I am a Singaporean who has been living overseas for a while so when I brought my boyfriend here for the first time this week and he wanted to go to the duck tour, I happily obliged. The staff on the ground was friendly and the line was organized but once we were seated and the tour guide started talking, it was a complete disaster.
A mid 50s short hair lady was our tour guide and she was so singlish it was hard for even me to understand. My boyfriend (a native english speaker) needed her singlish translated so that he understood what she was saying. She doesn’t finish sentences or thoughts and is very hard to follow.
The most mortifying parts were:
- She asked us where we were from, she pointed at people and straight up guessed where they were from and I think she was waiting to be corrected. Pointing at people and saying ‘China?’ and then having them shake their head and say they’re from Korea just doesn’t seem right to me.
- She constantly referred to the late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew as the ‘President of Singapore’.
- The casino in the marina bay sands was only referred to as ‘Las Vegas Casino’ ??????? She even pulled out some stats about how it was the biggest in the world (it definitely is not)
- She started telling us the story of how Singapore got its name. At the same time, she decided to play some music since we were all looking bored. She starts narrating a story about Sang Nila Utama while playing an NDP song, with both her phone and mouth simultaneously pressed against the mic. The story is cut short by her own pointing and babbling about the HDB buildings we see in the distance.
- Our boat was full of mostly non native english speakers who checked out of this godawful commentary and someone yawned and she playfully berated them. Unfortunately when an aunty yells at you in broken english, it is neither funny or entertaining. She then clarified by yelling ‘joking! joking!’ and while the message is clear, the tone is not. I’m not sure if they understood what was happening but they definitely did not seem pleased.
- I was very confused by how she said tipping was customary, it might be customary on duck tours but she made it sound like something you just do in Singapore. It definitely sounded like she was misleading us on purpose for her own gain.
Her commentary honestly ruined the experience for me. It was irritating and made me embarrassed to think that this is how some tourists will remember Singapore.
She needs training and some fact checking. The way she speaks does not make her suitable as a tour guide, not because of her use of Singlish but her fragmented sentences and the confusing phrasing of stories.
Especially because duck tours is more expensive than other attractions, I would never recommend this to someone else. The Singapore flyer gives you a great view and pre recorded commentary for a few bucks less. River taxis are cheaper, a ticket to the zoo or night safari is better. You could even go to the water park and still have money left for lunch with the price of one ticket to duck tours.
