Return to Singapore 1995

After returning to the Orchid Village Market, Li Xiaofan packed a portion of "Penang Fried Kway Teow" for dinner.

Fried Kway Teow was originally a snack in Chaoshan, Guangdong and southern Fujian. After the Chaoshan and Fujian immigrants came to the Malay Peninsula, it became a national delicacy in Singapore and Malaysia.

When Li Xiaofan and his friends first arrived in Singapore, they thought it was a dessert or vegetable when they heard the name "Fried Kway Teow". Later they found out that it was a fried noodle dish.

The term "Kway Teow" is used in Chaoshan and southern Fujian. Kway Teow looks similar to rice noodles, but Kway Teow is different from rice noodles and has a more elastic texture than rice noodles. Fried Kway Teow is made by stir-frying flat rice noodles with light and dark soy sauce, shrimp paste, tamarind juice, bean sprouts, chives, Chinese sausage and cockles.

This "Penang Fried Kway Teow" in Orchid Village is also an Internet celebrity store. Li Xiaofan waited in line for ten minutes.

The fried kway teow noodles in this shop are divided into black and white, which is the difference between adding or not adding dark soy sauce. The black one is darker in color and has a strong flavor, and the sauce is rich. Many people like this. The white one is lighter, but you can taste the flavor of the ingredients such as eggs.

Li Xiaofan likes the characteristic of this shop that they lay a lot of eggs, and the eggs are deliberately not cooked to make the kway teow look fresh and juicy. In addition, they are fried with dark soy sauce and chili sauce, which makes the taste particularly rich.

The fried kway teow in Penang and Kuala Lumpur are mainly made with soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Those who love spicy food can also add sambal chili sauce to make the fried kway teow taste salty and sweet with a little spicy.

After staying in Singapore for a long time, Li Xiaofan especially likes to eat black fried kway teow, paired with the local special sambal chili sauce, and a glass of ice cola, which is particularly strong!

Strangely enough, domestic experts do not recommend eating hot food with cold drinks from a health and hygiene perspective, but in his previous life, Li Xiaofan was like the locals in Singapore, and liked to eat hot food with cold drinks. It seemed that he never had any problems with his stomach, and everything was normal. On the contrary, after arriving in China, eating and drinking like this will cause diarrhea immediately.

Li Xiaofan packed up the fried rice noodles and a can of Diet Coke, went upstairs to the dormitory, turned on the fan and TV. The weather was cool this evening, and it was very comfortable when the fan was turned on. He solved a beautiful dinner by himself.

Fried rice noodles cost 1.5 Singapore dollars, Diet Coke cost 0.5 Singapore dollars, and a dinner of 2 Singapore dollars, which is a little more than 11 yuan. In Singapore, if foreign workers like Li Xiaofan save a little, 300 Singapore dollars a month is enough for living expenses. The prices of staple foods such as chicken rice, duck rice, fried noodles downstairs are basically around 1.5 to 2 Singapore dollars. If you eat in the factory restaurant, it is even cheaper.

After eating, Li Xiaofan threw the remaining food, take-away boxes, Coke cans and other garbage directly into the garbage outlet in the kitchen.

After throwing away the garbage, Li Xiaofan lit a cigarette and looked at the garbage outlet. He remembered the hot garbage sorting campaign in Shanghai before his rebirth. There was also a fixed point and time for disposal. If the classification was not good, he might be fined. In this comparison, it felt that it was really convenient to throw away garbage in Singapore. It might be the most convenient country in the world.

Most of Singapore's domestic garbage is generated in government housing like the one where Li Xiaofan and his family live. When developing these housing estates, the Housing and Development Board designed a vertical garbage pipe to transport garbage from each floor to the ground.

Residents living in the housing estate can put their daily life garbage through this garbage outlet of the housing estate garbage pipe. The ground floor of each building in the housing estate community is an overhead floor with a garbage compartment. Each household is equipped with a garbage pipe connected to the garbage compartment. Residents put garbage through the garbage pipe and finally concentrate it in the garbage compartment. The garbage compartment is regularly cleared and maintained by the environmentally friendly garbage disposal company responsible for the area every day.

