To be continued
Monday, March 16, 2015
Welcome to Singapore
What is more exciting than that that is taboo? Especially when it's something your government will do everything to hide.
An interesting walk began one evening after work, when we met the mixed group of fellow walkers huddled around the main man, Sharul, our guide. The walk was set to begin at 6pm, through Chinatown and then through Geylang before returning to Chinatown to end the night. While we waited for the 6 others to join, Sharul kept us entertained with various facts and stats about Singapore demographic and expenses that kept him up at night.
Sharul is Malay, recognised as the indigenous community of Singapore (since Singapore was a part of Malaysia till 1965 when they got independence), and are just 13.5% of the residential population of Singapore while the Chinese are 75% and Indians are 9.5%. What I gathered also is that buying a car is like having to study to study - much like applying for an MBA, study for GMAT (which is bloody hard) so that you can do your MBA (relatively easier!). IMO, the GMAT itself should be a degree!! Similarly, to buy a car in Singapore, you need to be eligible for a COE (Certificate of Entitlement) which states that you are eligible to buy a car. This is not the same as a drivers license and does not replace the need for one either. The COE is linked to the car so if you decide to sell the car, the COE will have to be auctioned too. The COE is almost as expensive as an average car and definitely more expensive than a bike! He even spoke about the mushrooming real estate prices that are sky-rising like all the buildings here. He paid 700k three years ago for a 50q. mt. apartment which is now 1.3mil!! The rents are already falling which are an indicator of the slow bursting of this bubble. Hopefully the prices will fall soon too and we will be PR (permanent residents) by then and will be able to afford a house here.
By the time we digested all this information, we had Deb, Kaitlyn, Jamie, Brooke, Maggie, Mike, Sid, Lee and Sharul who made up the troupe for the evening. Chinatown (known as Niu Che Shui), is not known for a place where the people from China stay but literally translated means "Bullock Water Cart". The name comes from the time when the then government (read the British empire) divided people up to be able to rule them easier (ahem... sounds familiar?) so they divided them into geographic silos based on race. The people from China stayed in Chinatown and the people from India stayed where there was fresh water available. The Chinatown residents had to face many a hardship for fresh water as it was on top of a hill so the Indians decided to provide them with water transported in bullock carts. As you can see where I'm going with this, the name "Niu Che Shui" came about.
I will take you through the rest of the walk and what I learnt about the intricacies of the place in the next post.
Zài jiàn for now!
An interesting walk began one evening after work, when we met the mixed group of fellow walkers huddled around the main man, Sharul, our guide. The walk was set to begin at 6pm, through Chinatown and then through Geylang before returning to Chinatown to end the night. While we waited for the 6 others to join, Sharul kept us entertained with various facts and stats about Singapore demographic and expenses that kept him up at night.
Sharul is Malay, recognised as the indigenous community of Singapore (since Singapore was a part of Malaysia till 1965 when they got independence), and are just 13.5% of the residential population of Singapore while the Chinese are 75% and Indians are 9.5%. What I gathered also is that buying a car is like having to study to study - much like applying for an MBA, study for GMAT (which is bloody hard) so that you can do your MBA (relatively easier!). IMO, the GMAT itself should be a degree!! Similarly, to buy a car in Singapore, you need to be eligible for a COE (Certificate of Entitlement) which states that you are eligible to buy a car. This is not the same as a drivers license and does not replace the need for one either. The COE is linked to the car so if you decide to sell the car, the COE will have to be auctioned too. The COE is almost as expensive as an average car and definitely more expensive than a bike! He even spoke about the mushrooming real estate prices that are sky-rising like all the buildings here. He paid 700k three years ago for a 50q. mt. apartment which is now 1.3mil!! The rents are already falling which are an indicator of the slow bursting of this bubble. Hopefully the prices will fall soon too and we will be PR (permanent residents) by then and will be able to afford a house here.
By the time we digested all this information, we had Deb, Kaitlyn, Jamie, Brooke, Maggie, Mike, Sid, Lee and Sharul who made up the troupe for the evening. Chinatown (known as Niu Che Shui), is not known for a place where the people from China stay but literally translated means "Bullock Water Cart". The name comes from the time when the then government (read the British empire) divided people up to be able to rule them easier (ahem... sounds familiar?) so they divided them into geographic silos based on race. The people from China stayed in Chinatown and the people from India stayed where there was fresh water available. The Chinatown residents had to face many a hardship for fresh water as it was on top of a hill so the Indians decided to provide them with water transported in bullock carts. As you can see where I'm going with this, the name "Niu Che Shui" came about.
I will take you through the rest of the walk and what I learnt about the intricacies of the place in the next post.
Zài jiàn for now!
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