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Singapore

Chinatown, Spoons, and Fresh Fruit

Chinatown was between the long-term hotel where I was staying, and the offices where I was working. With Singapore's efficient mass transit system, it ws easy to hop off the bus in Chinatown on the way back in the evening, check out a few shops, and hit the hawker centre for dinner.

One of my first nights there, I did exactly that, and immediately got overwhelmed by the selections. After some applied executive function, I got it down to one place, got my order, and sat down. The guy across the table watched me with some apparent amusement as I got my chopsticks set up, with the wrapper folded for a rest, and set to. My dude, I learned how to eat with chopsticks in second grade. We taught our kids chopsticks along with knife and fork. However, he did find it necessary to tell me that it was okay to use the spoon to chase the rice, “that's what we do.” I'm assuming he meant Singaporeans. I mean, I obviously wasn't from around there.

At a prominent corner was a kiosk selling durian pancakes. Checking wind direction before deciding which side to pass it on was of course a necessity, and I was thankful to whoever installed it that they made it so clearly visible, as olfactory hazards should be. Around behind it was an open air fruit stand that sold no durian, but quite a lot else.

In a cooled glass counter were trays of pre-sliced fresh fruit. Here, I learned how Singaporeans deal with having four official languages and who knows how many others walking down the street. Simple: they don't. As I watched, a customer approached, pointed to a tray and held up two fingers, then to another tray and held up three fingers. The young woman behind the counter dropped the fruit into a go-cup with a pair of tongs, then held up four fingers as she handed the cup over. Apparently the one was three for two. I went up, pointed to three trays (with my hand, palm down, fingers stiff, thumb out, as I'd learned to do to avoid offending my Desi coworlers) with one finger on the other hand raised, got my fruit, paid my three dollars, and went away without a single word having been spoken. Thanks to that walk-up fruit stand, and their having a variety ready to eat, I ate more fresh fruit while I was in Singapore than any other time in my life.