Saturday, September 13, 2008

No, Just Singapore

A friend of mine received a wedding invitation recently addressed to her in "Singapore, China." I'm not surprised. When I was changing my address at US Bank on the phone, the girl hesitated when I told her Singapore. She said, "Now that's in Japan, right?"

Perfectly understandable mistakes. It's difficult to understand the concept of a single island with a single name, not large enough that it needs to be divided by cities.

This difficulty is most pronounced when attempting to do things online. Websites aren't made for this possibility, so I usually have to enter in
City: Singapore
State: Singapore
Country: Singapore

And then I've had things come to me in "Singapore, Singapore, Singapore."

On Facebook, when I tried to enter in my current location, and I said simply "Singapore" it wanted to place me in Singapore, South Africa. So I'm in Singapore, Singapore.

Sometimes if it's not something that will be mailed to me, I get creative by entering in the neighborhood I live in, like this, "Serangoon, Singapore."

Is there no where else in the world with this problem? And why can't places that ship internationally account for this?

2 comments:

Chris B. said...

It seems to me that Monaco must have the same problem. Vatican City, however, probably does not, because they can say they reside within Italy. Or maybe they just put "This is for the Pope" on it and send it through Catholic mail.

Anonymous said...

If I had a nickel for every time someone said "Singapore, now that's in China right??" with this strange look on their face (the same look I imagine people having the first time you tell them that in the southern hemisphere toilets flush in the opposite direction)... I would have a lot of nickels.