She praised Singapore

The previous post reminded me of something that I heard during my last visit to Hong Kong.

While queuing at the Jetstar check-in counter at the HK airport for a flight back home, I heard a HK lady behind me praising Singapore. Of course I happy people praise my Country. She was chatting with another woman. She seemed to be a frequent visitor to Singapore. She mentioned 3 things - the air quality, food control and languages.

1. She said she often fell sick in HK but never sick in Singapore. She blamed the poor air quality in HK.

2. When she ate seafood in HK she got rashes, but it was ok when she ate seafood in Singapore. She praised our good food safety control.

3. She said Singapore people are very clever because they can speak many languages/dialects.


My own observations - In Singapore, depending where you are or who you are with, you can hear English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, Chinese dialects ... being spoken. But in Hong Kong you hear cantonese every where you go. Even those who know English don't speak to each other in it. At the hotels the staff at the reception speak to each other in cantonese. Anyone who looks like a Chinese, they will speak to him in cantonese. They only speak English to kwai-loh or ang-moh. And I have not heard HK people speak other Chinese dialects either.

You know, one of the places in Singapore where you can hear all the languages I mentioned above is in the staff common room in schools. English and Mandarin are common. The Malay Language teachers usually talk to each other in Malay. Likewise the Tamil Language teachers in Tamil, and quite a lot of Chinese teachers like to chit-chat to each other in dialects.