Being the Singaporean Dude

I hate playing tour guide. More specifically, I hate being the local guy, the supposed-to-know-it-all. I hate being asked where Singaporeans hang out. I hate negotiations with hawkers at a food centre to make sure we're not being fleeced. I hate being quizzed on where to pick up cute chicks with non-too-serious commitment issues. I hate racking my brains over which are the hot nightspots to be checking out. I hate showing people how to eat crab like a Singaporean should (you JUST eat it lah!).

Well, its not like I had much of a choice. Having decided to do a post-grad course at a predominantly foreign institution, there is no choice but to hang out with all these foreigners (and I don't mean ang mohs only) and play the local guy. The local guy has to make recommendations: where to go, what to eat, what to look at (Look! Sir Stamford Raffles looking like he's trying to hide a hard on!). Thankfully though, there were 2 other Singaporean gals in the class and that helped (I would never know where to book a table for seafood and chilli crab!)

Okay, to put things in perspective, what happened last week was that I got to attend a pre-MBA course to get myself acquainted (and re-acquainted in some cases) with basic accounting, finance and quantitative stuff like statistics. Being the world-class institution that my school is, there were other students from overseas as well - in total, we made up 12 folks: 3 Singaporeans, 3 French, 1 half-Jap half-Italian, a Hongkie (Hongkonger just sounds funny!), a Brazillian who's spent most of his life in Switzerland, an English, and 2 Indians. The 4 days spent in classes, discussion and partying with these folks was the most fun I had the latter part of this year.

Kenji (the Jap-Italiano) was the most interesting of the lot, especially since we managed to talk about stuff, and this guy has a whole lot of opinions. He quizzed me on nightclubs and girls in Singapore to no end, having had little luck picking up a local for a semi-serious, non-commital, somewhat-friendly time in town. I thought that it wasn't a problem if you looked somewhat like Keanu Reeves (on a bad day). Maybe he just had to be a little less direct in his propositions (hehe).

On another note, the faculties teaching the course were right though: we had a headstart, and a taste of what's to come. Furthermore, there is already a cliche of people we now know even before school actually started. Somehow, we all felt like the money paid for this pre-MBA course was well spent, considering what we learnt, and what we gained out of it.

In any case, if anyone out there wants to bring out their hidden SPG natures, do let me know: I think you'll be far better in showing these fellas a fun time come next year - and there'll be more of them when the actual school term starts. Playing Local Guy is really too tiring when I'm not too into good food and the nightlife to begin with, so help me out yah?