Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Arrival in Singapore

I am now officially in the land of durian, hawker centers, and Singlish. After a 23-hour flight that included instant ramen cup noodles for breakfast (airline food is hitting new, cheap lows), a quick refueling stopover in Hong Kong, the incessant drone of airplane engines (one day I'm going to have enough money to splurge on noise-canceling headphones--even earplugs couldn't quite pacify me this time), and non-existent legroom, my mom and I arrived at midnight to a crowd of excited family members. Interesting characters on the flight included a political science professor who's in Singapore for a conference (I seem to know more and more people either in academia or who have their PhDs) and a pastor/missionary from South Carolina who was en route to China.

Spending time with my mom's family is amusing from a linguistic standpoint: conversations are never fully Cantonese or English, but a blend of both, so I usually lose 50-80% of what's said. Particularly if Por Por (my grandmother) is around, because she doesn't speak English (somehow we manage to communicate anyway). I don't speak Chinese--in any dialect--but what little I do know centers primarily around food. And by the time I leave Singapore, I'll doubtless have picked up a few more (probably food-related) words. It's too bad I didn't grow up here; I'd speak three languages, instead of 1.5 (French only counts as half for me, since I'm rather rusty at this point).

I've been here for less than 24 hours, but already I have to make a conscious effort to keep my American accent. I don't like how Singlish sounds--though I'd like to be able to reproduce it on cue--and no matter where I am, I pick up local accents quickly. Some come more naturally to me than others; I was in Scotland for two weeks and never gained a lilt, but after talking to my family for a couple of hours I was already thinking about enunciation.

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