Singapore Fact of the Day: Locals speak "Singlish", not just English. Don’t be too surprised to hear Singaporeans adding to their sentences the occasional “lah” and “leh”, which have become an integral part of everyday conversation. These are just bits of what make the local Singlish vocabulary so unique. Singlish is a collection of colloquial catchphrases and lingo influenced by Singapore’s multiculturalism. Other examples include the Singlish term “chope”, which means to reserve a seat. Locals often chope seats at a hawker centre using packets of tissue paper! Singaporeans also tend to refer to strangers such as cab drivers and hawker centre stall owners as “Aunties” and “Uncles”. This is an endearing way of addressing older gentlemen and ladies. Do use the terms wisely, though, as it can connote the addressee’s elderly age; you would not want to offend a stranger by accident!
Today was a crazy cool day. Not only did we get the opportunity to check out a mobile gaming studio and another art school, LASALLE College of the Arts, I also got to ride on my first double decker bus! It was perfect for checking out the city during our 40 minute ride to our first stop, Mighty Bear Gaming! Here are some photos of cool and interesting architecture I found during the trip.
Mighty Bear games was located inside a public housing unit - a trend I'm noticing for a lot of smaller businesses. Businesses seem to occupy the first few floors of some buildings, which is probably smart to build strong communities, especially when driving is so expensive here. Anyways, they are a studio of less than half the size of Crave FX was. With 18-20 employees, they have released one game and our finishing another. The founders were all veterans coming out from Ubisoft, Lucas Arts, and King. We were split up into groups after their general presentation, and I got to speak with one of their coders in charge of running their servers. It was neat to learn about the more technical side of video games and how they are run. I was very glad I got to check out their studio!
Later that afternoon, we got to check out LASALLE College of the Arts, one of the few private art schools in the country. We met with their head of the animation department, and we got a tour of their studio and a rundown of their program. It was very fascinating to see how their school ran very differently than ours, but just as effectively. Chris, the department head, was incredibly funny and outgoing, had fun stories to tell about their school, and made us feel incredibly welcome. I hope he is a contact we will be able to have in the future! At the end, he also invited us to go to a reception for their graduating seniors to both check out their work and meet up with industry employees from LucasFilm, ILM, Ubisoft, and other local companies. It was very nice of him and some of us definitely took him up on that offer.
