Chinatown Heat

Having now been here for what's quickly approaching one whole week, I'd like to say I've completely adjusted and settled in. Unfortunately, the decision to enjoy club life on the night of my arrival left me pretty vulnerable to the illness that's been spreading around lately, and so I'm now trying to recover from that. It's not such a big deal, more like a common cold, but I would like to be over it soon so I can really enjoy myself. On top of this, I've now adjusted time zones once again, albeit only by one hour this time. More on that later...don't want to spoil the surprise.

Melissa and I have both been somewhat sick the past few days, and the holiday weekend had the city's major attractions packed with people, so we've postponed our biggest plans for later. Thankfully there will still be plenty of time to do everything we want to do. In the meantime, though, we did do some exploring. Melissa and her mom brought me to Singapore's Chinatown recently, where I was able to get a serious dose of Asian culture (or at least I thought so). It was actually hard to come to grips with the fact that I was actually in Asia, having been surrounded by so much "fake Asia" in the states. Hopefully that makes sense to others who might've had the chance to visit the real thing.

Contrasting designs. Skyscrapers and oriental designs.

Chinatown was crowded too, and the weather was about as tough as it gets in this part of the world from what I understand. It was almost impossible to walk in the sun for more than a few minutes without starting to sweat profusely, and yet it didn't seem to bother some of the locals. The photos in this blog are really nothing special in my mind as it was a little too hot and crowded for me to take the time to really look for good photos, but I wanted to share anyway.

I don't understand how they handled the heat.

In an effort to escape the heat, we took some time to check out a history museum that was air conditioned. It's hard to convey the drama of the building through photos, but it detailed the horrible living conditions that Chinese suffered through when first arriving in Singapore.

Part of a table modeled after what one might've seen had they been living with the Chinese during their hardship.

Those of you who have been reading my blog since my time in Ghana will remember that I wrote about the hostility I felt when taking street photos in the city. Thankfully, Asia seems to be an entirely different culture in this sense. The Chinese in Chinatown seemed to receive my camera warmly, even occasionally cracking a slight smile when realizing I was pointing it at them. There was definitely never a moment when I felt as though I was upsetting one. That said, I still need to work on getting to the point where I literally don't worry at all what people think of me if I intend to get the best possible street photos. I'm not sure if I'm willing to make that commitment just yet.

As you can see, Chinatown is quite a bit "touristy" in itself. The people need to make a living somehow.

This was a pretty refreshing sight. I didn't think to check the price, but I'd be interested to compare it to the price of bananas in Ghana.

Because Chinatown is a popular tourist destination, the prices on most things weren't particularly low. Some things, like shirts and hats, could be had cheaply thanks to intense competition, but anything of real quality was clearly priced with the tourist budget in mind. It was also interesting to see that the tourist was not strictly white but rather a healthy mix of whites and Asians.

And while I'm not very good at trying to include myself in photos, I did manage to sneak into one or two, just to prove that I was actually there. I know that the photos I'm in will end up being the most memorable, so I can appreciate when someone offers to take my (or in this case, our) picture.

Since Chinatown I've been busy doing other things as well, but I'll share those photos and thoughts later. For now, I just wanted to let you know where I wrote this blog from...I really recommend clicking this photo and then re-clicking it on Flickr, so you can see it in full screen. I promise to share more photos again soon.