Singapore Slingshot
Adventures of an American Expat in Asia
by
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I could tell that the cook had been instructed to tone down the spice in the curry for the ang moh at the table. While it was still tasty, it had hardly any of the expected zip. So when I mentioned it, the initial response of the waiter was to tell me that he didn’t really suggest the spicy version for me because even he, a local man and great lover of spicy foods was intimidated by the heat. Nonsense! I brushed aside his cautions and asked one of the guys on the team that I trusted (foolishly) to help me explain what it was that I wanted, figuring maybe my request was suffering a communication break down.
What I was served next was apparently a bowl of habanero diarrhea. I felt the burn immediately when it hit my lips and the pain only intensified as it eroded away my esophagus, stomach lining and lower intestine. The cook must have dumped every last chili, every ounce of pepper, and possibly a couple of burning embers into that vindaloo. My tears burned pink streaks down my face as I welled up, leaking sweat from scalp, neck and back.
“What. The hell. Did you tell him?” I wheezed to the guy who had spoken with the waiter.
“He told you it was very spicy.” Jason just smiled and shrugged.
“A******. Tell him it’s delicious. Tell him. I want. The recipe.” I felt myself getting a little faint perhaps from the effort it took to push air through my scorched voice box or perhaps at the prospect that having ordered the dish, and having been so skillfully played, I would now have to eat the whole damn bowl. Either that or I would have to simply avoid making eye contact with anyone on my Penang team ever again.
And so it proceeded for at least the first couple of years as I traveled around the region. Fish head curry. Pig organ soup. Cow stomach and intestines cut into bite size pieces and grilled table side then dunked into a spicy sauce. Snake wine in Vietnam. Snake blood shots at a night market in Taipei.
Sometimes, I even did it to myself. Wandering one evening in Tokyo I was lured to a stall with a couple of stools in front of it by the amazing smells of cooking chicken coming from the hibachi on which dozens of skewers with little wedges of meat were lined up. Standing and watching the goings on for a couple of minutes, I eventually sat down, pointed at what the guy next to me was eating that smelled utterly delicious and then to myself indicating I’d take the same. I ate at that stall probably half a dozen times before I found out what I was eating was actually chicken hearts and little bits of crispy skin.
Over time I developed a policy that I would try anything once, so long as at least one other person at the table would eat some too. Too many times I had sat there like an ass with some truly horrid morsel clawing its way back up my throat as the table erupted in a round of giggles. As with the chicken hearts though, this didn’t work so well if the dish in question was something everyone else at the table loved.
“Mark, where do you want to eat tonight?” the sales rep for one of our partners kindly asked me one night in Seoul.
“Someplace local. I’m not fussed on what we eat, so long as it is local food. I don’t need you guys taking me to some western joint. I love Korean food.” And it was true. I had developed a fondness for bulgogi2 and for the wide variety of kimchee3 I was learning existed.
“You okay with duck stew?” my colleague asked.
“Sure, that sounds fine. I don’t think I’ve ever had that here. Sounds interesting.”
Flash forward a couple of hours. I leaned back against the wall of the private dining room, full from a yet another delicious Korean dinner. The stew had not been at all what I had expected, but it was hot and filling, so on a rainy night combined with the requisite Hite beer and several chasers of soju mixing in my system too, I was feeling pretty good and well satisfied by the meal.
“Kim, I’ve got to ask. What kind of duck was that? It wasn’t at all oily like the duck I’ve had before in China and Singapore. It was very tasty.”
“No no. Not duck. Duuuck” he drew the word out. Not duck? Duck? I began to get the sense I was being messed with.
“I don’t understand. Not duck? Like a goose or something then?”
“No no... Not duck. Not ‘quack.’ ... ‘Wooff.’”
Oh **** a duck. I’d just eaten dog.
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About the Book
In the summer of 2006, author Mark Nickerson was in his midthirties, still fresh-eyed and uncorrupted by life as a foreigner, when he and his wife, Gwen were granted an opportunity to relocate to Singapore. He felt he was accelerating his career with this move, and, in fact, he had been angling for this opportunity for a long while. It was to be a two-year assignment. They stayed for five. In Singapore Slingshot, he presents a collection of anecdotes on living as an expat in Singapore and his travels through nineteen countries over three job changes. Brutally honest in his opinions, he managed to keep a sense of humor as he often struggled and occasionally succeeded in establishing his life as an expat. Nickerson offers a glimpse not only beyond what can be taught in books about conducting business in high-growth Asian economies but also at a level much different than what is shown in the often sugarcoated and tourist-centric travel guides. Singapore Slingshot paints a vivid picture of what it’s like living and learning on the fly in one of the most dynamic and diverse regions of the world. Both humors and poignant, Nickerson’s tales of living in Asia are ultimately a reflection of a much more personal internal journey every expat eventually takes. He saw his life change in ways he couldn’t have imagined while the experience gave him a much different view of the world and his place in it.
About the Author
Mark Nickerson is a fifteen-year veteran of the high-tech industry. His work and an insatiable appetite for travel have taken him to more than thirty countries, including a five-year stint living in Singapore. He currently resides in Granville, Ohio, where he is a consultant to the tech-industry, writer, and editor.