This is the BLOG version of my video on YouTube:

Hello adventurers,
I grew up in Indonesia but have been living in Singapore for the past 15 years. I’ve also visited at least 19 other countries. In this post, I’m gonna talk about what’s normal in Singapore, but NOT your country!

Let’s begin 😉

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Public Housing

In Singapore, we LOVE mass produced public housing.

Some public housing can even compete with private condo for both price and aesthetic. Singapore has one of the highest rate of home ownership by its citizens.

We have a government body called the Housing Development Board (HDB) that’s dedicated to building more affordable housing for residents.

These HDB-built public housing are the most affordable option for us Singaporeans. Not only they are of good quality, most also comes with facilities such as fitness centers, playground, and communal gardens.

It’s also very normal to have mini commercial area at the ground floor offering supermarkets, family clinic, dentists, salon, laundromat- AND food centers. Normally, you will only need to go down of your house to get what you need. Thats why I like public housing so much- and how they are a very good deal.

I think HDB is doing a pretty good job!

CHOPE Culture

Singapore has a super weird but publicly accepted way to reserve seats at dining establishments -locally known as CHOPE-ing a seat.

Someone used his PHONE?!

Especially at hawker centers, people would first look for empty seats, CHOPE it by leaving an item on the table, then they’ll go buy their food. Thats why you’ll find often items such as tissue packet, company lanyards, umbrellas, and water bottles laying on tables with no one sitting there. It’s perfectly normal!

When visiting Singapore, you can also chope your own seats this way, BUT don’t use overly expensive item to chope. I’ve seen people leave their phone and wallet before. Although Singapore is very safe, I dont recommend tempting the devil.

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We Drink Urine

It’s normal to drink urine in SG… Singapore lacks natural resources, including one of the most essential: Water.

So on top of rainwater in local reservoir, imported water from our neighbour Malaysia, and desalination of seawater, we also do RECLAMATION. Honestly It’s just a nicer word for RECYCLING

In short, we COLLECT toilet water, process them, and drink it again! This is called the NEWater in Singapore. Really simple process: water goes in, water goes out, and water goes back in.

I trust that the processes are thorough but the stigma of drinking your toilet water was quite strong especially when Newater first came out. ANYWAY, any water you’re drinking today must have been someone’s pee at least a thousand times before. So water is water!

It’s Too SAFE

In SG, it’s also perfectly normal to walk alone in the middle of the night without fearing for your life. It’s so insanely safe here that I think native born Singaporeans have LOST their awareness for danger.

Would you leave your MACBOOK and BAG unattended??

Sometimes in Coffee shops like Starbucks you would see laptops and bags just laying around without anyone watching. Coming from Indonesia, it’s so unthinkable to leave my things out in the open in public. Even the supermarkets here would just leave their inventories out in public. SOMEHOW, Singapore is that safe. Remember the guy who used their phone to chope a table at hawker center?

Supermarket stocks lying in the open public

I feel that it’s a combination of

An Efficient police force. From what ive observed theres a good police presence and monitoring of public spaces, enough that it deters crime in public. When there are police patrols and cameras above your heads, you’re gonna think twice before committing a crime.
SG is quite prosperous and offers much opportunities for people. Most times, there are better things to do to get what you want than to commit a crime
I also feel that culturally people tend to avoid causing chaos to others. I dont bother you, you dont bother me

I dont know how to explain how safe it is. It’s so safe that if you lose your wallet or phone, you’ll probably get it back.

One time i actually lost my student ID in the airport. Fortunately someone actually went through the trouble of tracking my gate to return it to me
to him, my ID means nothing. But to me was a big deal because without my id I wouldn’t be able to come back!

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Extremely Expensive Car Ownership

Want to know something INSANE? In Singapore we need to spend at least 6 figures in SGD to buy a car. Yes Even for the smallest tiniest cheapest car.

This is due to the COE system that puts a quota on how many cars can be purchased per month. Anyone who wants to buy a car needs to BID for a Certificate of Entitlement (COE).

There are so many people who wants to have a car, but the COE released per month is very LIMITED. Which explains why it costs so much to get a car.

However, people in Singapore don’t actually mind the high cost of car ownership because…

Excellent Public Transportation

Our bus and train system is impeccable. It’s fast, mostly reliable, clean, and nice. ALL buses and trains are air conditioned, which is a Godsent in this hot tropical city. The buses and train comes every few minutes. Service coverage is extensive and affordable, you can go almost ANYWHERE via the bus and train. Travelling from extreme ends of the country doesn’t bankrupt you.

This is how much it costs to travel from END to END of SG

The best part is, hey are very simple to navigate. I’ve never seen a more efficient and easily understandable system before.

Back to the point about expensive car ownership- This actually works out well for everyone. With functional public transport and less cars on the road, traffic jam is not a severe problem in SG.

Trash Cans EVERYWHERE

In Singapore, it’s normal to find thrash cans everywhere.

This is probably the reason why the streets are so clean. I recall my time in a street market in South Korea. After buying some food, I couldn’t find ANYWHERE to throw away my trash. When I looked around, there were many people who just threw their rubbish on the floor. I had to hold on to my food wrappers for an hour until I found a bin.

Clean streets

I don’t condone littering, BUT I can imagine what’s running through their heads. They probably were as frustrated as I was and didn’t want to hold onto their rubbish any longer. I feel that if a place can make it EASIER for people to NOT litter, it’s a plus.

Singapore is CLEAN

Now that we’re talking about trash cans, I also have to point out how CLEAN Singapore is.

Im not talking just about the clean streets or pristine waterways. Singaporea also have the CLEANEST public servants. There have been SOME spots and stains, but most them are clean enough to put Singapore in the top 5 least corrupt countries.

Our most recent major graft probe involves a senior politician on 27 charges amounting: $ 384,000… Like seriously??? Only that much??? Other countries deal with MILLIONS you know? Even the BIGGEST case in Singapore, back in 1990s, only amounted: $13.85 million.

By the way to be clear I don’t support corruption. I’m just weirdly celebrating how puny our major corruption cases are. I do hope that it stays this way.

So shout out to our public servants, thank you for working for the public.
Majulah Singapura!