You may have heard that Singapore is a fine cosmopolitan modern city with so many modern conveniences and that it is absolutely easy settle in. The roads are orderly, the city is clean and the people are well known for being able to live with one another despite the diverse differences in culture, language and religion.

However, once you have started to live side by side with the locals, (and I don’t mean living in condominiums and expensive luxurious bungalows), you will find there are indeed many practices that are distinctly Singaporean. Let’s share some of  these:

1. Eating out? Most eating places like hawker centers and food courts  plastic cutlery and melamine plates. Don’t bother about asking for a knife, because Asians eat with spoons, forks, chopsticks or their own fingers (like you would when you are eating snacks).

Incidentally, there is an art to eating with your fingers, unless you have perfect eye, hand and mouth co-ordination, you will find yourself struggling to pick up and send the first mouthful of food from your plate to your mouth. So always come prepared with tissue papers (which will not be provided) and knife next time you go out and dine at the public food courts or hawker centers. We actually have friends who ask quite appropriately, “Don’t they like people  with knifes in this country?”

2. The climate in this part of the world is the same throughout the year, temperatures ranging from 26 to 33 deg Celsius. The humidity level is high and so the air has lots of moisture. Although it is hot most of the time, seldom do you see people wear hats or caps when they are out and about.

All those smart caps you get to wear during summer in Australia or other parts of the world are not be the best sorts to put on when you are in Singapore, because they are made of thicker materials. By the end of the day, your head and hats actually stink due to the humidity that’s trapped inside the hat. Although skin cancer is the 7th most common kind of cancer in Singapore, people generally do not stay out in the sun for a long time on a daily basis. Further information on this topic can be found on the National Skin Cancer website.

3. There are many high rise buildings and apartments which is why sometimes the city is called a ‘concrete jungle’.  One of my friends who visited me from overseas recently was surprised that I put a padlock on the metal gate before leaving home. Standing outside the apartment, it looks  like a vault. He said, “The crime rate here is very low, isn’t it?” No doubt but people have stolen shoes,bicycles and whatever they think are of value or use which are  left outside the house. Low crime doesn’t mean no crime.

It is also common to have the gate remained locked even when there are people inside the house. Silly habit? Not really. The space outside these apartments are accessible to the general pubic. It is always safer to lock the apartment even if you are at home.

4. You’ve probably heard of national service. All Singaporean male is required under law to enrol for the  Basic Military Training (BMT) at the age of 18 years old. This is the transition from fresh-faced teenager to combat-ready fit soldier. Not only is this unique, it has become  a national pride.

This is how elaborate a wedding decor can be. Its so pretty I have to post it to the link.

5. Wedding ceremonies and funerals in the void deck. These can be held on the ground floor beneath HDB flats. You will be happy to know that these events signify the multicultural existence of the society. They are personal and major events in the lives of the people who need to hold these functions. Some funerals last for as long as 3 days and 2 nights  (mainly Chinese Taoists and Buddhists), and wedding receptions (usually Malay or Indian Muslims) are held over the weekend.

To hold a function beneath the apartment building where you live, you just need to register the date with the local town council. The cost is so negligible compared to the cost of the function itself. Priority is given to funerals though but the incidence rate of a wedding party and a funeral happening on any given weekend is very low.

Now the functions in void decks are not limited to just wedding ceremonies and funerals. There are resident corners and rooms for karaoke and tuition.

6. Lastly,  many Singaporeans  speak Singlish. The language they speak is what truly makes them unique in the eyes of foreigners. Singapore survives and thrives on this uniqueness of culture and language.

Like many other versions of English mixed with foreign langauges (e,g Spanglish), Singlish has helped people from different racial and language backgrounds (Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tamil or Malay) living in the same country to manage communication. To them, Singlish is conversational. Furthermore, many traders had arrived in Singapore from India, China, Indonesia and most of them did not know any English. Perhaps the bosses did, but certainly not the workers.

There are probably a lot more stuff to talk about the Singapore lifestyle and culture. These are just some which I think really come in top in my list.