A Globalized Life

What is it - to lead an international life?
Getting the wake-up call from a Finnish cell phone, while sleeping in a poor bed with a pizza-thin mattress (probably it is not even "Made in China"..) in the heartlands in Singapore (no clue why it is called like this, since it is far remote from Downtown Singapore, but near the border bridge to Malaysia...).
Taking a shower with an old "Elmark"-device (made in the UK), using German (Niveau, right?) shower gel (don't ask me where it was produced).
For breakfast, taking malaysian made margarine and jelly from Australia (but with the description in Arabic, since it was produced for this export market - and finally sold in the Carrefour, which is a French chain, in Singapore) on toast bread from xyz. Well, as European-rooted guy you can't call this bread since they pre-slice the loaf and then pack it in a plastic (!) bag. Except for luxury niche bakeries, you never find a "normal", fresh baked bread loaf on the shelves, but only this gummy stuff (at least they have besides white bread also mixed wheat ones, which are supposed to be more healthy – for me one of the few sources I could brag to live healthy from…).

Ah ja, concerning "health": I just read this morning in the "Today" newspaper (a free daily that is sometimes distributed in our apartment building that the obesity problem in the USA is still increasing. The record hit Mississippi with more than 30% of its population being obese, according to the cited study! (Coincidentally, I just opened a letter from a good friend in the USA).
Incredible, if you think about the economic costs this entails and the future prospects of humankind. The coming generation or our children of now about 5-10 years will be the first who face lower life expectancy due to poor nutrition and a lack of physical exercise. Somehow, it is insane – humans have found ways to fly, hunt and exterminate animals, got to the moon and finally, we voluntarily kill ourselves through being too fat and live unhealthy.
[Admittedly, the author of these lines should keep quiet since he lives unhealthy and imbalanced as well; his "household class" teacher told him once, if he continues to refuse eating vegetables/salad etc he would die in his 30's…]

Compare this to the Asian people in here. Wherever you look, the vast majority of the people are skinny, well trained, pure skin, no acne, look very good and seem to be always happy (at least the come up with a smile pretty fast … and sometimes this does not mean to be happy).
If we Westerners want to remain competitive, innovative and aim for progress, then we need to alter our habits. There is a lot gossip on the streets here, where people find that they will soon be able to outcompete old/aging Europe and fat America!! The West is no longer the one who is being looked up to, but rather who is smiled at…

Actually, I should continue with my main theme, the globalized life…
Yeah, while I type in these words, I take notes concurrently on my Swiss-made scrap-paper book, figuring out what I shall write for a column for a Swiss local newspaper (I will frequently report about my experiences here in Singapore).

Hey – I gotta go, is already 8.30am (usually I would write such things at 2 or 3am, but since my roommate wants to sleep then he forbade me to stay at the computer after 2am, since the clicking/typing annoys him. Interestingly, he sleeps usually till 11am and is not annoyed by my typing in the morning when I get up at 6am…).

btw: I finally got my "Student Pass" yesterday - the official card allowing me to stay here for the semester, issued by the ICA (immigration bureaucrats). I asked for it on Aug 6, they said it'll be ready at Aug 11; when I came on Aug 11, they didn't have it and later on forgot to tell me when they were ready. To my emails I got a very late reply...
So, not everywhere in Singapore this PS21 (public service reform to focus public employees on more costumer oriented values) was successful....:-(((
CU soon

Chinese Customs

Pulau Ubin - Saturday, August 18, 2007

6.15am - get awake, take a shower, drying and still feeling wet, rush-breakfast
7.05am - running to the MRT Woodlands
8.25am - meeting a bunch of Swiss people and some HSG-affiliated internationals at Tanah Merah MRT station.

WHY all this? --> the rainforest on the original Pulau Ubin awaits me!

Pulau Ubin is a small Singaporean Island just north of Changi village and near Malaysia. There are a lot of swampy quarries (i.e. ponds, sometimes fenced off, so that they can keep their natural state; sometimes seemingly turned into fish-breeding centers). Further, you get to know how Singapore must have looked before Western civilization hit it. There are a bunch of remote cabins and sometimes you wonder whether you're visiting a ghost village amidst a forest.

