Singapore Slings

Singapore

In 2009 I returned to Singapore. I first went to Singapore in 1973. It has changed a little since then. It is the fastest growing country in the world. Literally! Its land area has grown through reclamation by almost 20% since independence.

I have lived in Asia for forty years. While I enjoy the sights and sounds of ‘real’ Asia, it was always nice (and still is) to retire to some normality and efficiency from postings in such ‘more exotic’ places as Kolkata, Karachi, Kupang and Kendari!

Singapore is ‘nice’. It is ‘orderly’. It ‘works’. Its achievements are impressive. If there is a perfect place in the world, I have yet to find it. Does Singapore come close? Unfortunately, its ‘fine and orderly’ qualities are sometimes its drawbacks. Control is great, but it is also obvious. Singapore is man made and whilst the result is comfortable and impressive, it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi!

Take a recent visit by a BBC TV crew doing a series on the gardens of the world’s cities. The narrator described Singapore’s green façades as unnatural, soulless attempts to be what it can never be – naturally beautiful.

I understood his point, but it does not ruin for me the remarkable qualities of such a small city-state.

I love walking through the city’s delightful botanic gardens, and especially visiting the amazing orchid gardens. And if that is not enough, I go out to the Mandai Orchid Gardens. They are all sights to behold. Hundreds of acres of orchids. Truly breathtaking. My friend Andree Millar from PNG university days would be in her seventh heaven here.  She probably is, and is looking down at it and smiling. There is even an orchid in the gardens that is named after her.

If orchids are not your thing try hiking through the many kilometers of forest paths in Macritchie Reservoir park where people DON’T feed the monkeys – it is against the law. Even the monkeys know. But hundreds of locals avail themselves of the reserves and it is wonderful to see.

In the remnant forests, of which there are an amazing number, Singapore surprises. You can see thousands of migratory birds in the Sungei Buloh wetlands, if you can brave the monstrous monitor lizards that look for all the world like crocodiles from a distance.

You can see troupes of monkeys in the center of the city at Macritchie and the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. You can enjoy a bike ride along the empty roads of Pulau Ubin. You can walk along many kilometers of shaded walkways through forests or park connectors or ride your bike virtually from one side of the country to the other, mostly on dedicated bike paths.

Everything is orderly and it is clean, and that is a blessing. Considered one of the cleanest, greenest cities in the world, Singapore is an amazing success story. At just 700 square kilometers, it has an annual GDP that competes with leading nations of Europe.

It is the world’s fourth most competitive economy, even ahead of the United States. The lion city also boasts a high standard of living, low unemployment, and a literacy rate of 98 percent. Singapore has twelve times the population of Vancouver but just half the crime rate.

With statistics like these, it is no wonder that Singapore attracts so many visitors. However, visitors beware! Singapore has strict laws and severe penalties. 
Drugs is the biggest no no. Carry any into the country and you are on death row before you can say ‘wanna fix?’ Although Singapore does not hand out the death penalty randomly, Amnesty International figures claim that Singapore has one of the world’s highest rates of execution relative to its population. The Singaporean government hanged 340 people between 1991 and 2001. 70 percent of those executions were for drug offences.

For those lucky enough to escape hanging, caning is a favored punishment prescribed for roughly thirty crimes in Singapore, including attempted murder, armed robbery, immigration offences, and vandalism.

Which ever way you look at it, caning is a barbaric act where trained personnel slash a six-foot-long, one-inch- thick cane across the hapless victim’s buttocks. The victim’s ankles are strapped onto a heavy metal frame. Their wrists are similarly locked, with only their naked backsides exposed. 
The caner takes a mighty swipe and your imagination can deal with the result.

For the most part, Singaporeans are happy with the draconian laws and the big brother eye. Things work here, and when they don’t, alarm bells ring.

Despite—or maybe because of—living in the lee of massive development and stringent control, Singaporeans are a funny bunch with strange attitudes.

Only a few days before I wrote this, I was in a taxi driving along the East Coast Parkway, the main six lane highway from the airport to the city. A newspaper blew over the road in front of us. The driver turned apoplectic!

‘It must be terrorists!’ he said.

I kid you not. I had visions of Singapore wiped out under a sheet of discarded newspapers. Baghdad or Kabul should be half so lucky!

Or consider this example. In which other country on the planet can you hear this conversation? (OK, Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco)

The scene. I am being driven round by a real estate agent looking for a house. We are near Punggol in the east of the country. We are running late. My agents phone rings.

‘Hi Nancy, sorry, we are running a little late. We are on the other side of the country to you. We will be there in ten minutes.’

Some unkindly refer to the place as a city and its leader as the mayor. But Singapore punches well above its weight, and, despite failings, its success has been remarkable.

But beneath the iron fist of control lies a repressed society. Jaywalk at your own risk. Chew gum and face thousands of dollars in fines or a jail sentence of up to a year. Government leaflets warn of other civic violations with heavy fines such as spitting, littering, or dropping cigarette butts on the street.

There are even leaflets telling you that you must regularly check the safety of your windows! Why? Basically, because when the HDB flats (government housing) were built, the government skimped on costs and the windows they approved for installation turned out to be ‘rickety’.

So whose responsibility is it to keep them safe? Not the builder! Not the government! Definitely nor the government! IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!!

Singapore’s public transport is exceptional. (Mind you, executives of their largest taxi company recently visited Jakarta to find out why that chaotic city’s famed Blue Bird taxis were so successful!) But for public transport like buses and trains, Singapore is well served.

