Invasion

Two weirds things infringing on my sense of privacy in the last two days.

1) My girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's mother lives in my apartment building. Still with me? Weird weird coincidence. I only met him for the first time last Saturday and then saw him coming out of my lift. We said hi, but I think we were both a tad unsure whether we were actually seeing reality or not.

This bugs me largely because I like to believe I live in a bubble removed from everything I know in the outside world. Not connected to girlfriends, co-workers, friends, families or any other associated things. So I know it's ridiculous, but having a 6-degrees style someone I "know" living in my building freaks me out a little bit. I enjoy the anonymous stranger routine. Someone did say shortly after I arrived in Singapore that it is a very very small place and they're right.

2) My neighbour, who is also my landlord, called and said she wanted to take a serviceman into my apartment to check the airconditioner. This is a perfectly reasonable request (which I granted) but got off the phone feeling all insecure and funny inside because she was going into my apartment when I wasn't there. Admittedly there's nothing to hide in there, though I may have done something about some of the beer cans. The rest was actually very clean, right down to only having one dirty plate and one knife in the sink waiting to be washed. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of record for a bachelor. Guess I'm just the type who doesn't like to have my things rifled through. It's one of the reasons I don't have housemates.

I'm a bad man

I'm a bad person and an enemy of the environment. I may even change the name of this blog to Eco-9/11.

Australia has green bags. The kind you buy at the supermarket for a dollar and then bring with you each time so that you are not wasting plastic bags which end up in the ocean strangling dolphins... or something like that anyhow. The general result? Everyone uses them (I'm making a broad statement but I think it's close to the mark).

I've seen one or two people with them in Singapore but haven't been able to buy any. Besides, as a single guy who shops on the spur of the moment, without a car no less, I likely wouldn't remember to bring it with me on the off chance that I did indeed go shopping. Wednesdays, as of this week, however are "Bring Your Own Bag" day. I think that one's self-explanatory. When the cashier asked where my bag was I couldn't help but look at her, utterly stupefied. Errrr... I left it in my other bag..?

Graciously she consented to giving me some plastic ones to carry my goods home. As I left the supermarket I began to notice the looks. Those looks. The ones I so smugly reserve for people who can't control their children because they only ever take care of them on Sundays when the maid is unavailable. The look that paints horror and disapproval in one crushing grimace of guilt. I was getting those. All because I had no idea it was Bring Your Own Bag day and am not in the habit of planning my spur of the moment jaunts to the supermarket. Maybe I should start planning my spontaneity in the future. Mother Earth might love me then.

You live in the Heartlands now

I've moved into Singaporean government housing, which is very different to our Western convention of government housing - which is always for low income earners and crime-ridden. I'm sure I'd be safe in saying that the vast majority of Singaporeans live in this kind of housing. Needless to say, it's hot here, so people keep their windows open. As you walk past you can smell the food cooking and hear the tv blaring. Miniature gardens adorn the walkways out the front of apartments and the forecourts out the front are a breeding ground for strays of every kind. I love cats so this really isn't a big deal for me.

I'm living in an estate, where there are many many residential buildings. The estates here are unique in that the first floors are generally taken up by shops and restaurants. It's truly amazing because these shops are generally cheaper than a supermarket or anywhere else for that matter. It may only be a matter of 50 cents for the average item but I can see that for people with families this would really add up over the course of a month. I spent $1.90 on dinner this evening. I'm sure this will all become very humdrum after a couple of months of living here, but as a total outsider this has severe novelty value for me.

It's also very strange for me as someone who grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne. Living in a big house and only vaguely knowing the neighbours and a handful of people in my street (usually because they had children of a similar age), the idea of living in this kind of estate is positively mind-blowing. I'm sure most Singaporeans would laugh at this notion, but to me I walk through the estate and I see a community. I see people sitting outside on public seating chatting to one another, there's the lady who goes around the estate filling up cups of water for the strays and then there's the hawker centre in the middle of the estate upon which people converge to eat, talk and drink some Tiger. I'm very sure that these estates have their issues, their racial disharmony and their petty arguments between neighbours, but ultimately I walk through this place and get a sense of community. Which is something I think is rapidly being extinguished in Western countries in favour or privacy and security (of which I'm also in favour hehe).