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The Tap Water Problem


Being overwhelmed working from the office yesterday, I decided to take the afternoon and work from a coffee shop. Sat there. Opened my laptop. Went to the counter and gave my order.

"Could I please get a venti oat latte? And some tap water as well, please."

"Hot or iced?"

"Just normal water."

Five minutes later, my water and coffee order came. One hot water.

And this isn't even happening to me for the first time. I couldn't count how many times it's happened. For some reason, whenever I ask for tap water in Singapore, I get hot water.

Unless you ask for iced water, which I don't want most of the time because it freezes my brain, they just bring a hot one.

Could this be frustrating? For me, yes. At least, sometimes.

I don't know why it's so hard to comprehend. At first, I thought it was a language barrier. Like, maybe they simply don't understand my English.

Then the same thing happened while I was waiting for my appointment in another place. Someone offered me some drink. I asked for normal water. They brought me hot water. That's when it finally clicked. It wasn't that people weren't understanding me. We just meant different things by "normal water."

It's been 11 months now, and living here has challenged me in ways I never expected. I don't think I was ever able to adjust to the climate here. And when I mean climate, I mean it literally and figuratively. I couldn't get used to the heat and humidity, for one. But more than that, I couldn't get used to the culture here. It was just, and it still is, so different from everything I was used to.

Back to the tap water issue. Water is fully drinkable from the tap here. But when I ask for tap water, or normal water, they choose to give me hot water. Why? Because, from what I've seen, many Singaporeans prefer hot water. I have some of them around me, and they literally just sip hot water all day.

If it's not hot, it's iced. Room-temperature tap water just isn't the default here.

A few times when I first came here, I asked for coffee and didn't specify that I wanted it hot. It came iced, because that's simply the default coffee here. Most people drink iced coffee here, if not almost everyone.

Singapore has taught me over and over again that speaking the language is not even remotely enough to live in a country. You've got to learn the culture too. And I knew that. I did that in the UK. But I must have forgotten it, because it's been a real adjustment for me. My reference point for living abroad was the UK. And let me tell you something: Singapore is no UK. We don't compare a new country to our home country; we compare it to our previous experience abroad.

I don't know why I still feel offended or frustrated when they don't understand my simple orders or keep giving me hot water when all I want is simple tap water. But I can't help it. I try to remind myself, "It's not bad, it's just the culture here." But still.

Having lived in three countries and travelled to 30 countries, I still have a lot to learn.

Just because you speak the language, Fatima, doesn't mean you'll be able to communicate with people. Things simply don't work like that.

When I was typing these lines, I was at my local Tim Hortons and had an oat latte and an iced water. I just couldn’t bear having another hot water. I finished the water in my iced water and asked for some more water. The woman filled it with ice again.

Bro, this is not water. I'm just drinking melting ice here.

But anyway. If you can't change it, you've got to ride with it.

 

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