observation station.

I felt my first pang of homesickness last night when leaving the Cathay cinema after seeing District 9. We had sushi for dinner, and all my chopstick practicing paid off.

I don't know what brought it on, maybe it was the familiar sensation of stretching after a two hour period of sitting in truly oppressive air conditioning -- the popcorn, which I hadn't had in weeks, and you know how I am about popcorn -- and then realizing that I was following a whole new group of people into the fluorescent light of the corridor. I do everyday things here and never feel a thing, but that in particular triggered a sense of longing for home for reasons that continue to elude me.

I also just finished reading Death of a Salesman, which is kind of depressing and talks a lot about home and coming and going, and so that may have had a latent effect. Regardless, it was not overwhelming, just unexpected. It was gone by the time I got back to my flat.

I feel I'm full of contradictions in this place. I have been somewhat unsocial this week, and I could blame it on D being gone and feeling the need to nest in my new space, or I could blame it on the fact that I'm here to work and not to play. I'm not sure which is accurate. I enjoy myself when I go to events and spend time with people, but I've also been enjoying the isolation, a new experience for me, and every time I'm tempted to go wild here, I remember that I want to write more than anything else. I think a lot more here than I did. I watch the city lights from my 17th storey flat, and I never did that in New York. Rain doesn't bother me here. All these things tell me that perhaps I have finally made the right decision for myself. Maybe that's what growing up is like. Go figure.

I slogged over to campus in the rain today. True story, it's really only about a fifteen minute walk. And I walk like a New Yorker still, not like a Singaporean. These people have nowhere to be! They amble everywhere. I'm somewhat jealous. Maybe I need to learn to relax and smell the...exotic flowers...as I pass them.

Since I haven't built any dressers or anything in the last few days, I guess I'll talk about some of the observations I've made about Singapore so far, because people are constantly asking me about things that I wouldn't think to write on.

For example, the laws here. It's very interesting. There are lots of laws. Don't piss in the lifts, don't spit on the street, don't litter, don't jaywalk, etc., but here's the thing -- they all spit, litter and jaywalk. I haven't encountered anyone pissing in any lifts yet, but I suspect there was an old Chinese man pissing into the foliage as I came into the lobby earlier. So he's abiding by the law, anyway. It's been said to me by a student far more familiar with Singapore that they all just do as they're told. It's also become more and more clear that there is no freedom of speech here. Singapore is categorized as a parliamentary republic, and a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy. But according to Wikipedia, the same political party has controlled parliament since independence. So maybe they break all the little laws and follow the big ones like lambs. I can't really tell yet.

The mixing of cultures here is interesting too. Originally, Singapore was a part of Malaysia, and broke away in the sixties, after Malaysia took its independence from Britain. Our tour guide in Malaysia cited the reason for the separation as a difference in ideology, which I took to mean that Malaysia is Muslim by law, and Singapore no longer wanted to be. Maybe this is as a result of the larger population of Chinese in Singapore than in Malaysia, but I don't really know for sure. I'm not sure how the Indians got here, but here they are, and they don't fit in either. According to government statistics, roughly 75% of the Singaporean population are Chinese, 13% are Malay, 8% are Indian, and 2% are other. And again, about 51% of the country practices Buddhism or Taoism, where Islam trails at 14%, behind even Christianity at 15%. Suffice it to say -- they got a shitload of temples up in this piece.

What's more -- Jehova's Witnesses are prohibited from distributing their pamphlets and knocking on your door at the ass-crack of dawn, and have even been jailed for being so crazy (or conscientiously objecting to joining the Singaporean military, same difference).

Another odd note -- the national language of Singapore is still Malay, even though English is the language of business and education, and Mandarin is the most commonly spoken language in the city.

They all crazy here, is what I'm trying to say.

I've noticed some pretty thick racial tensions here too, but I think the remarkable thing about it is that, for once, the racial problems have nothing to do with white folk. The biggest beef seems to be between the Chinese and the Indians, probably because the Chinese basically run the place and the Indians just can't earn an inch. I see more Malays behind government counters than anywhere else -- but that's totally just an observation, and I couldn't tell you what it means.

Also, weird but honest note: I see more platinum blond white people in this city than I have any other kind of white person. For some reason, Singapore draws the blond, the scandinavian, the aryan. It never occurs to me that I'm the only white girl in any given situation -- it occurs to me, when I see them, that I'm like the only damned brunette on the island.

Okay, that was an exaggeration, but that's how it feels sometimes. Can I get a woopwoop from all my dark-haired ladies out there? Sup.

So I guess the conclusion to be made here is that I still have a lot to learn and observe about this city. Good thing I have two years to get on that. Also, a word to those who called me adventurous for moving here -- I'm not really. If I'd moved to like Kuala Lampur or Kenya, then you could call me adventurous. Moving to Singapore? That's just plain crazy.

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post, but I haven't really seen anything lately worth whipping out the camera. Mostly because I've been at home reading plays, or in movie theatres, where they kind of dislike when you use flash photography for no reason. I suppose I could've taken pictures of campus, but they do have a nifty photo-tour here, which you are welcome to peruse, and which was shot by professionals, so is likely much cooler to look at than anything I could have compiled on my own. Granted, my photo-tour would have included cobras.

No, I haven't actually seen any cobras since I got here.

Oh trust me, I will be far too busy running away to take pictures if/when I encounter them. That sort of bravery I leave to my roommate, since he seems more hell-bent on finding cobras than I could ever be.

To close, I would just like to assure my mother that Longwei the Singaporean Plant is still alive, and thank you for all the plant-keeping advice.