Totally Tubular: Cultural Differences
February 15, 2008
Sometimes, its the funny little things that remind you that you are in fact in a foreign land – even one as westernized as Singapore. For instance: last night we made spaghetti, enjoying dinner with Shareen and Natalie on Fergus’s balcony, overlooking the city. But… the spaghetti was tubular. Each piece was in fact hollow in the center – effectively, we were eating foot long, extremely thin macaroni alfredo. Wild!
Another one is: burning wads of cash money. In Manitoba, we have stubble burning that clouds the city in acrid smoke; here in Singapore, they have the Chinese New Years ritual of burning (fake) money (and other items) for ancestors to spend in the afterlife. Looking out from the balcony last night, we were surprised to see what looked like a violent riot outside of the neighboring apartment blocks, complete with several huge bonfires and crowds of people. Turns out of course that it was just the citizens of those blocks using the provided oil barrels to cosmically wire their foreparents some spending money. Anyway, the smoke was like stubble season in Winnipeg.
nyway! Good times in Singapore!
-R
