Retrospective: Singapore

Three years ago I lived in Singapore. It was great. Sometimes I worry it was easiest fun I ever had. I just wrote this retrospective for a writing comp about the city. As I want to milk all my writing for all the lactose its worth, I'm posting it here too:

 

Singaporeans say "The early bird catches the Hello Kitty." I'm not sure what this means, but I know Singapore. And, I know it better than the international departure lounge that its fast becoming. It is easy to treat this country as a dose of western comfort, before the dirt of adventure. But to do this does this, does this Great City-State a great-disservice.

If Singapore, to you is, Changi airport and Orchard Road; then Russia will only ever be Communists and Vodka or better still Thailand will be the "Beach" and a Full Moon party. If you can’t find  what you’re looking for in Singapore, you wont find it anywhere.

This place has the confidence of the British-Raj, the dash of a Tamil curry, the spice of the Malay, the sharp kick of the Fujian Chinese all topped off with a splash of the Middle East - a perfect cocktail. This is the REAL Singapore-sling.

From surfing on the West coast, to kicking back a few Singer beers in Clemente, to looking at thousand lights form a hundred ships at a beach side bar at Sentosa, this state really has it all. People might say, Belgium is a  like the Netherlands, but you’d never say Singapore is like anywhere else on earth.  You can run across the city in a day and it’s as varied as cruising from Sham-el Sheki to Shanghai. Of course the Singaporeans would inevitably disagree. Actually, they’d just say what I’m saying better, they'd cry  “No! No! Same, same but different-laa”.

Just listen to these train stations: At Dhoby Ghaut get your Haute couture, change at Buena Vista and get a great cheap eat, and slip on through to Haw Pa Villa, where you will see Bizarre of Singapore at its best. They're building a Mountbatten station too. Sensational.

Now I don’t want anyone to thing that Singapore is simply an fusion of cultures. It is. But it isn’t. In the same way that Picasso used Paint, you wouldn’t call his paintings an amalgamation of colours. This country is far more than its historical parts and its wave of settling people.

This country is the home of the contradiction. Fiercely proud individuals elect a democratic autocracy. Collective, Competition is a definition of Singapore. You’re on your own in Singapore, that is until a Singaporean will invite you home for Chiken-Rice. Don’t ask the time either they’ll respond with “Its Tiger time!” unless you do actually want a Beer.

Ive seen queues in Singapore form simply because a queue was forming. That’s another thing, Singaporeans don’t want to miss out on anything – they call it “Kiasi” its crazy-laa.  Now they say that English is the national Language, but its not really. Like everything in Singapore, its really Singaporean-laa. Laa’s Singlish. Like Hello Kitty, I don’t know what it means either.

Besides if you ever did bend your ear around to Singlish, you’ll be stumped by the constant abbreviations. PIE, MRT, SBS, ERP, SMS, IPPT, NCC, CTE. or to use another T.I.S baby. This.Is.Singapore.