The contrast between Singapore and our northern neighbour hits you the moment you reach the airport. Somehow the dam weather there is so bloody hot. So hot that you can see the heat rising from the ground. Seeing though is not the problem. It is the heat that grabs you with both hands that is akin to adrenaline being pumped into the brain to awake a coma patient.
Ok, it is not the damn heat that irritates me. It is the people there. Don't get me wrong. I get along extremely well with all my cousins, grandma, aunties and uncles there. It is what they are doing that I feel are somehow "unconventional".
Imagine being driven around by a 17 year old. Now, there maybe nothing wrong with that if he just keeps his bloody mouth shut and stop making fun of me.
" Hey Keng! you 18 already ah? Cannot drive? haha abo I leave u here u walk back yourself lah?"
Now that is a threat. And I am being threatened by a 17 year old. Imagine that my life is in the hands of his. A speed demon that goes at 100km/h on a porthole-filled road.
My uncle sums up this obsession with cars perfectly.
"I owned 6 cars. One for my wife and one for each of my 4 kids plus me."
Me: " In Singapore, I don't even have 6 bicycles."
Next, it is the unhealthy diet that these people are carrying out. Ok, I am in no position to comment on what they should eat and not eat but frankly when you see my cousin who is only 12 and have the size of your average King Kong, you know that he has eaten too much.
He eats about 5 meals a day plus the requisite 4 packets of chips. It doesn't help when his mother fries an egg for him for every meal.
Finally, yeah, everybody there has grown up. The girls look sexy, the boys look beng and me look stupid. Just a bandar orang like they say.