Uniquely Singapore?

May 1, 2006 9:33 PM

What about the East, specifically Singapore, do you find interesting?

I've lived in Singapore all my life and like most people who've lived in one place for a long time, I've become blind to all the little quirks of this country. I take them pretty much for granted.

What have you seen in or heard about Singapore that made you do a double take?

posted by mordecai to society & culture (24 comments total)

Things that come to mind about Singapore that may or may not be helpful to you:

The cleanliness. The shipping. The Parliament House. The importing of food. The American that got caned. Caning. The executions. Lee Kuan Yew. The one island with all the heavy industry. The relative political repression.
posted by loquax at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2006

The food, because it has so many east asian influences (Indian, Malay, Chinese).
posted by special-k at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2006

I'm intrigued by your vehicle tax.
posted by The White Hat at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2006

After spending three months in indonesia-- the ice cream, water that you can drink from the taps, and a second on the food. Other then that not being able to leave singapore without a full tank of gas(half full?) is quirky. The one thing that struck me most though was the contrast between singapore and the surrounding countries.
posted by kechi at 10:04 PM on May 1, 2006

Singapore is the furtherst eastward location I have ever found a halfway-decent comic shop.
posted by scarabic at 10:28 PM on May 1, 2006

I remember reading that at one time (during the Sixties) the punishment in Singapore for importing illegal drugs was the death penalty (for citizens). I remember doing a double take when reading that. Don't know if that was/is still true.
posted by gt2 at 10:47 PM on May 1, 2006

the smell of the Durian definitelly made me do a double take.
posted by tnai at 11:35 PM on May 1, 2006

should probably add, so did the taste.
posted by tnai at 11:35 PM on May 1, 2006

Insane levels of political repression.
posted by delmoi at 12:40 AM on May 2, 2006

a near-complete surveillance state
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:53 AM on May 2, 2006

The OSD!

Where else in the world will the government find you a date?

Oh, and those ads.

Happy smiling mom, dad and adorable moppets. You look at it and you think ... toothpaste? Conditioner? No, it's an ad for marriage. "Why not ... get married?" it says.

I love Singapore. Sure, it's a fascist state, but it's such a cheerful fascist state...
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:08 AM on May 2, 2006

having visited several times in the last few years --
* the food
* clean
* ordered
* food
* friendly (the amount of times a complete stranger has struck up a conversation on the MRT is amazing)
* safe
* the food

i think William Gibsons' "Disneyland with a death penalty" about sums it up, on the surface it's an amazingly happy and friendly place and a fine fine city to spend time, but there's a disturbing dystopian undercurrent about the city. It's what not in the Straits Times, what's not said about the political process, it's just not talked about.

gt2 - yes, an Australian was given the death penalty last year for transporting cocaine through Changi airport.
posted by oliyoung at 3:20 AM on May 2, 2006

Oliyoung beat me to it, but I have the link: Disneyland with the Death Penalty, by William Gibson

The pedestrian crossings that count down how long you have left to cross the road (not unique to Singapore, but I bet either they or the Japanese started it).

Again probably not unique, but the design of the train system (the MRL?) is flawless, down to the lines painted on the platform floor for people to stand behind while others exit the train. And that dual-door system to stop people falling onto the tracks.

Chewing gum is banned.

And the huge, huge, huge department stores. Streets of them.
posted by cogat at 3:53 AM on May 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah, and oral sex is banned. But it's not like I was particularly struck by the lack of oral sex in Singapore.
posted by cogat at 3:55 AM on May 2, 2006

Never been to Singapore, but a close friend is from there.

What strikes me? Singlish--I think it's hysterical. It sounds like the language a bunch of stranded orphan children would speak after having lived on a desert island for 20 years.

The heavy-handed government that, unlike any other such government in the world, has been quite successful in fostering free markets etc.

