new courtyard which has completely transformed the landscape. And a new Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stop right by campus, which was under construction last year, is complete, transforming a 20 minute delay at the bus stop into a 10 minute walk to a closer station.

Not only has Singapore changed in a year, but I’ve changed as well; I’m looking forward to doing some of the things that I didn’t get around to before – taking a ride on the Singapore Flyer – the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, going to The Shay movie theater in the downtown Orchard area, exploring nightlife at Clark Quae, trying out the National University of Singapore’s Olympic-sized swimming pool, having tea with a local Singaporean woman at her home … The list goes on.

In some ways, my return to Singapore is a lot like a reunion. I’m getting together with friends that I made last summer and going back to some of my favorite places. But in other ways it’s quite different because I’m having the chance to see the country in a new way – from the perspective of 25 people who are seeing it for the first time.