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Travelogues
Skyscrapers Blocking Mountain Views:
A Singapore Sojourn
by
Rajesh Talwar
 A
week prior to my departure to Singapore I had been told by a
friend that I should keep my expectations from the city low.
The people in the city, he said, would be cold and
unresponsive. The city, according to him, was all metal and
glass and very expensive to boot.
At 67 USD per night, the Copthorne Orchid, my hotel in
Singapore was less than half of what I had paid in Dubai,
and the accommodation turned out to be even more spacious.
The city was certainly expensive but at least on the
accommodation front I found it to be reasonable. At the
airport when I hailed a taxi, I suddenly forgot the
Copthorne part of the name of my hotel. The taxi driver
shook his head. The orchid was the national flower of
Singapore and there were more than a dozen hotels with the
orchid suffix. Luckily, I remembered that my hotel was
situated on Dunean Road; there was only one Orchid suffixed
hotel there.
As Kim Lee, my English speaking Chinese taxi driver drove me
through the city I saw that the metal and glass my friend
has spoken of was certainly present in abundance, but there
was also great deal of greenery all around. Tina, a friend’s
friend, a Malaysian who worked in Singapore and showed me
around told me that in the last ten years as a result of
afforestation, the city’s temperature had dropped by one
degree: this had translated in a saving of hundreds of
thousands of dollars in terms of electricity and power
requirements. I could well believe this.
 The
Botanical Gardens are sprawled over acres and acres of
territory, and you could easily spend a couple of days
wandering inside if you were so inclined. Take care though
that you don’t pluck a leaf from a tree, let alone a flower;
this could be something you could be arrested for in
Singapore.
By the way, for more serious offences they still have
the practice of caning. Remember the American who was to be
caned some years ago. This caning is no ordinary headmasters
caning that an errant school boy might have, in years gone
past, received in a British public school, but following
just one administration of the stick by a professional
caner, the ‘canee’ needs to be admitted to hospital. A
sentence of three canings might therefore take one and a
half years to administer.
Instances of such severity aside, did I find the people cold
and unresponsive as my friend had warned me? Certainly they
didn’t stand with folded hands in front of the elevator
mouthing ‘Swadee Kha’, which had been the case at Baiyoke
Sky Hotel, the hotel I had stayed at in Bangkok, but did I
expect that kind of courtesy, subservience, call it what you
will, in a much richer country – and more to the point did I
even want that? Immigration was vastly more pleasant and
professional than it had been in Dubai. Kim Lee the taxi
driver was chatty, friendly, articulate and spoke such
excellent English, that I felt compelled to try and persuade
him to go back to University, get a degree and try and find
a better vocation. And in my subsequent encounters with
various people in the city, I did not find them to be
unfriendly – at least not more so than you would expect to
find in a metropolis. But perhaps it was beneficial for me
to have arrived in this country with low expectations.
Singaporeans themselves do make some self-depreciating
comments about their materialistic attitudes. Ling Chang, my
tour guide spoke of how it’s very difficult for a
Singaporean man to find a Singaporean lady for purposes of
marriage. That’s because, she explained laughingly, the
women are looking for five C’s in a potential matrimonial
candidate: C for Cash, C for Credit Card, C for Car, C for
Condominium and lastly C for Career. And for this reason the
men nowadays prefer to sidestep demanding Singaporean to
marry a Vietnamese or a Chinese from Malaysia or even
mainland China.
There are tourist attractions being planned in Singapore,
and prominent among these are Las Vegas style casinos.
Massive construction is taking place a few hundred yards
away from the famous Singapore Malion, the iconic half lion,
half fish that belches out water from its mouth. The
Government wants foreigners to come and lose their money. At
the same time, in their paternalistic style of governance,
they don’t want to create any social problems that may arise
from gambling by Singaporeans themselves and so they have
provided free entry for visitors to their country but for a
Singaporean who wishes to enter the casino there will be a
prohibitive hundred-dollar entry fee.
