Sunday in Singapore

It’s Sunday in Singapore. We’ve mostly shaken off the jetlag from reversing our days and nights. No, literally reversing them – it’s a 12-hour time difference ahead of the eastern U.S.!

This morning J, C and I left our rooms at the National University of Singapore to find a church. J & C are Catholic, so we took a taxi down the street to the Church of the Holy Cross. It was lovely – an open space lined with wooden pews, each filled with casually-dressed Singaporean families. And when I say Singaporean, multiple images should come to mind. Singapore is a mix of ethnicities: Chinese, Indian and Malaysian. These folks filled the church right up and sang each worship song with verve.



The Catholic Church is well-known for being standardized across the globe, but cultural differences still permeate the printed script of the liturgical handbook. C, from Haiti, was disconcerted to find that the eucharist wafer was placed in her hand, not her mouth. J, from the U.S., felt sheepish for shaking hands with a priest rather than bowing, as is customary. A female cantor made them both start in surprise.

These things aside, worshiping the Lord was still worshiping the Lord. If anything I felt a rush of euphoria for standing side-by-side with brothers and sisters in Christ from all over the world. Especially pertinent for us and Pentecost was the subject of the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and being admonished by Jesus to have a spirit of unity. Perhaps “noodles versus pasta” debate is less relevant in the religious sphere, as Asians have many religions and Westerners do too. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…”



This unity carried us through the day, as we went to eat at an outdoor market nearby on Clementi Avenue. Plenty of “noodles and pasta” there, plus a lot more! The market held a number of small square stalls, each not bigger than 15 square feet. Each proclaimed a sign and variety of photos of the food they sold. I picked the “Indian – Muslim Food” stall which turned out to have delicious chicken murtabak with curry sauce. Basically it was flattened, folded chicken in bread – filling and fabulous! We each got a lime juice, which is like lemonade but with lime.


For dessert, we split a “paper prata with chocolate,” which was an upstanding triangle made of paper-thin fried dough beringed with chocolate sauce. Flaky and sticky all at once!

Walking back to the university was a loooong adventure for our feet. As I mentioned in the last post, taxis must wait in queue for passengers. Consequently they cannot just pick people up from the street, it seems, and without phones, we couldn’t call one.

Soon as we got back we jumped in with our group for a tour of campus. The National University of Singapore is the oldest and biggest university in the nation, housing 32,000 students. Afterwards, we had a fancy barbecue feast with our professors. Here is a photo of my plate, which includes not only Mongolian lamb with mint jelly but also scallops on a half-shell and stingray filled with cartilege!!! Our Coca-Colas and Sprites were poured into wine glasses!

I’m getting ready for bed now – it’s been a long, hot and wonderful Sunday here in Singapore, but I’ve got class early tomorrow morning!