Not that everything is smooth riding! I recall taking the MRT from Bedok to the city. As we approached the next station (Kembangan) the never-ending PA told us that we were approaching Tampines. Passengers stopped playing with their mobiles and reading their papers and looked puzzled. When we left Kembangan and the PA announced that the next station would be Pasir Ris (instead of Eunos), something approaching pandemonium broke out.

People broke into a cold sweat. One whimpered. Others looked as if it was the end of the world. What was wrong? Another terrorist attack from a newspaper strewer? Did they need the PA to tell them that they could get off at the next stop?

The trouble with being ultra efficient is that once you lose control, you lose!

The MRT is touted as a wonderful success, and indeed Singapore’s public transport is great.

Who needs a car? No one, really. But while it is a great system, there are others in Asia which are better, Hong Kong and Taipei to name two. Why? On the lines run by the SMRT, signaling equipment is not able to cope with a frequency of more than one train every three and a half minutes. Trains are so over crowded that it is sometimes impossible to get on. PA announcements are often made NOT TO BOARD the next train as the sardines already packed on to it would suffocate.

Add more trains? They cannot! The system is all ready over stretched. Taipei and Hong Kong’s systems can handle trains less than 90 seconds apart. Singapore’s cannot. If the HK and Taipei systems can handle twice as many trains as Singapore’s, does that make them twice as good?

Maybe the new Circle line to be opened in 2010 will be better. After the SMRT (and the government and the owners) have finished spending a few billion on it they might consider upgrading their signaling on the older lines. But that would mean actually spending a little money on it. Does it really matter that the plebs have to stand for their average 30 minute commute? Not at all! The MRT is for heartlands people after all. Not the well to do.

Mind you, if they were to spend some more to bring the system up to scratch, more people would use it. Then it might stand a chance of being almost as good as the systems in Hong Kong and Taipei.

Do I enjoy Singapore? I love it. The arts scene is good without being stunningly brilliant. Plays and musicals are strictly controlled and censored. Art exhibitions must be vetted. Newspapers might just as well be written by the Government.

What I miss is the biting press freedom that made Indonesia a remarkable bastion of freedom of speech, even under Soeharto. I have sometimes thought that Singapore’s The Straits Times is incorrectly named. It should be called The Straightjacket Times. 

It has to be one of the world’s most boring papers. I mean where else in the world would you find the entire front-page story given to the need for fun when learning Mandarin, as proposed by the MM. The MM? If you have never been to Singapore, you will be puzzled, but let’s just say that it’s not chocolates.

Sometimes I think that the only useful purpose for The Straits Times is to pick up dog droppings. But oh dear, how wrong can I be? One day I actually read a couple of articles approaching adequate investigative journalism. One was an article about ‘Dr Poh: Why I parted company with PAP’, by journalists Cai Haoxiang and Jeremy Au Yong

Dr. Poh Soo Kai was a former Barisan Sosialis leader. He was detained under Operation Cold Store when he returned to Singapore after living in Canada for nearly two decades. Now an old man, he wanted to set the record straight. The article outlined his early life as a dissident and opponent of the ‘dynasty’.  He also talked about how his life had been affected by his long detention without trial.

As far as Straits Times articles go, this was a lulu! This is what journalism should be about. The only other meaningful in depth articles they print deal with the failures of Indonesia and Malaysia. Malaysia particularly.

Heartened, I started to read more often. The following morning, though, I lost my faith again.

Take this article on the front page. What else would you print? An earthquake had hit Haiti, Marcos Baghdatis had retired injured from the Australian Open, The Sultan of Johor had died: so what was the headline?

Read on.

‘It’s not every day that a government minister gets playful and sprays water on schoolchildren. But this happened on Saturday when Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was at an event honouring the efforts of Corporation Walk residents to create a pocket of greenery in their estate in Taman Jurong. Mr Tharman, who is also MP for Jurong GRC, was watering a bonsai that he had planted in the garden when he gave a wet surprise to some pupils from Lakeside Primary School. They squealed in delight

And so it droned on. Umm. OK. So it is important that we have nice gardens. And is it not wondrous that Singapore’s MPs can be sprayed playfully and the culprits are not sent to the firing squad? I turned over the page.

As someone who blogs and networks intensely on Facebook, Foreign Minister George Yeo holds dear this principle: Be honest. For it is easy to be found out, he said on Friday, as he offered personal insights and stories from his online life.

'In this new world, it's trust that enjoys the special premium,' he said. 'If you are unable to be comfortable with yourself and be truthful in the presentation of yourself, you will be discovered very quickly. Perhaps in the past, that was not as important, but going into the future, it is important; be what you are, and be accepted for what you are.' He noted that Singaporeans loved posting about people, and responding to posts. Once, he posted a comment saying that he ate very good char kway teow. Over two days, a torrent of comments and reviews from food-lovers arrived.

Now how is that for uplifting journalism? At least a few weeks back the paper ran a story pointing out that Singapore’s domain name, SG, was amongst the least secure in the world. I tried to search for the article as I wrote this chapter, but strangely, it was not archived.

Mind you, I could be searching under the wrong words. I should have looked under ‘unsubstantiated criticisms’ – which when I have done so in the past takes me to Malaysian paper’s web sites such as The Star and the New Straits Times.

Sadly, much of what The Straits Times prints is inane twaddle. What else can they do? On the world’s rankings of freedom of the press, Singapore is way behind such stellar performers as Indonesia.

Now that is a story! Maybe my next book should be about that, but I will have to wait till I return to Malaysia before I write it.