Singapore is completely freaked out by Swine Flu. They have good reason. SARs really crippled the economy as they are so tourist and transit-based, so they are not about to let an epidemic strike without a real fight.
They already have enough Tamiflu for the whole country. That has been done for a while.
They scan every passenger coming into Singapore--flights, boats, driving, buses...for a fever. They screen kids at every school before they go into class. They screen every person who comes to a medical center, hospital or doctor's office. They not only take temperatures, they get a full history of travel for last 14 days and address, id and phone numbers. I do think its a little ironic that they are telling some people who are at the doctor's office that they are sick--I mean, that is generally the reason you go to a doctor....Anyway, they will find case zero here and they will find it before the doctor does!
Anyone who gets back from any country where there is swine flu cannot go to school for 7 days.
There is a quarantine for everyone coming from Mexico and some others who come from Hong Kong or have some symptoms. The government puts these quarantined people up in a "resort" for 7 days with meals included (and delivered) if you cannot (because you have other family members who work/go to school) do your quarantine at home or you don't live in Singapore. If you do choose to do your quarantine at home they have CCTC that they can get you to stand in front of whenever they call. In both situations, there is someone who comes to monitor your symptoms and temperature 3 times a day.
If you break your quarantine you are fined $10,000 and can go to jail for 6 months (presumably when they are sure you are not contagious) and a second infraction is $20,000 and 1 year in jail.
None of the niceties of whether this infringes on your privacy--your privacy is of no consequence or import when there is an infectious disease that could do a SARs on their economy.
I have told you that if you want to see the right way to do things you should see how its done here. This applies to anything that takes planning and coordination (from metro systems to health screening to Formula One racing). This does not apply to creating a free-thinking, quick-witted and courteous work force. Perhaps you can see some cause and effect. Obviously every quick-witted, free-thinking person is in the government.
Things that may not interest anyone:
1) There is no way to get a proper eyebrow waxing here. Apparently in an Oriental-heavy society, eyebrows must be hard to grow so there is no way they are going to shape the eyebrow if it means diminishing the quantity...I have got to get back to NYC!
2) I had no idea that toe nail length could be culturally influenced. I thought there was a world-wide preference and anything longer than that was in between the stages of having been trimmed and going to be trimmed in a short while.
This is not true. Much like fingernails, there is variability in desired length--with the default length long enough for me to feel that one has forgotten to look at one's feet in some time. This is not just unkempt feet--this is true for ladies with polished and primped toes--its like long fingernails. I guess when you never wear a shoe with a closed toe it can actually work. I don't think this is a fashion import the US has to rush to accept.
Alright, that should be it!
Faith
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Last Notes from the East April 22, 2009
We are moving back to the US--to northern NJ--in the next months or so. We are very excited about it and Leon is excited to start his new position (still in JP Morgan) in Whippany.
I am looking forward to being back in the same general time zone as my office and being able to go to Austin quarterly. We all are excited about being closer to family and friends.
We have finished all the places on our travel list and have made it to 11 different countries and made it to many of them more than once in the last 16 months!
Here are a couple more things that I find funny/interesting.
Taxis
You guys know my never-ending fascination with their inability to drive and lack of knowledge of both English and directional layout of Singapore. I have made some progress in my research into this phenomenon. Taxi driving is not a highly sought after profession. Apparently it is basically a last ditch effort by those unemployed (married and older than 35--otherwise the gov't won't give you a taxi license) to make some money. Many of these cab drivers (which I have verified by speaking to many) learned to drive a car only when they found themselves in need of this last chance of employment.
Not only have they been driving for less than 3 months--they have never driven around (or been driven around (because they take the bus or subway or walk in their neighborhoods)) anywhere to have any idea how things are laid out and have no real facility in driving anyway.
This is like a nation of newly minted 16-year old cab drivers!! I cannot believe we ever get anywhere safely with them!!
