The Singapore St Patrick’s Day Parade. Spot the shamrocks in the photo on the right.
We had heard that Singapore was almost freakishly clean and tidy, but when we arrived the train station seemed a little run-down. Summer even noticed some litter. Funny how these little myths build up around a place, I thought.
Outside the train station, Singapore was freakishly clean and tidy.
Our taxi driver explained: "The station belongs to Malaysia. Nobody cares what you do in the station." Indeed. When Singapore and Malaysia divorced in 1965, Malaysia kept the train station.
For no apparent reason, he adds: "Singapore is incorruptible. Don’t ever try to bribe the police. It will make it much worse."
Singapore is rich and highly developed. It’s the only one of the four original Tigers that we are visiting on this trip. The food is wonderful. The shopping is great, particularly for antiques. Parts of the old town and the waterfront are very pretty. The Asian Civilization Museum is the best we’ve seen in the region. Summer and I think that the night safari (a zoo that doesn’t open until 7 pm, where you can - although of course you shouldn’t - reach out and touch flying squirrels and fruit bats and tapirs and other animals that are most active after dark) is one of the best zoos in the world. With GPS in every taxi, immaculate, multi-storey, sealed subway platforms, and video mobile phones, this is one of the few cities in the world that can make New York seem backward. It’s safe for you and the kids. And it’s freakishly clean. It’s kind of like San Diego, except it’s not bankrupt and the houses are cheap.
On the other hand, this is the place that restricts both chewing gum and dissent. One notice threatened a $1000 fine for riding your bike through a pedestrian tunnel. When I stepped into the street to hail a cab, drivers rolled down their windows and shouted "no, no, that’s illegal." When I stepped across an invisible line in a Chinatown restaurant I was told "the government says you cannot go there unless you have been vaccinated against typhoid." (I have been, but why quibble?) I had to produce my passport to buy some antibiotics. Over-zealous zoning means that in some areas you can’t find a corner store and in some places you can’t find anything else. The media is state-controlled. They hang people for dealing marijuana. And don’t ever try to bribe the police. It will make it much worse.
Singapore is a parliamentary democracy. While we were there, an opposition politician who had criticized government officials (during an election, if you can imagine that), been sued for defamation, lost, failed to pay the fine, gone bankrupt, and then dared to suggest that the Singaporean judiciary lack independence, was jailed for refusing to apologize.
It may seem surprising to western-educated liberals that people put up with this. But as a friend in Singapore explained, most of these restrictions have very little effect on the average citizen. Socially conservative laws including the harsh penalties for drug crimes are very popular. And most importantly, government policies have made people here very rich, very fast. Forty years ago, the sewerage system in parts of Singapore consisted of a team of men going door to door collecting buckets. Today the place is so clean that they restrict the sale of chewing gum just to avoid staining the sidewalks. Karl Rove would understand the argument: rich, happy people don’t throw out the incumbent.
No management team can keep delivering year after year. Singapore is now too rich - too rich to compete with China and India as a center of low-cost manufacturing. Instead, like the US and Western Europe, they have to move up the value chain, into media, software, and biotech. And they are struggling to attract from abroad and to develop at home the kind of creative people, both artists and entrepreneurs, necessary to make the transition. The best known example is the gay bait and switch: Singapore is going for the pink dollar, even though homosexual acts are still punishable by up to ten years in jail. But our favorite example was the sign outside the Supreme Court advertising - of all things - a grafitti workshop.