Li Xiaofan felt that there seemed to be no punishment measures for garbage sorting in Singapore, and everything was voluntary. The answer given by the National Environment Agency of Singapore was also very simple: they did not want to increase the obligations of residents through garbage sorting, and hoped that everyone could take the initiative to protect the environment for themselves and their homes.

After smoking, Li Xiaofan began to organize his daily necessities and suitcases.

This 22-inch green suitcase that came to Singapore last year was bought by his aunt at the Wanghu Small Commodity Market in downtown Mingzhou for 50 yuan. Although the quality is not very good now, it is also a gift from his aunt. Every time he sees this box, Li Xiaofan will feel the warmth from his uncle and aunt.

There is nothing particularly valuable in Li Xiaofan's luggage in the dormitory. The most expensive thing is an electronic dictionary "Wenquxing" that can translate between Chinese and English. Before going abroad, Li Xiaofan spent more than a month's salary to buy it.

The second place should be the domestic Jinghua brand Walkman cassette player at the head of the bed.

Before Li Xiaofan went abroad last year, the Japanese brand Aiwa Walkman cassette player was popular all over the mainland.

Li Xiaofan remembered that when he was in China, his roommate Xu Jun in the factory spent more than 1,000 yuan to buy an Aiwa's latest JX719. This JX719 model Walkman uses HX magnetic heads, 3-band BBE, 2-band DSL, DOLBY B NR, full-function line control, 10-minute fast charging, three-way automatic reversal, tape selector, anti-roll mechanism, and can play continuously for 12 hours. The sound is clear and crisp, like a girl's whisper, and there is almost no noise when playing the cassette, which makes Li Xiaofan very envious.

On the contrary, Li Xiaofan bought a domestic brand Jinghua Walkman that imitates Aiwa. The difference is huge when compared. The noise reduction alone is several levels worse.

Electrical appliances are being upgraded so fast that CD players have become popular in Singapore this year.

In addition to the two most valuable small appliances, Wenquxing and Jinghua Walkman, for Li Xiaofan, the most "valuable" thing may be a pile of books. After graduating from junior college, Li Xiaofan passed the adult college entrance examination and was admitted to the computer major of the night college of the University of Minnesota. When he came to Singapore last year, he was in his second year. Although his studies at the night college were forced to end because of coming to Singapore, he brought all the textbooks issued for those semesters to Singapore.

Some of the old clothes brought from China in the simple cupboard were outdated and were thrown into the garbage by Li Xiaofan.

After cleaning up like this, Li Xiaofan's entire belongings were now only a 22-inch green suitcase.

Li Xiaofan used the dormitory phone to call the taxi call hotline 6552 1111 and called a taxi.

6552 1111 is the call hotline number of Comfort, the largest taxi company in Singapore. Before his rebirth, Li Xiaofan came to Singapore on a business trip and found that this call hotline number from more than 20 years ago was still usable. It was really convenient.

Ten minutes later, the dormitory phone rang and the taxi arrived.

Li Xiaofan took the suitcase and went to the parking lot downstairs. Oh, damn, it was a white Mercedes-Benz taxi.

"Brother, why is it a big Mercedes? Shouldn't it be a Toyota car?"

The taxi driver smiled and said, "Brother, you are lucky. Our company has just introduced 100 Mercedes-Benz as taxis. I just sent a guest to Changi Airport and was dispatched by the company to pick you up on the way back!"

After getting off the car and arriving at the destination, Li Xiaofan found that the lights of the terrace house were not turned on and it looked quiet outside.

Li Xiaofan opened the door and entered the living room. There was no one inside. Maybe the two girls hadn't gotten off work yet.

He found a mop and a few rags in the utility room on the first floor and planned to go to his room on the third floor to clean it.

Passing by the second floor, Li Xiaofan turned on the staircase light and found that the door of one of the rooms was open.

He looked closely and saw, oh my, it was so shocking! There was a girl sleeping on the bed, lying on her bed, with very few clothes on her body...