Exact Numbers
You know how fascinated I am with the reporting of exact numbers--2,406 divorces last year, 1,326 underage kids having sex, etc. In the paper on Monday they told us how a hawker area (where they have the inexpensive food that all Singaporeans (and visitors) love) had numerous cases of severe food poisoning and 4 people died. They shut down the whole area and did a huge cleaning and fumigation and (here is the bit I love) exterminated 16 rats. Exactly 16 rats!
Zip Codes
How did I not know this until now? Zip codes are specific to each building. Works well if you have a country with 1/2 the buildings that are in Houston.
Guests of Honor
These people love their government Ministers. They want a Minister at every single possible function. The Rotary Club is having a movie screening to raise money for a children's cause. They are very excited to announce that
the Minister of some such is coming. This Minister is in no way involved
with children, film or the charity--he is like Gardening Minister or something, but it is a big draw that he will be there! This is the oddest thing to me?!
Deaths
Okay, I don't really find this funny, but I don't think I have mentioned before in these rantings how when someone dies they have this wake wherein for about a week there is a big tent set up near the person's HDB (housing
flat/building) under which are incense burning drums, drums on which the official mourner (or whomever) beats the drum every so often (maybe every
hour) and there is food for mourners who come by. As we live right next to an HDB we have experienced this quite a few times in the last year, I like the drum beat, but it took me some months to recognize that the tents and drums do not mean there is a street fair coming up!
That's it for this issue. Perhaps the last one. Although when we get back I may have observations on the "home versus host" country cultural shock.
Faith
I am looking forward to being back in the same general time zone as my office and being able to go to Austin quarterly. We all are excited about being closer to family and friends.
We have finished all the places on our travel list and have made it to 11 different countries and made it to many of them more than once in the last 16 months!
Here are a couple more things that I find funny/interesting.
Taxis
You guys know my never-ending fascination with their inability to drive and lack of knowledge of both English and directional layout of Singapore. I have made some progress in my research into this phenomenon. Taxi driving is not a highly sought after profession. Apparently it is basically a last ditch effort by those unemployed (married and older than 35--otherwise the gov't won't give you a taxi license) to make some money. Many of these cab drivers (which I have verified by speaking to many) learned to drive a car only when they found themselves in need of this last chance of employment.
Not only have they been driving for less than 3 months--they have never driven around (or been driven around (because they take the bus or subway or walk in their neighborhoods)) anywhere to have any idea how things are laid out and have no real facility in driving anyway.
This is like a nation of newly minted 16-year old cab drivers!! I cannot believe we ever get anywhere safely with them!!
Exact Numbers
You know how fascinated I am with the reporting of exact numbers--2,406 divorces last year, 1,326 underage kids having sex, etc. In the paper on Monday they told us how a hawker area (where they have the inexpensive food that all Singaporeans (and visitors) love) had numerous cases of severe food poisoning and 4 people died. They shut down the whole area and did a huge cleaning and fumigation and (here is the bit I love) exterminated 16 rats. Exactly 16 rats!
Zip Codes
How did I not know this until now? Zip codes are specific to each building. Works well if you have a country with 1/2 the buildings that are in Houston.
Guests of Honor
These people love their government Ministers. They want a Minister at every single possible function. The Rotary Club is having a movie screening to raise money for a children's cause. They are very excited to announce that
the Minister of some such is coming. This Minister is in no way involved
with children, film or the charity--he is like Gardening Minister or something, but it is a big draw that he will be there! This is the oddest thing to me?!
Deaths
Okay, I don't really find this funny, but I don't think I have mentioned before in these rantings how when someone dies they have this wake wherein for about a week there is a big tent set up near the person's HDB (housing
flat/building) under which are incense burning drums, drums on which the official mourner (or whomever) beats the drum every so often (maybe every
hour) and there is food for mourners who come by. As we live right next to an HDB we have experienced this quite a few times in the last year, I like the drum beat, but it took me some months to recognize that the tents and drums do not mean there is a street fair coming up!
That's it for this issue. Perhaps the last one. Although when we get back I may have observations on the "home versus host" country cultural shock.
Faith
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