Delphine Liu and Layla Niblock are UNC sophomores spending the spring semester at the National University of Singapore. Roommates at home and abroad, the co-writers are tackling Singapore — and beyond — together.
24 hours after leaving Raleigh-Durham International Airport, we finally arrived in Singapore, the Lion City. The balmy breeze, tropical plants and wild chickens made it feel as though we had taken the long way to Florida. We called a Grab — Singapore’s version of Uber — and headed to the National University of Singapore.
At NUS, we live on-campus in UTown Residence. The two tower complex is similar to Granville Towers with its slightly removed location, living contracts separate from the larger university and numerous international residents.
Our dining halls are laid out like the hawker centers Singapore is known for. Each hall consists of independent stalls that serve dishes from the cultures that make up the island’s diverse population — dishes that put Spicy 9’s buy-one-get-one-free deal to shame. Our diets have shifted from Lenoir’s ever-rotating chicken dish and iced lattes to Hainanese chicken rice and Kopi C.
Instead of UNC’s red-brick and classical architecture, we’ve adjusted to NUS’ white and modern design. Singapore’s tropical environment and commitment to working toward net-zero carbon emissions influenced the aesthetic and utility of the campus. The covered breezeways protect students from the elements, connecting the buildings in a Hogwarts-like maze. Meanwhile, plants integrated in many buildings help combat the oppressive heat; a heat that made missing UNC’s first snow in years even harder.
Between resurrecting Google Maps to navigate a new campus and meeting some of the 2,600 exchange students NUS welcomes annually, it feels like being first-years all over again.
Interacting with such a large exchange student population has been novel coming from a school that requires 82 percent of students be from the same state. Instead of everyone claiming they are from Charlotte, we’ve met people from all over the world who are just as eager as us to make introductions, travel plans and navigate culture shock in Singapore together.
One of the biggest culture shocks has been the language. English is one of Singapore’s four official languages, along with Mandarin, Tamil and Malay. However, English in Singapore has blended with other Asian languages, creating Singlish.
The rules of Singlish can barely be explained by Singaporeans, but one Grab driver kindly attempted. He said that the dialect uses single-syllables such as “lah”, “lor” or “leh” to communicate emotion. It also borrows its cadence and syntax from various Indo-Chinese languages. To our ears, Singlish is only American-English’s distant relative.
