Living in Singapore

My dad has white hair, yah? He is slowly starting to look like an old man — the wrinkles about his eyes, the charcoal hair, the almost-leathery skin. He is also a very smart man. He is an RI boy. He speaks a smattering of languages and dialects: English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, and Malay. He can translate a talk from English to Hokkien in real time. Impressive stuff. He has absolutely no airs about him — he wears his ah-pek (old man) trousers and his ah-pek tshirts everywhere. He has a huge vocabulary, but he pronounces everything like a china-man.

So, when he goes to the doctor's, he gets his medicine with these little red circles drawn on them. He couldn't figure out what they were... until this morning, when he excitedly told me, "They are drawing for me how many pills I should take!" It's brilliant. I think it's brilliant that the pharmacist should do that. Although my dad can read and doesn't need the red circles (in fact, the red circles added to his confusion), it is cool that the pharmacist should do that for people who may not be able to read English. It makes me like Singapore that little bit more.


One red circle for one in the morning


Two red circles for two after breakfast

But there are two sides to the coin. Sometimes my dad gets extra food from the hawkers for a lower price just because he looks old and friendly. Free soup from the Western stall, extra serving of vegetables, etc. On the flip side, sometimes people take advantage because you look old by cutting queue, speaking to you like you are daft, and being very rude.

But that is the way it is I guess. It is the same if you look young — sometimes you get treated better than normal, sometimes worse. But "normal" is debatable.