Also that Singapore may be the only country to have ever been invaded by soldiers on bicycles.
posted by Brian James at 4:35 AM on May 2, 2006

Was there in '95 and again in '05, and what struck me was that nothing had changed. Nothing. Still beautiful, still clean. The cabbies still sounded like time-share shills, and the tour guides gave the same speech nearly verbatim to a decade earlier -- that a woman could walk down the street at 2am unmolested, that there was no homelessness, that the unemployment rate was 0%, that every citizen of age was required to work (again, using the same examples given ten years apart: if you're blind, then you can be a telephone operator! If you're retarded, you can be an assembly line worker! If you're an alcoholic, we will put you in a rehabilitation program while you work!).

For me, the most telling moment was seeing a gorgeous public lakeside park in the middle of the city on a lovely Friday afternoon...and not a soul in it. A society too responsible to consider ditching work for a day...or too afraid of being arrested for not working as required, I don't know.
posted by cdadog at 6:00 AM on May 2, 2006

Hello from across the causeway!

What has made me make a double take recently was how all your media now seems to be owned by the same people. Mediacorp ate up Mediaworks and now TV12 is owned by the same folks behind Channel 5.

That, and how Perfect 10 keeps eating up the best Power 98 DJs. Thank goodness Jeremy Ratnam's still strongly attached. But why steal JayAye?!

(When there is no traffic jam on the causeway, Singapore rather feels like JB part 2. I once was driven there and the roads were clear; I didn't even realize we had reached Singapore until I read the signs clearly and saw that they were in English, not Malay.)
posted by divabat at 7:24 AM on May 2, 2006

Wow, I had no idea Singapore English was so different from standard American or British. I've met tons of people from Sinapore, but I suppose they were all speaking their best proper English for my sake. Does anyone have any links to where I can hear this?
posted by borkingchikapa at 8:21 AM on May 2, 2006

@divabat: i chanced upon asha gill's website a couple of years ago when I got a major crush on her. fancy bumping into the Webmistress here! :) and yeah, Mediacorp owns all TV channels and is also very strongly influenced by the PAP, the ruling party.

Imagine the US with one broadcasting company. Now imagine it's FOX. Well, that's the case in Singapore.

@borkingchikapa: I don't about where you can hear Singlish but Talking Cock is a great place to start, trust me!
posted by mordecai at 10:02 AM on May 2, 2006

sorry, should have given you the direct link to the Singlish Dictionary. my bad :)
posted by mordecai at 10:29 AM on May 2, 2006

I had no idea Singapore English was so different from standard American or British.

Last time I was in Singapore, Jean-Claude Van Damme was in town, and he looked a bit unfit and unfashionable. The headline in the paper was "So Beng-Looking, Lah!".
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:58 AM on May 3, 2006

Like the US a controlling government but without any illusions to the contrary. Fast paced, great food, close to many beautiful locales, safe, clean, and polite sometimes interesting people.
posted by cmacleod at 6:25 AM on May 3, 2006

Interesting people? How do you mean?
posted by mordecai at 7:25 AM on May 3, 2006

About Singaporean English:

Some years ago BBC Radio did a report on a play done entirely in Singlish/Manglish (Malaysian English - similar to Singlish but with more Malay influences). They played a portion of the play, and then the announcer said something about how you'd need to be in Singapore to really understand what the heck they're saying. The whole report cracked me up major because I understood every word and every inflection of the Singlish.

Also, I was on a study-abroad trip with a Singaporean, and often we were the only two people to understand each other. (The Singaporean was really grateful that I was there - I was someone he could go all "lah" and "leh" with!) He taught everyone this Singlish cheer, which eventually became our semi-official anthem.

What really struck me about that cheer and that moment was that, while his government was trying to get his country to speak "proper English", this guy managed to convert 55 people from 27 countries (including US, Europe, and Japan) into Singlish speakers.

solid solid solid solid! we so solid we own self solid! actually other people also solid!
posted by divabat at 7:28 AM on May 3, 2006 [1 favorite]