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Singapore in eight friendly questions about the essentials, from famous sights to everyday life. No expert knowledge needed: everyone can join in.
Stopover visitor 0–3 · Skyline admirer 4–6 · Singapore pro 7–8
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This is the Merlion: its fish body recalls Singapore's past as a fishing village called Temasek, 'sea town', and its lion head stands for the name Singapura, 'lion city'. In 2002 the whole 70-tonne statue was lifted onto a barge and moved about 120 metres to a better spot near the mouth of the river.
Photo: Unwicked, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Singapore's four official languages are English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil, and most children learn English at school plus one of the other three. Malay is the national language, so the national anthem, 'Majulah Singapura', meaning 'Onward Singapore', is sung in Malay.
Photo: Chainwit., Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
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Hainanese chicken rice was brought by immigrants from Hainan, an island in southern China, and is often called one of Singapore's national dishes. The rice is cooked with chicken stock, ginger, garlic and pandan leaves, and locals like to say that the rice matters even more than the chicken.
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Terence assumed (based on copyright claims), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.
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Close to 80 percent of residents live in flats built by the Housing and Development Board, up from about 23 percent in 1965. The open ground floor of many blocks, called the void deck, is left free for neighbours to meet and is often booked for weddings and birthday parties.
Photo: Terence Ong, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.
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Hawker centres sprang up from the 1950s onwards, partly to give street cooks a cleaner place to work, and in 2020 Singapore's hawker culture was added to UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage. In 2016, two stalls in hawker centres became the first street-food stalls to be awarded a Michelin star.
Photo: kallerna, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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The national flower is a pink-and-purple orchid called Vanda Miss Joaquim, chosen in 1981 because it blooms all year round. Singapore also names new orchids after famous guests, and more than 100 of them now have an orchid named in their honour.
Photo: Calvin Teo ., Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Smooth-coated otters had vanished from Singapore by 1990, but after a big clean-up of its rivers a pair settled there in 1998, and now otter families are a common sight. They happily use stairs and ladders to climb in and out of the water, often without minding the people watching them.
Photo: Tan Jun An, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Used gum kept getting stuck on lift buttons and even in the door sensors of the new metro trains, stopping the doors from working properly. Since 2004, some special kinds, such as gum that is good for your teeth, may be sold again, but only through a pharmacist or a dentist.
Photo: Lusheeta, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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