One Travel Book Down, Thirty-Two Left to Go

My second to last night in Philadelphia and my last meal with the family without fuss, a nice dinner at the kitchen table with chicken shish kabob, sweet wedges of red, green peppers sandwiching each piece of meat between them. The first words out of my sister's mouth the moment the food is whittled down to a few of the more burnt bits of meat no one is going to touch is my sister saying "What language do they speak in Singapore? Singaporese?"

And for the ten-thousandth time I try to tell her Singapore speaks English, just like Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand... only to get a stare from her that hints what I'm saying isn't getting through. So I offer her up one of my travel books, the first one that I really finished, the one my Singaporean boyfriend gave to me when he first wanted to introduce me to his home country after the decision to move abroad became official.

Her inquiry on my opinion on the book inspires this post... my first travel book on Singapore... out of the thirty or so that I've gotten.

Notes From an Even Smaller Island by Neil Humphreys. I found it to be an informative book, definitely hitting several topics of both history and cultural significance that I have yet to see in most other books.

What really hit home was the kiasu phenomena among the population. This odd Singapore phrase struck me so much for some reason, since its translation literally means "scared to fail." It resonates so much with the old American phrase "keeping up with the Joneses," a fact I find more ironic since that is my surname. People in Singapore are so worried that they could lose at something, be second place or end up with any less than perfect, they are willing to do anything, even if its entirely illogical and possibly outright insane in attempting to achieve even 'perceived' success. Its continued appearance as a theme throughout the book really helped to color the culture of the country and even prepare me when I could deal with a similar situation. Read more here.

Humphrey's humor really helps to move the book along and his details on the Aunties/Uncles, the Singaporan tendency to value security over the lime light or the exception to eat all your food or appear rude are tiny tidbits that I feel all the better for know... and secretly concerned about.

Now on the con side, this book would definitely been tossed into my "To Be Sold at Bargain Store" after the first chapter or so because I did not find Humphreys' writing style all that appealing. He was informative but the tone set throughout the whole book was largely of complaining, of humorous events of culture shock and misadventures that can keep you interested for a bit. Yet fifteen chapters worth and I could hear myself muttering at the end "Shut up! Just shut up already!" in a bitter tone of annoyance that I hadn't found myself saying to a book since the time my high school made us read Catcher in the Rye... damn I still want to punch that whiny Holden Caulfield in the fact!

I'd recommend it to anyone (sister's included) but with a healthy warning of what to expect. Off onto his three sequel books, Scribbles from the Same Island, Final Notes from a Great Island and Return to a Sexy Island. Wish me luck at not punching someone... damn... too late...

Packing Up Painful Perplexities

In the wee hours of the morning (fine, it was 11:00 AM but I'm not working so its fine to sleep late!) I finally and officially booked my plane ticket on Vayama. It was with astute research, a keen eye and a whole ton of blind luck I managed to find a fairly cheap flight on Singapore Airlines.

But now it's hit me, I've set my path in motion, by actually booking my travel there, my future in a foreign country as an expatriate becomes all the more real.

Worries and fear start to set in the instant the elation is passed.

First question that springs into my mind is "Is my mom going to get all weepy once I tell her everything is set to go?" No mother wants to see her child move more than a car ride away and the last time I nearly left the country a nuclear detonation had less fire and energy than her reaction. The worries of a dissatisfied parent plagues every child. I've been reading ExpatFocus.com, and their section on the guilt of leaving your family really hits home!

Second question becomes "How am I going to fit 25-years of my life into two suitcases?" Seriously, do you remember when we were kids and someone asked "If you were stranded on a desert island and could have only one thing, what would it be?" This is the situation you face when moving abroad, without the luxury of a moving truck, packing becomes a balancing act of the cost of shipping the item against the item's cost. Instantly I know my desktop computer I've spent so long tweaking and modifying to my approval can't come, along with that amazing flat-screen television we got for the living room. I'm actually calculating how much suitcase space I'll lose in order to find some room for my Xbox 360, Kinect and assorted games and still have space left for my all time favorite books (I have like 30 favorites and I can only have 5). You can read up on some shipping tips from US to Singapore here.

Third comes down to "What clothes do I bring, what do you leave?" I've lived in six different major cities in my life (Philadelphia, Raleigh, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York City) and other than San Francisco, every one of them have been in temperate climates and under the swinging pendulum from snowy winter to hot sun of summer. You know how you have that one outfit you look damn good in without any real effort, that's me with a thermal sweater, jeans and some converse. None of those will do in a country that is 85-miles north of the equator, that's less than the distance from Philadelphia to New York City! Now I have to transition my wardrobe to a country where 80F is the norm regardless if its December or July. Seriously check out this week's forecast.

Now these are just my three biggest worries, tiny and trivial ones continue to crop in occasionally. An hour ago, going through kitchen appliances that we're being boxed for storage at my parents, I actually was upset for half a second that I'd have to leave behind my coffee maker. Yes, Singapore has coffee, even 70 Starbucks locations, but still it's those tiny things that spring into your mind at the oddest moments that really catch you off guard.

So in order to placate some of my worries I've decided to take a stab at the two travel books that my boyfriend has provided to me, Neil Humphrey's "Notes From an Even Smaller Island" and his sequel a decade later, "Return to a Sexy Island". I know I am fortunate to have a personal guide to hold my hand as I enter not only Singapore for the first time but Asia itself, but still, maybe reading about someone else who has been through a similar experience could give me some perspective.