You know you've been away too long when your dinner conversations with other Singaporeans go like this:

"It's quite worth it, the hokkien mee is only £6 there"

(Remember that it's £1=S$3)

"The laksa's alright, as good as laksa can get without harhm"
"Oh yes, you can't get harhm in london anymore because those chinese immigrant cockle pickers died in that flash flood in Dorset."
"Yes, what a pity... laksa's not laksa without the harhmy taste."
"And tau pok! Here they seem to not understand that tau pok is essential!"
"I totally agree. You need an intermediary between the gravy and your tastebuds sometimes."
"Yes! It facilitates consumption of the sauce and diminishes the jelak effect!"

"Did you know that in hawker centres they are starting to angmohgrify dessert names?"
"Like how?"
"Chendol de durian... and yam soup"
"What the hell is yam soup?"
"Bo bo cha cha"

So you have an elite group of SG scholars (excluding me of course) sitting around the dinner table being suaku about Greek food and woefully mispronouncing the strange consonant-filled names, missing local food like mad and trying very very hard to pretend we know what we're doing. If only we'd gone to Malaysian kopitiam like I suggested! But then we'd be paying like S$18 for a plate of nasi lemak/char kway tiao/hokkien mee that will invariably fall short of the real thing and going against our deepest 'value for money' instincts honed by many years of not going to the hawker stall that sells chendol for $2.20 but to the one that sells it for S$2 instead even if it is at a totally different hawker centre altogether.

See, you don't even find it strange. That's cos you're singaporean and that's the kind of thing we do. Instead we'd rather pay £20 to have 'exotic' Greek food and eventually find that we don't like it after all. Khayce, take note. The debilitating effects of being deprived of favourite foods for long periods of time is the most traumatic aspect of being away from home. I can't overstate this. Am going to attempt to cook bak kut teh tomorrow for lunch. Will report back on results. (People who say hah! I can cook that-- face it, have you tried?) (except my grandma)

In case I've given you the idea that my Sgean friends in London are a sad bunch, let me assure you, we do more than just go out and makan together. We also travel to exotic destinations to go out and makan together. As well as engage in stimulating conversation about the casino referendum and straits times making us pay for online access and What the Health Minister Said About Gays-- and on that topic, the new gay sauna bar that's just opened across the road. In case this sounds kinky, yes, it is. It's funny how you become ten times more aware of local politics and news when you have to defend your country against narrow-minded liberals who have never been there, take The Economist as gospel and are looking to score easy points by comparing it against their own democracy.

Yeah, we are kinda sad.

On that note: I am going to Washington on Sat! So exciting! It will be very very interesting when we meet the NUS team and the Malaysian team and the Canadian team. (As I've said elsewhere in this blog, the UK JEssup team is comprised of 2 Singaporeans, 1 malaysian, 1 Canadian and 1 Brit.) For cultural night we were thinking of going as 'oppressor and oppressed' in a subtle political statement on Prince Harry's gaffe at a recent 'colonial and native' themed costume party attended by the hoi polloi of English society, held the day before Auschwitz commemoration day-- he came in a Nazi officer's uniform. Do you think anyone will get it? Or maybe we could more charitably term ourselves 'commonwealth'. (as julian suggested) Talk about foreign talent. Meet the team.

Julian: "Dude! Awesome!" (kancheong spider)
Jim: "Capitalism is harmful to your health." (kiasee)
Rich: "Chillax." (boh chup)
Preeti: "Victoria, I need to speak to you about your argument." (kiasu-literally can't lose an argument ever)
Me: "Wah lau." (yau kwee)

Guess which is which. (And our personalities all fit into stereotypes! Just like in the Mr Kiasu comics! Yes, I sadly used to read those.) We were too bored on the plane to Aberdeen and had to find a way to amuse ourselves. I gave Rich a quick run down on Sg geography, economy, politics, cultural stereotypes, lifestyle and food. I added that the fact is we may get roundly thrashed by NUS soon, 4-time winner of the international rounds out of more than 100 teams. They are genuinely feared. SGeans, be proud of NUS. It is a very good uni and I think many Sgeans don't realise this. They are 18th in the world Uni rankings! LSE is just 11th. Oxford and Cambridge are 5th and 6th. Top is Harvard.

Aargh. Am leaving tomorrow and haven't packed yet!


TOR