Singapore may earn money through tourist attractions such as
the casino but it will thereby lose some of its charm for
despite the metropolitan life style there still survives in
parts of the city and in the overall experience a sense of
quietness in a visitor’s experience of the city. Tourists
must do the obligatory cable car journey or road trip to the
Sentosha Island, but this place is to my mind at least is
simply a money spinning highly touristy island – they don’t
serve pork snacks out of respect for the money that their
Middle Eastern tourists bring – that cannot compare with any
of the beautiful islands of Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia.
It is far too commercialized. Even the famous Son et Lumiere,
for all its incredible hi tech psychedelic presentation
seemed rather too ‘Disneyland’ to me.
I reached Singapore just a few days before the Formula One
race slated for September. At Clarke Quay there were boats
running down the river, which charged sixty dollars or so,
for a chance to catch a glimpse of the practice sessions.
The cheapest tickets began at five hundred dollars apiece,
but that was only part of the expense for enthusiasts who
were flying down for the occasion. Some of the high-rise
hotels in Singapore had rooms on the higher floors that
provided a view of the race and they had upped up their
rates accordingly.
I opted for the cheaper boat ride at eighteen dollars at
ride that didn’t promise a glimpse of the practice sessions,
but saw the glum faces of the passengers on the more
expensive boat ride on their way back – the practice had
been disappointing, I guessed. I heard the screaming of the
tyres soon after embarking on the river cruise, and through
much of the ride, so I can honestly say that I heard the F 1
rehearsals even if I didn’t see any!
Within Singapore I did find Serangoon Street to have a very
interesting ambience and atmosphere. Crowded like a market
in Tamil Nadu would be, the merchandise were labeled and
stacked like they would be in shops there, but at the same
time, patriotic sentiments apart, the area did not have the
untidiness and general squalor that quite often accompanies
such places. The famous street falls within an area that
goes by the name of Little India but is certainly not
representative of the north, east, west and centre of the
subcontinent, and despite an occasional North Indian
restaurant it is really a part of South India, and that too
mainly Tamil Nadu, that appears magically transported and
transplanted into an organized commercial territory.
 Admittedly
the markets of Little India cater to an underclass of South
Indian laborers working in Singapore but aside from the rock
bottom purchases you can make in the shops that dot the area
it has an authentic interesting atmosphere about it, which
includes ancient looking temples with meticulous carvings. I
would recommend anyone visiting Singapore to go to Little
India.
They could skip China Town, which has the same old red
Chinese lanterns and souvenirs being sold that you could
find in any other part of the world. Little India in
Singapore on the other hand is very distinctive. If you
think about it, it doesn’t seem illogical. Singapore after
all is already 90 percent modern Chinese, and it’s
artificial to try and create an enclave of long ago China
within it.
Anyone who visits Singapore will
almost certainly make it to Orchard Road, a shopper’s
paradise. You will find all the brand names here, and in a
high-rise building called Orchard Towers you will find sex
workers in the first five floors. There are bars on all
floors and the girls will be inside persuading you to buy
drinks. Ironically enough, I found that this part of
Singapore was really sleazy, and if I were to compare
Bangkok with Singapore, the former would be miles ahead in
providing some style and quality to the sex trade. Perhaps
though this too should not be surprising. Geneva’s red light
area in sparkling clean Switzerland, voted recently as the
cleanest country in the world, is also very sleazy. A
possible reason: countries that have high GDP will provide
low quality prostitution because most people are doing well
enough and there simply isn’t enough competition. This is
not to say that women are not available for sex without a
customer making much effort. I had two massages in a five
star hotel, and in both instances the women were
disappointed that I wasn’t interested in ‘extra services’. A
‘happy ending’ as the expression goes.
