An Amusing Story About the Country of My Birth: 30 Days of Blogging, Day 6

Don't get me wrong, there are some good things about the United States. I'll even say there are some great things about this country. We're the largest economy in the world, have high life expectancy, good education system, etc. That said, geography has never, ever been the strong suit of people in the United States. Maybe it's because we've been the strongest nation in the world for a good little while now, and we feel like we don't need to know about geography. Maybe it's because, unlike Europe, most people in the US don't live anywhere near a foreign country, and even those who do likely live near only one--either Mexico or Canada. Consequently, we're just not really forced to learn much about the geography of other parts of the world.

Today was a perfect example of this. I was getting my haircut at a place near my house, and the woman cutting my hair was making small talk. She commented that I look like a college student, to which I explained that I'd just graduated from ISU. She asked if I was looking for a job, and I told her how I was intending on going to China and all that. The conversation from there went like so:

Hairdresser: "Oh, I have a niece who almost relocated to China for her husband's work!"

Me: "Oh really, any idea where they were going relocate?"

Hairdresser: "I forgot the name of the city in China... started with an "S" I think!"

Me: "Shanghai?"

H: "No, that doesn't sound right"

Me: "Shenzhen? Shenyang? Suzhou?"

H: "No, none of those sound familiar either"

At this point I realized that the hairdresser was a typical USA-ian (I hate using American to exclusively describe someone from the US. America is 2 continents. American could mean you're Brazilian, Ecuadoran, Canadian, or yes, from the US). Anyway, so upon realizing this:

Me: "Did they move to Seoul?"

H: "No, don't think it was Seoul"

Me: "Was it...Singapore?"

H: "Oh, yes! That's where it was they were going to move in China. Singapore!"

At this point, those of you who know me well will understand what I mean when I say I did the "Blaine Curcio smacking himself in the forehead then running his hand down his face in a semi-exasperated show of disgust".

I hate to alienate one of my 3 readers by insulting their intelligence, but if you don't understand what's just happened, you should probably get out of the house (or country) more. In short, Singapore is a SEPARATE COUNTRY FROM CHINA ENTIRELY. It is not only a completely separate country, but geographically, it's NOWHERE NEAR CHINA! Now granted, Singapore is far closer to China than, say, Chicago. But it's still like a 3.5 hour flight South from Hong Kong, which itself is in a very far Southern part of China. For reference, it's about as far from China as Colombia is from the United States. That's pretty far. As in, >1,000 miles. Granted, Singapore is full of ethnic Chinese, but come on now.

I ended up just playing along, and saying how great Singapore is (which it really is, one of the coolest cities I've been to), and didn't really have the heart to tell her how freaking incorrect she was.

Regarding the map on the left, the "Singapore" label is covering up the scale, but the entire map is approximately 10,000 miles west to east and 7,000 miles north to south. i.e. Singapore is really freaking far from China.

At any rate, my God, welcome to the United States of America. Land that needs more geography majors.

Singapore/Malaysia

So this past week we were given another week off, called "Reading Week", which was for the purpose of reading up on materials before midterms. However, given that the only midterm that I had was in the in-between week, I didn't have anything to read, so initially the plan was to just hang around Hong Kong with Elliott, Ben, and the few others who weren't going to Thailand. However, the first morning of reading week I woke up at 10:30am and by noon I was bored, so I decided there was no way I could stay here for a week with very very few exchange students here. I called up Ben and Divyan to see if they'd be up for doing something, and we went through several options, including train to Shanghai, bus to Vietnam, or flying to Singapore. After going through these options, we decided to fly to Singapore on Tiger Airways (an Asian budget airline) for about $115US Monday evening. Elliott was debating whether to come along, but he decided to head to Taiwan instead, as he'd found some very cheap airfare there. So it was then decided that we'd fly into Singapore Monday night and return to Hong Kong Saturday night, with no plans in between. Some of the highlights of the trip include:

1) Taking a Mercedes cab from the airport while listening to soothing opera music and driving through a beautiful boulevard that had trees and greenery all over the place
2) Seeing the spot where Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed to found Singapore, where there is a large statue today
3) Seeing the world's largest fountain, the Fountain of Wealth
4) Having a Singapore Sling and a chicken curry at the Raffles Hotel
5) Having the best Indian food of my life at the Banana Leaf Apolo
6) Going to the top of the KL Tower in Kuala Lumpur,a huge observation tower which gave great views of the city
7) Seeing the Petronas Towers, the buildings that overtook the Sears Tower as the world's tallest building in 1998
8) Seeing monkeys in the middle of a city of nearly 2 million people, out in the wild
9) Going on a night safari in Singapore, which included seeing lions, hyenas, leopards, etc., in the wild
10) Seeing the colonial city of Melaka, which was (and still is) a strategic port on the Strait of Melaka
11) Staying in one of the most outstanding backpacker hostels I've ever seen (The Inn Crowd, Little India, Singapore. If you're ever in the area, definitely check it out, dorm beds for about $14US)

Other than that, I'm now back in HK. Last night I got back to Lee Hysan at about 10:25pm, and was told that the floor bike ride around HK was starting at 10:30, so I literally set down my bag and went outside with the rest of the floor. We biked from about 11:00pm until about 5:00am, all around Hong Kong Island. We went out to the eastern part of the island, and in all biked maybe 25-30km. It started raining around 3:00am, but it wasn't too bad. It's definitely a great way to see a city, as you see a totally different part of it late at night, and bikes allow you to go slow enough to observe properly but fast enough to cover a good bit of ground. This week should be a pretty slow one, with no major tests or assignments due. No plans at the moment but we'll see how that progresses.

Interesting fact of the day: Everything in Singapore results in a $1,000SN (about $700US) fine. This includes bike riding in restricted areas, spitting, littering, etc. Additionally drug trafficking is mandatory death penalty