i spent 4 hours learning how to meditate yesterday. hmm actually i don't think the point of flying a psychologist all the way from sydney was to teach us how to get into a trance state, but after doing the same thing for 4 hours, it's hard not to think that way. anyway a trance state happens when you 'over-concentrate'. scary. at least i wasn't the only one haha.

well, actually i think yesterday's culture class was to emphasise the fact that we should be mindful about our concentration and awareness about our sensitivity to the various cultural mannerisms. we did a total of 4 'meditations'; i tried my best to listen to the instructions for the first 2, but after the break, i completely didn't listen to what she was talking about. i think i've somehow mastered the skill of selective listening over the years, and i've actually become quite good at it lol. for the last exercise, we were supposed to learn how to fight our 'wants'. so we were given a piece of chocolate each and told to put it on our tongues. naturally saliva was triggered, but we were told not to swallow our saliva. wow how clever. hmm but i didn't really care, or rather, i didn't even realise there was such an instruction, so i swallowed my saliva. the canadian guy next to me kept so much saliva that he accidentally spat on his shirt! lol!

anyway i realised that it's not that easy to find people who have time, budget and freedom. where are u pam??
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my first contribution to my course blog =)

Just a little Singapore culture

‘So what is Singapore’s culture like? It seems to be so manufactured’. This was what Hilori asked me on our first lesson. I replied ‘yup it is, Singapore is a very manufactured place; our education, infrastructure and even the government is moulded according to our economy needs’ and I added on by saying ‘yup Singapore’s culture is just like any other city culture’
Well, that was how I answered her question that day, but I went back and thought about it, is Singapore’s culture really so manufactured? Isn’t there a distinct point that makes us uniquely Singaporean? And I’m glad to say yes there is. What she observed of Singapore’s culture was probably just the tip of the iceberg; the huge block of ice underneath the water was probably hidden by our ‘manufactured city look’.
Just the way we speak for instance, ‘Singlish’ – the Singapore version of English. My friend just recounted an incident to me; while she was conversing with her brother in Singlish, her British friend asked ‘what language are u speaking?’. Apparently, our version of English is so different from the mainstream English language, that even her British friend couldn’t recognise it! If i were to say ‘my class has a lot of ang mohs’ or ‘Sian, I need to go to school tomorrow’, I guess most foreigners probably won’t understand what I mean. This I feel, is one of the unique traits that makes us Singaporean, at least I am pretty sure I can recognise a Singaporean overseas when I hear one. Even though our government encourages us to speak proper English, I still like Singlish, I like the fact that we can make up our own words, or conveniently borrow phrases from various dialects or other languages and call it our own. I guess Singapore is probably the only place that you can find a language that isn’t recognised as an official language, and yet is used widely by the whole nation.
I guess I just want to emphasise the point that this course has made me more aware of my own culture. Living in Singapore made me assume I knew Singapore’s culture inside out, but I guess living the culture is quite different from putting it into words. I guess I didn’t give much thought about what was Singapore’s culture like, but now I am more sensitive to my culture I hope I have understood my culture a little better.
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FYI: ‘Sian’ means sick and tired of something. ‘Ang mohs’ refer to Caucasians in general.
If you are interested in more Singlish words, you can refer to this url (it’s not exhaustive though): http://www.travel.com.sg/publish/stbportal/en/home/about_singapore/fun_stuff/singlish_dictionary.html
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