when in a foreign land, do as foreigners do

ever heard the saying " when in rome, do as romans do" ? don't know who coined it and why. but it can be modified to " when in a foreign land, do as foreigners do" .
during a recent trip to singapore with cheekeen and guojian, somehow we felt obligated to act like the locals.

reason : so that singaporeans won't look at us and think, " this guys must be malaysians." or at least we didn't want to make it too obvious.

if you have ever been to singapore, you must be visually impaired if you somehow fail to notice all the ipods and sony psp's wherever you go.
on the mrt, you decide to stare around.

look left: geeky guy completely focusing on his psp.

look right: middle aged guy in a suit with ipod headphones in his ears. yeap, the unmistakable white headphones. what else could it be?

heck, while i was traveling on the road, a pick up truck filled with foreign workers zooms past.
guess what i saw, foreign dude (possibly bangladeshi), sitting in the back of the pick up with his gang, white headphones in his ears!! omg! and to think that i don't even own any headphones of any kind, forget about those white iconic ones.
one day on the mrt, fed up of seeing ipod headphones on almost everyone,

me : wei guojian, pressure la.everyone also got ipod or psp. i think its compulsory for all singaporeans lah.

guojian: you also go and buy one la. you said wana buy psp right..

me: i've got an idea, lets go ochard or bugis later and just buy the white headphones. plug it in our ears and pretend that we're listening to something.

guojian: haha! the other end leh?

me: just stick it in your pocket la. shake your head a bit. they won't know the difference wan.

guojian: if fall out of your pocket d then how?

imagine this scenario : you are on the mrt, wearing fake ipod headphones attached to nothing, shaking your head to imaginary music, and then someone taps you on the shoulder. you look up at the guy with similar headphones in his ears, and he says, " excuse me, your wire has popped out" ...oh the embarrassment!

another big difference over there in singapore is how courteous their drivers are. remember those zebra crossings in malaysia? technically, when a driver sees a pedestrian trying to cross, he should stop and allow the pedestrian to cross, even better if he puts on a smile and waves to the dude.

situation in singapore: you see a crossing,start to walk, but a car is fast approaching. you stop. driver flashes at you. you notice car is slowing down. driver waves at you to cross. you think, " oh,how nice!", and you smile at the driver. driver thinks," you must be malaysian". you cross the road unscatched.

situation in malaysia : you try to cross. you see a car a bout a mile away approaching. you put one foot on the crossing. driver accelerates! you move forward another step, he starts flashing his headlights and goes even faster! third step, he smashes on his car horn. " PONNNNN!!! PONNNN!!!" you retreat. another step forward and you'd be malaysian roadkill. as driver speeds past, he gives you a dirty look, sometimes even the finger. typical.

while we were in singapore, it only made sense that we took a picture with that famous symbol of singapore, the merlion. that was the plan on night two. we headed out to the mrt station with a renewed sense of energy, come on,the merlion! woohoo!!
we board the train, sit down, well actually we stood again a minute later.

me: ei, where is the merlion thing ar?
(we look at each other cluelessly)

ahh,plan busted. we went to clarke quay instead. on the bridge at clarke quay was some aboriginal guy playing some long horn. we assume he was aboriginal because of the music. sounded like the sound of a jungle swarmed with frogs and occasionally, he knocks on a small stick. his music went something like this,
" oarrgghhuuuuargggghaaouuueee, tik! tik! tik! "

cheekeen gave the guy 20cents for his efforts anyway. aboriginal dude must be thinking," damn! this fellas are cheap.they must be malaysians"
oh well, when in singapore, try to do as singaporeans do.

p/s: the The merlion (simplified Chinese: 鱼尾狮; pinyin: Yúwěishī ; Tamil:கடல்சிங்கம் ) is a statue with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. Its name comes from a portmanteau of mermaid and lion and is is located at marina bay.















its as the name says, riverside point.















me and gj