I knew the day I accepted the offer from INSEAD for business school it would present some unusual "international" situations. Some friends joked that my likely occupation after graduating would be carrying briefcases full of cash across oil fields in Africa. I will admit though, I was a little surprised when I found myself studying Italian, in Singapore, on a streetful of brothels.
For a little background, INSEAD has a requirement of knowledge in three language, including English. After some last-minute debate, I decided to pursue Italian as my 2nd as the test was heavily grammar based (I had originally planned on using Bengali which I speak at home, but I'm fairly unfamiliar with the written language). After not paying attention to deadlines, I had to cut my Mandarin lessons a week short and headed to Singapore to take the Italian test. The plan was simple, I had 8 days to do nothing but try to relearn a language. I had started perusing a textbook while still in Beijing, and found a budget hotel in Singapore and actually made a plan, day by day, of what I'd need to cover.
Things got interesting when I arrived in Singapore. Now, I had been here before for work never really left the financial district area. I'm not really familiar with names of neighborhoods and found a great looking budget hotel on tripadvisor. It got great ratings, had wi-fi, air conditioning, a full-size bed, and was about $35 USD a night. It seemed perfect for the task at hand so I booked it.
The taxi driver looked at me a little oddly when I gave him the address and told him I'd be staying there a week but I didnt really think much of it. When I got to the hotel it definitely looked to be a shady area. In other areas I seriously might have rethought the reservation, but I figured that it's Singapore, if you can't chew gum I probably won't get shot.
There was a strong stench throughout the air that I couldn't place as I walked up to the check-in counter. In front of me was an old, kinda pasty white guy with a young Asian girl in a short skirt and heels asking about "transit rates" which apparently means by the hour. Things were getting sketchier. I held my belongings close and checked in, and headed up to the room, which turned out to be as nice as advertised. I was still weirded out by the entire situation but the room was perfect for the week so figured I'd stay here but take a walk around the neighborhood.
It turned out I was staying in a neighborhood called Geylang, which is apparently a famous Singapore red light district. It's a series of numbered blocks, with apparently each block being run by a different ethnic Asian gang and with a different ethnicity of women (according to wikipedia this would include one block of ladyboys). The area was definitely not full of Eliot Spitzer style establishments as it's pretty jarring to walk around. There's trash everywhere and that smell wafting through the air. It turned out the smell was a tropical fruit, Durian, that has an unbelievably strong odor and is really popular through Singapore and especially in Geylang....I guess a delicacy among Johns?
There was a subway station close by and I managed to make it out around 9am every morning to a nicer area with great coffeeshops for studying. Yes, there are guys standing outside at 9am trying to get you into their brothel. Even through the stench of durien and hookers, I was able to get in about 10 hours of review a day and eventually passed the test.
Welcome to INSEAD. Welcome to Singapore.
Some random thoughts:
- for practicing listening and speaking I found a really good language podcast on iTunes: LearnItalianPod.com. For all my love of technology, I've never really gotten into Podcasts but this series was amazing. I would like to thank Massimo and Jane for their help in the process.
- Not only do people here drive on the other side of the street, while riding escalators, the "standing/slow" line is on the opposite side from America. I wonder how that stuff gets communicated.
- I'm convinced you can tell the level of freedom of political expression in countries by how observant they are of Don't Walk signals. There can seriously not be a car in sight and people will wait for the Walk signal here. I dont want to get caned and don't really know the territory yet, so even with the agitated New Yorker in me, I wait out the signal.
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