Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Ethnic Enclaves in Singapore!
hello(: sorry didn't post anything yet): but going to now anyway...
Ethnic Enclaves in Singapore - Burmese, Thais Filipinos
First we went to the Burmese Buddhist Temple.
There, we saw a few monks getting into their robes. It was a looked rather complicated to me, but the monks executed the moves effortlessly and with an air of great familiarity. The robes, which when worn look like several layers of clothes on top of each other, is actually just a single piece of cloth wrapped around their bodies in a fashion that allows mobility. I can’t quite remember but I think our tour guide mentioned that bhikkhu is the term for monk. A bhikkhuni is a fully ordained female Buddhist monastic. Monks are not supposed to lead a life of great luxury and only eat once a day in the morning.
Before entering the temple, we had to take off our shoes. Inside, there was this huge statue of Buddha. The tour guide explained to us about the difference between Buddha as depicted by different countries but I forgot what exactly it was! Erm it had something to do with the facial features whereby some people portray Buddha with sharper features and another group of people carve Buddha with rounder features. I think our tour guide was explaining the difference in the way the Thais and the Burmese illustrate their Buddha. Yup, but in all sculptures of Buddha there is always the ever-present and ever famous long ears of the Buddha.
In the temple, there were a few Burmese people-families. Our tour guide told us that it was considered extremely disrespectful should anyone pat a Burmese boy’s head (as they happened to be a cute young boy in the temple at that time), and that no matter what, we should never, never touch the head of that child as it was considered an offence for the Burmese.
I spotted a monk sitting on a chair and a person, presumably a Burmese, who just entered the temple, go over to the monk and squat or sit (I couldn’t quite see clearly) down on the floor in front of the monk. I think this is to show that the monk is of a greater standing than the visitor and that’s why the monk gets to sit on a chair while the visitor was on the floor. I think maybe that visitor was confessing his sins to the monk or asking for advice or something.
NEXT we went to the Golden Mile Complex (i think).
Just outside the shopping centre, they was a statue of Buddha with many flower garlands and joss sticks around it. There were also many shops advertising for money changing and remittance which means to send money back. I think this services are for the many Thai foreign workers who wish to send money back to their families in Thailand. Inside Golden Mile Complex itself there was a posting service, which I expect is for the Thai workers to send letters, postcards, parcels and such over to their families back at home.
Upon entering the shopping centre, I could smell this significantly different and rather unique thing. It smelled slightly like this mango salad dish my Thai sailing coach once cooked for a pot luck. It also smelled like salted fish.
We had free time so my group and I followed a few other groups’ lead and went to the supermarket. There were like lots of dried stuff there, stacked super high. [cherie has a photo somewhere I think(:] I remember there was this tank of weird squirmy things, being curious, Cherie, Airiel and I asked a shop assistant what was that. It turned out to be eels! In singapore supermarkets we have like live crabs stuck in a cage for the shoppers to choose which crab they want to buy home, so I guess maybe it was a similar concept for the eels in that supermarket.
Afterwhich, our group went to walk around in search of some people to interview to ask like how long they had lived in Singapore and whether their family was with them. But we couldn’t find anyone. We were attracted to this food shop, and Cherie and Airiel decided to share a serving of mango rice! It looked very good but it was too expensive for me. It was $5 for a single rather small packet! Anyway, in the process of purchasing the food we tried to ask the shopkeeper some questions, but I think we did not manage to phrase our questions simply enough and the shopkeeper did not really understand us, so we only managed to find out that she had been in Singapore for err, I can’t remember what was her answer heh.
I think Ms. Lee mentioned that the Thais in Singapore come mainly to work, as in that they do not bring their family along and that they earn money to send back to their families back in Thailand, thus the widely advertised money remittance service. Also, Ms. Lee and Mr. Azahar told us to be extra careful at the Golden Mil Complex as there have been many cases of fights and all that breaking out, especially at night as the workers go and drink beer, presumably after work, and get drunk, picking up fights and getting into drunken brawls. Thus I can infer that as these Thai workers have no family in Singapore, after work they have nobody waiting at home for them so they go to pubs and bars to enjoy themselves, thereby creating a name for Golden Mile Complex to be a rather dangerous place.
Anyway, after that we went to Peninsula Plaza.
It is supposed to be the Burmese enclave in Singapore. Our tour guide brought us to visit a Burmese friend of hers who had a shop in Peninsula Plaza. He is the ‘boss’ of the shop which imports seafood from Burma into Singapore.
After that, our tour guide brought us to see another friend of hers who sells herbs and some food items that come from Burma. The shopkeeper was very friendly and she even asked her young daughter to change into a traditional Burmese costume for us to see. If I remember correctly, I think it was slightly similar to the traditional Chinese costume, especially the buttons. There was this butternut thing which Evan bravely volunteered to eat, she said it tasted minty.
Next, we went to an art gallery. There were lots and lots of paintings and sculptures seemingly crammed into a small shop space, and with so many of us in one shop, I was pretty afraid I will accidentally knock over an art piece. But luckily, none of that happened and the shopkeepers even entertained us with our curious and inquisitive questions about the paintings and sculptures. But time was not on our side, we couldn’t ask as many questions as we would have liked to, as we had to keep to the schedule and go to our next stop.
I find that when I entered the Peninsula Plaza and when I met the Burmese people in it, there is an air of homeliness and coziness. I think this is because the Burmese who come to Singapore to work actually come to Singapore to settle down with their families, like the shopkeeper who sells Burmese food items – she has a daughter with her so presumably her whole family is here in Singapore.
Last stop – Lucky Plaza
The well known Filipino hangout. There were indeed a lot of people in Lucky Plaza, by far the most crowded of the three shopping centres we had visited so far, but that may also be due to the fact that we arrived at Lucky Plaza the latest and closest to lunch time so maybe we caught the lunch time crowd while at the other chopping centres we went in the early hours of the morning where most shops weren’t even open yet. Our group went around looking for shops that could perhaps give us a bit more insight on the Filipino culture and way of life, like their dressing, the food they eat, etc. We saw a few shops selling clothes, but there wasn’t any shopkeeper so we could not enquire if that was the traditional Filipino costume. We passed by a shop selling Singapore souvenirs! This was the only shopping centre out of Golden Mile Complex, Peninsula Plaza, and Lucky Plaza itself where we saw a souvenir shop and it was not just some small shop in some small corner, it was a rather big shop. It sold key-chains, magnets, etc., the usual type of souvenirs. It also sold chocolates in the shape of the merlion, one of the most iconic symbols of Singapore.
OKAY. So that wraps up our fieldtrip to the ETHNIC ENCLAVES in Singapore! (:
sailed the boat at 7:11 AM, lingying(: blogged.