The cost of living is high in Singapore and it’s not easy to
make two ends meet. A modern Westernized city it reminded me
of India, when Anne Melrose, a social worker explained to me
how grown up children continued to live with their parents
because they couldn’t afford housing. ‘In Singapore, when a
boy wants to get married to a girl,’ she smiled at my
surprised expression, ‘he doesn’t go down on bended knees
and ask fervently, “Will you marry me?” Instead he asks her
“Would you like to apply for a Government subsidized
apartment, my dear?’ And she, equally unromantic, will
reply: “Yes, I think that’s a good idea”, or “No, sorrieee,”
as the case may be.”’
The government provides subsidized housing to couples that
are planning to get married. This is because they want to
encourage people to get married and produce babies. There
are incentives to have children, but before children can be
had, in most cases marriages must happen. The couple will
have to wait a long while before an apartment becomes free,
and when it does they will have to furnish proof of their
marriage before they can be permitted to move in.
Once the young couple moves into their apartment, since it
has been provided to them at a subsidized rate, there is a
stipulation that the property cannot be sold for a period of
five years. The property can be sold at a handsome profit
after five years, but there is a second requirement. The
couple must be still married. If divorce happens before the
five years are up, the government will take back the
property.
Anne, the social worker explained to me that Singaporeans
are practical people, so often a couple might have decided
that they can’t stand each other and wish to end their
marriage, but will wait for the five years to be up and sell
the apartment to mutual profit, before they will file a
petition for divorce. The government is up to these games of
these young couple entrepreneurs and have employed sleuths
to try and find out if the continued marriage is a bona fide
one, or merely a marriage of convenience till such time that
the apartment can be sold.
 What
else? Sample a Tiger beer at minus two degrees and spend
half a day at the Singapore Zoo, which uses water barriers
to keep the animals enclosed; there are no cages.
Go across to the durian shaped esplanade theatre, where at
the time I was there a performance of the much-acclaimed
‘Cats- The Musical’ was taking place. Go for a boat
ride on the river and have a delicious meal at any of the
river front restaurants at Clarke Quay. If you are feeling
adventurous try some Chili Crab, a Singaporean specialty
even if the crabs are mostly imported from Sri Lanka. Follow
this up with an Ice Kacang with fruit toppings of your
choice; it is a more sophisticated, hygienic and larger
version of the ‘barf ka golas’ I frequently tried
from vendors waiting outside school in Delhi so many years
ago. Drink some fresh dragon fruit juice. Excellent.
Other highlights? I went to the second
highest mountain in Singapore from where on a clear day you
can see Indonesia as well as Malaysia. ‘If a taxi driver
tells you that he is taking you to a place in Singapore half
an hour away, don’t believe him,’ my taxi driver had joked.
‘Nothing in Singapore is more than twenty five minutes away
– unless there is rush hour traffic – and if it takes longer
you are probably entering Malaysia.’
If you are planning to go to Singapore you are well advised
to take an Indonesian and Malaysian visa if you need it. It
would be a shame to visit Singapore and not take a half hour
ferry ride to the nearest Indonesian island, or take a half
hour bus or taxi ride to Joha Baru, one of Malaysia’s large
provinces that adjoin it. Day trips to Malaca are also on
offer. Singaporeans feel superior to Malaysians. If you ask
a Chinese Singaporean his views on Malaysia, he might say,
with some truth, that Singapore is more meritocratic; in
Malaysia they have reservations and benefits that are
reserved for the Malays. He might also say that it is the
hardworking Chinese Malays who are responsible for the
economic success of Malaysia. As proof of his argument he
will point to lagging behind Indonesia. ‘The Indonesians are
the same as the Malays,’ a Chinese Singaporean girl, who
worked in an advertising company, told me. ‘If you look at
them there is little difference. They read the same books
and their language is more or less the same. So then why is
Malaysia doing so much better than Indonesia?’ She paused a
few seconds for dramatic effect. ‘Its because there are few
Chinese in Indonesia.’
Why did I go to see the second highest
mountain in Singapore and not the highest? It’s because the
highest mountain has the view obscured by one of the city’s
tallest skyscrapers. Yes, that’s true. In Singapore some of
the skyscrapers are as tall as the highest mountains this
city-state can boast of.
October 24, 2009
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