When he applied for a job, he thought he would be a waiter in a coffee house.
When he arrived in Singapore. He worked as a cleaner in a coffee shop for four months. He then 'promoted' to a waiter.
I told him that it was very popular in Singapore for us to have our meals in air-conditioned coffee house. There would be peaceful music, refined environment and delicious western foods.
When we entered the coffee house, the waiter would come to serve you. After taking order, the waiter would serve the soup and toast, followed by the main course, and finally a cup of tea or coffee with dessert.

It is hardly to see that type of coffee house nowadays.
In the HDB housing estate, we often see a larger shop house operated as a coffee shop. The owner will sell tea and coffee and rent out the other stalls. There will be cooked foods. There are usually small Chinese restaurant, Teochew porridge, noodle, Malay foods and Indian foods sellers. The coffee shop is different from the coffee house. The coffee shop is out of doors, without air-conditioned, noisy. The waiters are not that soft-spoken. After taking the order, they shouted loudly to make the orders. In the recent years, other than the local coffee aunties and uncles, there are many foreign handsome coffee boys and pretty coffee girls.

When the waiter sends the foods to us, we will pay immediately with any bills and receipts.

I thought that when the Singapore agent told the China agent about the job of waiter for the coffee shop. The China agent and Fan might take it as a waiter for a coffee house. Fan and the China agent might not see any coffee shop in Singapore; they might take it as the Star Buck in China. When I was very young, there were coffee shops. But the coffee houses were vanished many years ago.

Many years ago, the street hawkers moved to the Hawker Centres. There will be a few stalls selling tea and coffee in a hawker centre.

Although the national language of Singapore is Malay and the official language is English, but the language used in coffee shop is the mixture of local languages. This is our coffee shop culture. We speak Mandarin with Chinese dialects, Malay and Indian.

I used to drink tea. That is the tea with milk and we call it 'teh' (It is Hokkien and Malay.)
I drink thin tea, that we call it 'teh bok'. I take care of my health and take less sweetener milk, that is 'teh bok siew dai'. If you like to have more milk, you have to mention 'kar dai'.
Some other coffee shop terms are as follows:
teh-o: tea with sugar, but without milk.
teh-o bok: thin tea with sugar and without milk.
teh-o kosong: tea without sugar and without milk.
teh gau: thick tea with sugar and milk.
teh beng: iced tea with sugar and milk.

Indian style coffee and tea	Toast of Chinese coffee shop
There will be a tea spoon for tea made by Chinese	The Indian teh talek. No spoon as already stirred.
Hot coffee	Iced tea

My son likes to drink coffee to keep him awake in class.

We call coffee as 'kopi' in the coffee shop. The various styles of coffee are called similarly as the tea above.

The tea sold by the Chinese and Indian are different taste and the ways it was prepared are slightly different.

The Chinese added the milk into the tea cup and serve you directly. You can see the milk at the bottom of the cup.

The Indian add the sugar and milk into the bigger mug and mix well. Then the tea will be poured from the mug to the cup and vice versa for a few times. You can see the foam in the cup and no spoon needed.

Other than tea and coffee, the coffee shop serves toast with kaya (coconut jam) and butter. If you ask for a set breakfast, the will be two half-boiled eggs.