Return to Singapore 1995

"Oh, okay, thank you, young man!" After finishing speaking, the old man closed his eyes and rested, feeling still uncomfortable.

Singapore’s ambulances are extremely efficient, and of course the entire island is only so big. The ambulance arrived quickly a few minutes later and took the old man away.

After the ambulance left, the yellow-haired waiter gave Li Xiaofan a thumbs-up and said, "This big brother is awesome. What a surprise. Do you live nearby?"

"Well, yes, our dormitory is right next to the Orchid Flower Village HDB."

"May I ask your surname?"

"My name is Li Xiaofan, the Li of Muzi Li, the Xiao of knowing, and the ordinary Fan!"

"Oh, hello Li Xiaofan! Let me meet you. My name is A Bin, from Wen Wu Bin. My full name is Chen Li Bin. I come from Sarawak, East Malaysia. I am currently working as an assistant in the kitchen of Zui Ba Xian Restaurant. I also live here. Hanacun HDB, then we can be considered neighbors.”

This A Bin looks to be in his early twenties, about 1.75 meters tall, on the thin side, and his hair is dyed the most popular tawny color nowadays. He is a little bit arrogant, but he can tell that he is very simple at heart.

"Hello, Abin, nice to meet you! Just call me Afan."

"Afan, do you have a phone number so that we can contact you when we have time in the future?"

Li Xiaofan thought for a moment and left the phone number of his dormitory to A Bin.

"Afan, this is my pager number. Remember to contact me often when you have time. Let's hang out together when you have time!"

A Bin took out a card from the restaurant, wrote his pager number on it and handed it to Li Xiaofan.

…

When Li Xiaofan re-entered the restaurant, a group of people were looking for him.

"Oh shit, Ah Fan, why did it take so long?" Ah TAN joked with a few boys.

Today, Ah TAN is the only Malaysian worker friend invited, and he can also be regarded as an old foreign friend of the mainland workers.

"Haha, I just passed by a convenience store and bought a bottle of foreign wine to cheer me up!"

Li Xiaofan Liangliang was holding a 700 ml bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey, which he had just passed by the 7-11 convenience store and bought.

At this time, everyone inside had already drank ten dozen fresh beers. This fresh beer is not cheap. The tax rate on tobacco and alcohol is relatively high in Singapore, so many local Singaporeans drive to Johor, Malaysia, opposite to consume it on weekends. The gasoline, tobacco and alcohol there are much cheaper than in Singapore.

Letting everyone drink whiskey can save some money. Although his family is well off, after all, all he earns from working outside is hard-earned money.

As he spoke, "Come on, make way, the barbecue manta ray is here!" The waitress brought up a large basin of delicious barbecue seafood with banana leaves, and the tangy spicy smell could be smelled from a distance.

BBQ Manta Fish! Before his rebirth, Li Xiaofan watched the Singapore episode of "Twelve Taste of Flavors". Nicholas Tse and Gui Lunmei searched for delicious food all over Singapore. One of the stops was Newton Circle Food Center, which was actually a Newton food stall. Nicholas Tse took Gui Lunmei to taste the barbecue manta ray dish.

BBQ Manta Ray is one of the most popular local seafood barbecue dishes in Singapore. Grilled manta ray is also called stingray. It looks a bit unorthodox, black and flat, like a black cattail fan. The way this fish is cooked in Singapore is to coat fresh fish with a special sauce and grill it on a banana leaf. It is different from other methods of applying sauce after grilling. This local special sauce in Singapore includes secret ingredients such as sambal paste, dried chili peppers, lemongrass, turmeric, dried shrimps, etc.

The special local sambal sauce is the soul of this dish.

After grilling, the surface of the manta ray is covered with a thick layer of red sambal sauce, and the fish meat is tender when pinched.

Squeeze a few more limes on it and taste it. Classic Southeast Asian flavor, heavy + sour and spicy, very delicious!

It tastes tender and tender, with a spicy and sour taste, making it extremely tender and delicious.

This was the first time he tasted authentic barbecue manta ray after his rebirth. Li Xiaofan took a big bite and had another sip of ice-cold beer. It felt so satisfying!

Commander Wu came over and put his arm around Li Xiaofan's shoulders and toasted: "Thank you, brother! Ah Fan, we just agreed that after dinner here, Ah TAN will take us all to Geylang for supper in the evening!"

"Hey, we won't go to that kind of place!" Liu Xiaoyue and other girls heard this and made signs of disgust.

ATAN explained seriously: "Haha, don't think wrong, okay? It's the most famous place for late-night snacks in Singapore. If you haven't been to Geylang, you haven't been to Singapore!"

"Come on, come on, let's drink first. Don't discuss this kind of thing in front of the girls. We'll talk about it in private later!"

The speaker was Zhou Haitao, the dormitory director of Li Xiaofan and his dormitory.

Zhou Haitao is 27 years old this year, the oldest among them, and the only college student among Li Xiaofan and his colleagues from mainland China who came to Singapore last year. His hometown is Zhoushan and he graduated from the Engineering College in Hangcheng. After graduating a few years ago, I worked in a tertiary industry material management company under the provincial government. During those years, futures trading boomed in China. Zhou Haitao's company also established a futures trading department. He was selected to participate in the establishment, and it was once famous. At that time, the main product they were involved in business and trading was plywood, commonly known as plywood.

By the end of 1993, faced with the chaos in the futures market, the State Council issued the "Notice on Stopping the Blind Development of the Futures Market" to begin standardization and rectification. In early 1994, the State Council simply shut down the trading of some large futures products such as steel, sugar, and coal.

After the Spring Festival in 1994, the once wildly hyped Shanghai plywood plummeted from 70 yuan to 36 yuan. The tertiary material management company where Zhou Haitao worked was liquidated and the company went bankrupt. All employees had to find their own way out. He signed up to work in Singapore.

Zhou Haitao is currently a second-level technician in the quality assurance QA department of Ximu Electronics Factory, with a monthly salary of 580 SGD. He is the head of dormitory 315 where Li Xiaofan lives.

Dormitory 315 has two rooms, each with two bunk beds and four people.

Ah TAN and Zhou Haitao live in the same room, and Li Xiaofan lives next door to them.

Usually, Zhou Haitao is more serious, and Ah TAN will be scolded when he talks about Geylang. Ah TAN privately nicknamed Zhou Haitao "hypocritical".

After a few beers today, Zhou Haitao seemed to let go. Judging from the way he spoke today, he seemed to be a little eager to try Geylang.

No wonder they say that alcohol and sex are inseparable, and that people indulge themselves to a certain extent after drinking.

After drinking a few glasses of whiskey brought by Li Xiaofan, Zhou Haitao began to recall his past glory.

"Brothers, when our company was glorious, we made millions of dollars a day in the futures market. Then when the boss took us to KTV, each of us asked three girls to accompany us, one to drink, one to massage, and one to sing..."

"Brother Tao, come on, I'll toast you a glass! The past has become history. What can be invested now? Show the brothers a way!" Li Xiaofan said with a smile.