* Hand noodles. Don't ask, just eat. After all, you can stomach ladies' fingers.
* You've heard of our hawker centres, which are a contradiction in terms (since hawkers are by definition itinerant people). You've also heard of our "eating houses". Well, there are also "wet markets" but you don't need scuba gear there. These open non-airconditioned stalls sell and slice up fresh produce like poultry, pork, fish, etc, so there's a lot of wet stuff around. Also, when the stalls close for business, the operators have to clean up and hose off all the leftovers, so the market looks "wet" at closing time.
* For purposes of acquiring that right-to-own-one piece of paper, the Certificate of Entitlement (COE), cars in Singapore are "small cars" (those with an engine capacity of up to 1600cc) and "big" cars (those above 1600cc). Not for us the American categories of sub-compacts, compacts and full-size cars. Hence, when BMW used to bring in the 316 variant, that was a "small" car -- because it had a 1600cc engine. But Beemer's Three Series, all with the same body size, also include the 318, 320, etc. Amazingly, these fall into the "big" car category! Likewise, any sleek low-slung and smallish two-seater sports car above 1600cc is a "big" car.
* If you are in the market for an apartment here, and assuming you qualify for public housing, the standard Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats are one-room (rental), two-room (rental), one-room studio (for the elderly), two-room , three-room, four-room, and five-room.
What is a "one-room"? It actually has one room, a kitchen and a toilet. A "two-room" has a living hall as well. Both rental-scheme types -- admittedly cramped -- are heavily subsidised, ie. for needy families. See this insightful blog I found:
http://timesofmylife.wordpress.com/2007/08/24/1-room-flat/
As for the types of HDB flats which are for lease ("purchase", as the glossy brochures put it) -- apart from the one-room studio and the two-room, the three-room flats have two bedrooms while the four- and five-room units have three bedrooms. The five-room units can be quite spacious, and they have a separate dining room too. See the HDB's website:
http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10321p.nsf/w/BuyingNewFlatStudioApt?OpenDocument
In contrast, private apartments (and that uniquely Singaporean creation, executive condominium apartments) are described more conventionally ie, single-bedroom studio, two-bedroom, three-bedroom apartment, xx-bedroom penthouse, etc. So that's the difference!
Singaporeans keep using the terms "flat applicants" and "flat owners" (without inserting a helpful hyphen) that they fail to see the humour in such descriptors...
* Meanwhile, to a foreigner, when a Singaporean goes berserk and attacks someone, headlines like this one below can seem especially gruesome:
No, we are not a nation of people who keep wood choppers in our homes. We live in an urban jungle, not the real thing!
We don't even know how to chop down trees to save our lives (we ask foreign workers to do that). We just like to call meat cleavers "choppers".
On this note, I'll chop off this blog entry but will start looking out for more things Singaporeana. Let me know if you have any to share.
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