You get there by boat (2$ per person if the boat is full, i.e. 24 bucks a boat). After having landed there, we had lunch under umbrellas and plastic protection while a heavy rainstorm hit the island. I learnt, that a popular Chinese curse is "tamade" (=shit) and talked about other peculiarities in life.

After a while, we took off by bike. At first, they seemed to be stylish, with full suspension. But, presumably nobody did ever add some lubricants to the chain and gears... not to mention the suspension fork itself which threatened to break apart at the next road bump... but you get a lot more fun with quirky bikes rather than with none - even though your back is brownish due to the muddy road and the splashes.


We experienced the Mangroves at the eastern edge of the island, with perfect sight on changi airport. A modern waterbridge funnels you around the well preserved seaside. A visitor's kiosk provides you with a map of this nature reserve.

Later on, we criss-crossed the island, until we were exhausted. But the famous German Girl shrine could not be found (there is no accurate island-wide map...).

After the journey, probably muddier as even the road.

PICTURE

if you wanna see some pic's taken in and around Singapore, visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8557504@N04/sets/72157601307864919/

MY CONTACT ADDRESS In SINGAPORE

In case somebody likes to write me:

Adrian Ineichen
BLK 519 Woodlands Drive 14
# 12-281Singapore 730519

cell phone: 0065 9094375 (don't use this for calls, only for SMS)
finxet: 0065 6891 2249

Wednesday, Aug 15

(thte 37m-Merlion and the Merlion Walk)


SENTOSA - an artificial tourist site which used to be a fortress.


Yeah, tempus fugit. On Feb 15, 1942 surrendered the Britons with 88000 soldiers against incoming 33000 Japanese. In 1968, the military island got the name Sentosa (Malay for peaceful and quiet), and the gov started to transform the island into a tourist hot-spot.





Besides some trashy features, you definitely need to check out Sentosa. You get a great overview on the Skytower (110m) as well as the big Merlion (37m), new insights in the Fort Sentosa Museum in the bunke tunnels created by the British. However, you can also do some mind-numbing activities such as the Sentosa-4d-Magix mad-pirate-movie. Anyhow, just sitting on a nice terrace and chill-out with a S$8-Coffee Bean Chocolate-Banana-Drink while reading in Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is quite ok.





Instead of walking back (as I did when I came in and had to make a bit detour, since the front side of the island, towards downtown, is under huge construction works) you take the monorail and glide directly back to shopping at vivocity.

Mo-Wed August 13-15, 2007

turtle/tortoise in the museum (it thought i'd feed him:-)


Hola - I visit the small Singaporean Art Museum (SAM), and then proceed to explore the Arab Quarter (where only one mosque lets me in with shorts..), but I get caught in another Shopping District (Bugis, this time).


Finally, I have a wonderful dinner at Newton Hawker Centre, where I experience Prati (Indian Pancake, with egg), Sati/Satay (Malay "Spiessli", meat on wooden sticks), Hainanese Chicken Rice and some other nice dishes. Pls, don't ask my about how fast my belly is growing (even though I am quite picky...).





Tue, August 14


Finally, I get to the Swiss Embassy (which is on a Road called Swiss Club Link near the Swiss Road:-) in order to become officially an expat (Auslandschweizer) which enables you to vote with absentee ballots (particularly since on Oct. 21 we get federal elections this year).


Then, I walk to the Bukit Timah Natural Reserve, which hosts one of the few originally primary rainforests that still exist in Singapore. It's fine for a visit, but except the insane humidity and some courageous monkeys you won't see any exotic stuff (or I am too ignorant for this?).





Finally, I proceed to the Chinese Gardens that host not only a bunch of Chinese-styled Pagodas, Houses etc. but also a quite bizarre but interesting Turtle Museum (they must have a couple of hundred turtles and tortoises free to visit).





The end of the day I spent at the New Asia Bar on the 71st floor of the Swiss0^tel Stamford with chatting to HSG-exchange and alumni people.