Singapore Sling

Nee How Ma = How are you in Mandarin
(you can remember this by raising your knee and inquiring after the wellbeing of someone's mother)

PANCHO

Pancho Maya, the Philippino 51 year old lifetime itinerant, insisted Dan and I accompany him to Little India to sample some ginger tea. The ginger tea was unspeakably creamy and delicious. We whipped out our guitars and had a jam in the restaurant, along with some chapatti. Pancho turned out to have a fantastic voice for singing the blues, and made up the following song:

Buffalo Soldier, dread like a Rasta
Buffalo Soldier in the heart of America
singing ginger tea rumba nandry
ginger tea rumba nandry

Rumba nandry is of course Tamil for 'thank you'. And no, he didn't write the first two lines.


FLOGGING

Imagining that the famed Singaporean corporal punishment involved having one's trousers removed in a public square and one's bottom beaten lightly with a ruler by a scantily clad Asian dominiatrix, I sat opposite the Singaporean Parliament building and chewed gum very loudly.

I was wrong on two counts.

Firstly, the flogging involves being whipped with a poisoned cat o' nine tails, allowed to heal, whipped again in the same place, allowed to heal, whipped again, etc.

Second, chewing gum has in fact been decriminalised in Singapore, and downgraded to a class C snack product. Now one is allowed to chew gum in licensed 'Chewing Gum Houses', though it is still illegal to sell it in large quantities to schoolchildren.


KARAOKE AND FISH

Engen's Aunt is very kindly overcoming her fear of white people to allow Dan and I to sleep in her bunkbeds.

Eng demonstrated her Asian food related bravado by eating a fish eye in a restaurant. We then stumbled into a gay karaoke bar.

Dan performed a rousing rendition of 'What's Up', including sexual grunts during the instrumental, which got everyone going.

Engen gave a stirring rendition of a Chinese power ballad.

The androgynous karaoke controller behind the bar failed to allow my request for My Way to come up before the constant drone of Chinese songs to the same chords as Katy Mellua's 'Closest Thing to Crazy' forced us out into the humid streets.


SINGAPOREANS DISCUSSING THE WEATHER

Singaporean 1: Unbearably hot and moist today, isn't it.
Singaporean 2: 'Tis rather. We certainly were lucky on the weekend, to have that spell of unbearable heat and moistness.
Singporean 1: Indeed. Hope it's unbearably hot and moist tomorrow, we're having the grandkids over.