Sultan Mosque
Category: Singapore
I am American. I moved to Singapore in October 2008. Here’s a post with some general information about Singapore.
Not a cantaloupe!
The red paper band in the photo says “Xinjiang Specialty”. The part of the red paper band that you can’t see in this photo says “Selected Hami Melon”. Wikipedia informs me that this is a type of muskmelon named after a city in—you guessed it—Xinjiang, China.
It’s like a cantaloupe (cantaloupes are also muskmelons), but a bit more oblong like a foo—like an American football, that is. Footballs generally being spheres. I think rugby balls are this shape? Whatever. Here’s another photo.
It seemed crunchier than cantaloupes are, in my experience; the texture was more like that of a honeydew melon. This could just have been a particularly unripe one, though. I mean, hey, what do I know? On the other hand, according to the internet, it’s supposed to be crunchy. Anyhow, it tasted good! That’s what’s important here.
These things are apparently also called ‘snow melons’. I guess it gets cold in Xinjiang.
So, what’s a ‘rock melon’? The orange melon sold everywhere in Singapore at fruit juice stalls is invariably called rock melon. As far as I can tell, ‘rock melon’ is just another name for cantaloupe/cantalope, and whatever you want to call it, it tastes great with prosciutto.
If you think you’ve learned enough about melons for one day, think again. Botanically, they’re vegetables. (They’re related to cucumbers, squash and gourds.) So that whole “what is a tomato, really” debate… you can have it about melons, too.
Also, in case you haven’t stumbled into the parts of the internet that explain how humans have for centuries interfered with the genetics of food crops to make food more delicious, have a look at this article about the watermelon in an oil still life painting from the 17th century.
Five-language construction site sign
This sign has five languages on it.
- English
- Malay
- Chinese
- ???
- Tamil
Lots of signs here have English, Malay, simplified Chinese and Tamil on them, since those are Singapore’s four official languages, but that fourth language is relatively unusual…
I’m pretty sure it’s Thai.
Wear and use your personal protective equipments
Pluralized uncountable nouns are a pet peeve of mine. The one that’s most frequently publicly wrong is ‘equipments’ because it’s posted at every construction site, and there are a lot of construction sites.
equipments
apparels
cutleries
furnitures
cuisines (meaning ‘dishes’)
slangs, jargons
I’ve also noticed uncountable nouns being used in the singular, which is just as wrong.
a bread (meaning ‘a bun or roll’)
a paper (meaning ‘a piece of paper’)
There are many words that are countable about half the time and uncountable about half the time, which I’m sure doesn’t tend to help people to understand the underlying distinction.
effort / efforts
content / contents
experience / experiences
praise / praises
detail / details
instruction / instructions
input / inputs
dialogue / dialogues
Recently I saw an email from a marketing agency in which the text of the ads was referred to as ‘ad copies’ instead of ‘ad copy’. Ack, no.
Fighting such errors may be impossible in the long run, because in principle there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to say ‘equipments’, and obviously people here already feel perfectly free to do so. Until uncountable nouns die off completely, though, you’re better off knowing how to use them correctly.
Mushrooms
Main Wait
- Nice new 12-story building? Check.
- Nifty quasi-anatomical logo? Check.
- Building signs checked by English expert? Nope.
The signs in this waiting area at the National Heart Centre Singapore say “Main Wait” when they should say something like “Main Waiting Area”.
To be fair, “wait” can be a noun as well as a verb (but I don’t think it means what you think it means). Also, the signs are totally intelligible, so… close enough, I guess!
No, actually the real problem is that there’s ample waiting space in some parts of the building and not enough in others. My guess is, it’s easy to design a building, but hard to design a building that is used by people. Which is every building, actually.
Loop Sop (Luk Chup)
Loop sop. Thai marzipan? We saw these colorful thingies on the dessert page of the menu at Diandin Leluk and had to try them.
Via smartphone, the internet told us what they’re made of (bean paste) and what they’re usually called (luk chup), and confirmed our intuition that they’re relatively rare among Thai dessert offerings (mango sticky rice ftw). Despite several trips to Bangkok, we couldn’t remember having seen them. If we had seen them, we would definitely remember!
I see eggplants in two shapes, watermelons, chilies, and rose apples. (We called rose apples ‘nose fruits’ before we knew what they were supposed to be called.) I think the orange things are papayas. The yellow things look like onions. Not sure about the pink or green ones. And no, they don’t taste different.
Old meets new; East meets west
That’s a giant jade… thing… in a glass box on the first floor of Singapore’s famous technology mall, Sim Lim Square. Directly opposite, as you can see in the reflection, is a store called nübox, which is an authorised premium reseller of Apple products. I thought the contrast was interesting.
What was I doing there? Had to buy my 2011 computer a new power supply and CPU.
Far East Organization
The logo of Far East Organization appears on several buildings in Singapore. I like it.
I especially like it when the curlicue is yellow and there’s no maroon/tan oval behind it.
Here it is on Far East Plaza.
Here it is on Far East Shopping Centre.
The Once and Future Singapore MRT System
(Not a Downtown Line station in sight!)
I wish I had a photo of the map with just the green, red and purple lines, but apparently I don’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it: The circle line totally didn’t even exist in 2008 when we moved to Singapore.
