Courtesy, Cooking and Chinatown: Singapore Day 1 (22 July, 2014)

Courtesy

Singapore, we’ve heard said, is a very Western city and therefore not of much interest to travellers wanting to experience the “real” Asia. Perhaps so, but while it’s clean, organised, and English is the main language, there is quite a different sensibility. For one thing, there’s a level of politeness and courtesy that seems both natural and state-fostered, and not so familiar to we westerners!

By natural, we mean that during the day several people extended small courtesies to us, starting with the doorman at the hotel who was concerned, when we headed out the door at 9am, that we mightn’t be aware that things didn’t get going in Singapore until 10am or so. It continued with other little courtesies like people offering direction assistance without being asked, etc.

By state-fostered we mean things like the fact that chewing gum is banned, that there are penalties for abusing public transport staff, and that there are signs on trains asking you to “be good” or “be kind” and “Let this seat go to someone in need” (like older or disabled people, or pregnant women). We also saw a sign reading “Bag down for a better ride”, asking passengers to take backpacks off their backs. And, please don’t carry durians on the train!! There’s a sign for that too.

Singapore is a safe place (rather like Japan it seems). It does have some pretty tough laws and punishments which sound a little draconian in places … but we do like the fact that courtesy and consideration are being taught, and are expected.

Cooking

Our main activity of the day was a 3-hour hands-on cooking class with a company called Food Playground. We cooked – and then ate – Hainanese Chicken Rice with Chilli sauce, and Wonton soup. All very yummy, and shared with 8 other people from Australia, the USA, Norway, and England.

What is special about Food Playground is its social mission, which is to use the knowledge and experience of, and give work to, housewives and senior citizens. Our teachers were not professional chefs but good home cooks who taught us foods we could do at home, and who gave us tips on what and how to prepare ahead.

Our two teachers also shared some of Singapore’s history and culture with us, particularly food related. Food is important in Singapore … so much so that many of the world’s top and/or Michelin Star chefs have restaurants here, like, say, our own Tetsuya and one we knew in California, Wolfgang Puck. You can eat their food in Singapore and not have to travel around the world, our teacher said. Hmm … that rather takes the fun out of travelling, to our minds, but each to his/her own we suppose.

Chinatown

The rest of the day was spent exploring some of the special areas in the city, starting with Chinatown, where we enjoyed the history presented, in a pretty old-fashioned way but using lots of oral history, in the Chinatown Heritage Centre, located across three old shophouses. Many Chinese came to Singapore in the 19th century, seeking work, because of poverty and natural disasters back home. It was a hard life. Many turned to opium and/or prostitutes for comfort – only to have these backfire with addiction and disease often the result. We were intrigued to see in the label about the prostitutes that there seemed to be more concern for the poor clients, but we wondered about the poor girls who ended up in those brothels!

There are many significant temples and shrines in Chinatown dating to the nineteenth century, and displaying what a melting pot it was (and is). We saw a few:

• Sri Mariammam Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu Temple
• Jamae Mosque, Tamil Muslim mosque built in 1830.
• Thian Hock Keng Temple, oldest and most important Hokkein Temple built, using no nails, 1830s-1840s

We also saw the very bright sparkly new Tang-dynasty styled Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum, that was opened in 2005.

Not Chinatown

We did see more than Chinatown however. We wandered briefly through the Raffles courtyard, bought some swimmers for Len at a mall, and wandered Chijmes, an old convent converted to restaurant and entertainment complex, looking unsuccessfully for coffee and dessert at the end of the evening.

As it is Ramadan, we headed to Kampong Glam, an historic Malay area around dinner time. It was a bit late to take good photos of what is a very attractive area, but it is more pleasant to be out and about later in the day. We heard some chanting from the gold-domed Sultan Mosque and ate at a fairly ordinary restaurant in Bussorah Street. We had planned to try to hawker stalls but there were no places to sit – as there are at some of the more permanent centres – and our poor little feet needed a rest. You win some, you lose some, and we had had a gorgeous lunch, after all!

And a few photos from our day …

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