Life and other weird things

I'm going to be leaving Singapore in a few weeks from now.

It's been a good year, for the most part, and here I am, suffering from (yet another) bout of insomnia blogging about the general experience of living here for the last 11 months.

By any account, Singapore is a unique place. Most people I know crib about this being a place 'without culture' and 'devoid of excitement'. At the very outset, here's saying that this is patently wrong. The truth is that - most people(locals and tourists) have no clue how varied Singaporean culture is - and how exciting it can be to give a miss to those overpriced and garish malls on Orchard Road and have a meal at a coffee shop underneath a HDB apartment. It just matters where you look.

Most of the prats I meet here from India have not taken the opportunity to explore this tiny island and see the amazing variety of life, food and culture - even in the ample time of a whole year. Where else in the world can you go walking from an ultra modern business district to a charming old neighborhood that is Telok Ayer in less than 5 minutes ?

True - not all is utopia in Singapore; yet, what place is ?

Let me start with the good. The average Singaporean is hard working and generally honest. I haven't seen the 'rip off' tendency in any local service provider - even people at the low end of the chain - like taxi drivers and shop keepers are almost consistently polite and honest. Every call I make to a local call centre is answered, and each time - any problem I have had has been dealt with and solved. There have been times when a taxi drivers have taken me along longer routes than normal to reach a place - and on arriving at my destination the driver has apologised to me and knocked a couple of dollars off the meter rate. The Chinese coffee shop uncle under my HDB apartmentis as friendly as the tapri owner near my house in Pune, and I like the way both of them throw my cup of tea at me over the table each morning.
And the kicker is - and I don't think anyone can prove me wrong -Singapore just happens to be the safest place in the world at present. I have walked in deserted streets at 2am here with money in my pocket and not felt in the least bit unsafe.In complete contrast - I remember nearly soiling myself at the unhealthy hour of 11pm while taking a train ride from Kings Cross to Luton last year when a group of shaven headed tattoo bedecked teenagers boarded my compartment and gave me some distinctly unfriendly looks.

Now, for the not-so-good. The average Singaporean is the most paranoid, pretentious and selfish person. In the local lingo - it's called kiasu, which I think is Hokkien for 'afraid to lose'. Examples of this are seen everywhere, nowhere more so than at train and bus stations. The bastards can't wait for alighting passengers before they bound in between the doors. And this in a country where people haven't seen crowds anywhere near what exists in Bombay - where I would say a certain amount of paranoia of this sort is warranted. Another classic example of kiasuism is the local peoples' obsession to keep buying new things. A typical evening/weekend consists of a trip to the local mall and coming back either stuffed with food from the food court at the mall, or with a few designer labels.
Even my landlord - one of the least kiasu people on the island - came home one day with a Bravia LCD television the size of my bed. When I asked him what the hell was wrong was wrong with the old set (which incidentally was no mean thing - a 2 year old 29" Sony) he just replied 'New model lah, must buy. Installment what....only 1500 dollar'. Now this may not seem very kiasu, but when I tell you that my landlord doesn't get a fixed salary, and he is a struggling musician who gets paid by the number of shows he does - and has to support a family of 4 - the need of buying a cupboard sized LCD TV does raise some questions.

The same is the case of the people who go out to buy a car in this tiny island. A huge percentage of people in the island are working class - i.e. not millionaires. In fact, most have a just about comfortable life after paying all their bills each month. Were it not for the brilliant public housing scheme of the government - a majority of people here would actually be poor. Yet, they all want to buy a car. The bloody island is 45 km long and 30 km wide - and boasts of one of the best public transport systems in the world. Yet, looking at the morning traffic makes you think that everyone is headed from New York to Philadelphia. The sods spend more time parking their vehicles than making the actual journey. And buying a car in Singapore is not cheap - far from it. There are an astonishingly high number of cars which are impounded every month because of the owners' inability to pay the monthly installment. As one taxi driver told me 'Here, everyone must buy car lah. Mostly to save face one. Neighbor have, you also mus have. Otherwise no face what.'

Most people have a lot to say about how draconian Singapore's laws are. I used to feel the same way when I first came here and realised (the hard way) that littering carries a fine of about $500. But over time - it's only fair. The only things the government fines you for are things you shouldn't be doing in the first place. Come here with heroin - you will be hanged. Spit in public - you will be fined. Most private institutions work with the same mentality these days. In my own firm - fake a Rs.10 bill or leak company secrets - you will be fired. And it's enforcing these kind of laws that has made Singapore one of the safest places to live in today.

One of the things I cannot understand about Singapore is that - in spite of being a bloody rich country with enough money to govern Malaysia and Indonesia, it still has no social security system for the elderly. The government says it wants to run a fair state, not a welfare state. All very fine - but what about those who do not speak English, do not operate computers and generally cannot contribute today to the government's model of a knowledge and service economy ? I am sure they all contributed in some way to the island's lightning last growth from a village in the 1960's to the ultra modern city today. Maybe I just don't get it - but I think one of the first thing a rich country does is to provide heath care and social security of some sort to its retired population.

Anyway - here's my list of things not to miss while in Singapore.
Visit the zoo. It's one of the best in the world. Go cycling to Pulau Ubin. Eat Chilly crab. Have roti prata at Jalan Kayu. Walk through the CBD. Walk through Chinatown. Walk down Serangoon road on a weekend. Walk through the trails at Bukit Timah Reserve. Take the bungee jump at Clarke Quay. Check out the Armenian church, and the Mariamman temple. Take a trek trough Labrador Park. Walk around in MacRitchie reservoir in the morning. Visit the Times bookstore in Vivo City.Actually there are tons of things to do......and blowing money at Sentosa and Orchard road are not among them.

Yeah, in retrospect - it has been a good year. I've explored this tiny island quite extensively. I've eaten an amazing variety of food - which was cheap and great. I've thought about how on earth a swampy village in the 1960's could become one of the most advanced societies on earth in less than 40 years. I've been thrown a cup of tea at me every morning by the Chinese guy downstairs. I've enjoyed listening to the auntie at the coffee shop bellowing her customer's orders so people could hear her from Tampines to Tashkent. I've been told by a rather serious Singaporean that the greatest danger the country faces is the fact that the business district stands on unstable ground that one day very soon it will all come crashing down. I've realised that advanced societies do not produce better bus drivers - and though Singapore has a better bus network than Bombay, I'd lay my last penny betting on the average Bombay bus driver knowing how to brake a bus better than the average Singapore green shirts. I've visited 5 countries from here and seen some amazing sights which will remain with me forever. But mostly, the last few months have been spent looking forward to the nights when I run up my telephone bill to rather obscene limits while talking about nothing to my fiancée.

Which is why I'm returning. I have a little more than 2 months of my bachelor life remaining, and I'm in no mood to spend them here, far from my friends, soaking up the humidity.

So, that's all from here. Take care now. Bye Bye then.