While I was looking for the building, I was intercepted by a man with Asian features who asked me in a very strange English where I was going. I assumed it was someone from maintenance or the likes. I told him I was a new tenant and gave him the address. That seemed to reassure him. We shook hands and with a grin on his face he walked me to the door of my building helping me with a suitcase. He called my apartment, and someone answered, a voice that was familiar, he said that the new tenant had arrived. I stopped a moment to think about how smart he was, not questioning me, but rather accompanying me to the door to confirm my information with my roommates. When the voice confirmed that I was expected, he was satisfied, he said goodbye and I went into what would be my new home for at least the next six months. Or so I thought.
I rang the doorbell and pushed the door. I was surprised. I thought I recognized the voice of Josele, a co-worker, a friend with whom I worked side by side for three years. When we finished, he ended up in a project in the United States along with another co-worker from the bank. We hit it off from the beginning and we got along very well. I was sad when the project was over and we had to part ways, but we maintained regular contact and always met when he was in Spain.
At the door of the apartment, as I had suspected, Josele was waiting for me. He had not changed at all, he still had that hair that he grew like a toupee, a bad imitation of Elvis Presley. I left my suitcase and backpack on the floor and hugged him effusively.
“Josele, is it you?”
“Surprise! Come in and we will tell you. Look who's here”, he said opening the door wide.
“Damaso!”
I ran and hugged him lifting him into the air. Damaso was another fellow that the company had sent with Josele to the United States. A little quirky, but a familiar face in the end. The day could have not started better having these two characters as roommates.
“But what are you doing here? Were you not in America?”
“Yes, I was,” said Damaso. “The project ended and we both got sent here recently. Valentine told us you were coming, but we didn’t say anything because we wanted to surprise you.”
“And what a surprise, boys! It really can’t get any better. Together again and this time sharing an apartment. Singapore gets ready!”
“Yes!” Josele shouted excited. “We can play sports again together. Damaso and I go jogging twice a week and we are in a basketball league for expatriates. We've already entered you in the team.”
“Great!” I replied. “At least I will not get fat and I will meet new people. Well, tell me. What is life like here?”
“Tere and Diego are also here,” said Damaso.
“Them too! That's great, the whole gang together again. I didn’t think we would work together on a project again.”
“Yes, and we know something you don’t ...”
“I suppose, it is the fact that Diego is also on the basketball team.”
“Yes. But it’s not that.”
“What is it then?”
“They're together.”
“What! Tere and Diego? Since when?”
“Well, we do not know because they have just told us, but certainly since before coming here, so at least two months.”
“I had never suspected it; although, in fact, if you think about it, yes they are very compatible given the way they are. Good for them! So, what do we do now?”
Josele and Damaso first showed me around the apartment. It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I was going to share the bathroom with Josele. Apparently, Damaso insisted on having one for himself and Josele didn’t care. The living room and kitchen were spacious. The house had Wi-Fi and a closed terrace from where you could see the pool. They also told me that the complex had 24-hour security. The man who had intercepted me in the garden was of Chinese origin and was called Nan Shao and was the maintenance person during the day. At night there was a Malay named Datuk Musa. There was also a gym, sauna and squash courts on the ground floor, and a garden with several barbecues, which I had seen a moment ago, where you could have a picnic without leaving the building. Although there was a big TV in the living room, each room had a small one as well as air conditioning, a desk with a chair and a large closet. I didn’t know if the rest of the people in this country identical houses have, but the standard of living here looked amazing. We had two shopping centres within twenty minutes’ walk; with all kinds of restaurants, food and clothing shops, banks, and places to have fun. Wow, our location was perfect.
They also told me about transportation in the city. The subway was called MRT and it had four lines across Singapore from North to South and from East to West. There were also buses and the use of taxi was common, as it was quite cheap. The company had given me a mixed transport card that I could use for both the MRT and the buses. Our company offices were by the Singapore River estuary and close to a large urban park called Fort Canning Park. We could get there by bus. There was a direct line than in less than forty minutes got us to the office.
Working hours were in spurts, like everywhere else. The normal thing in Singapore was to work forty-four hours a week and to have fourteen days of vacation, although us, fortunately, kept the holidays from Spain. The work culture in Singapore was completely different than that of Spain. I don't think that in Spain we would be able to have a forty-four-hour work week and only two weeks of vacation.
Josele gave me a bag with a box inside.
“What is this?”
“A gift from the company. It's your corporate phone for Singapore. Inside you’ll find the phone, the SIM card, and the instructions to connect to all the apps in the company, although, in reality, the only useful one is the email. Monday at work they'll give you your laptop.”
“OK, thank you very much. Later you can explain to me the tariffs and calls to Spain. What about eating? How do you do it? From the menu? In restaurants like in Spain?”
“Well, there are a lot of options,” Josele replied. “It's very rare to find people eating in restaurants because they're so expensive. The norm here is to eat in the canteens of the office building, in the hawker centres, which are kitchen groups with a small counter that share an eating area or in the coffee shops which are like the hawkers, but more expensive and beautiful...”
“And with air conditioning!” Damaso interrupted. “It's where we usually eat.”
“Yes, yes, and with air conditioning,” Josele continued. “Because Damaso can’t take the heat and humidity. In any of these places you can both eat and buy food to go. That depends on everyone and whether there is room to sit, because sometimes there are no sits due to the large number of people there. Also, quite crowded are the fast-food restaurants type Burger King, McDonald's or other Asian food chains that don’t exist in Spain. There are also people who bring their own food, but it's very rare to see Westerners doing that. People from Bangladesh or the Philippines do it usually because they like to eat their traditional food and cook it themselves...”
“Good, good,” I cut him off laughing. “I've only asked where you usually eat, not to give me a report on the Singapore society and their eating habits. What a detailed response. It gave me time to set up the phone. Wait a minute, I'm going to call my mother.”
“Say hello from us.” They both said at the same time.
They