singapore

  I arrived in Singapore at what seemed like the dead of night at the budget terminal.  SKT picked me up from the airport and drove to the old market area where some of the diners were opening.  We ate an ad hoc yum cha at a plastic table along with a handful of (I presume) shift workers, then went back to his sister's flat and slept maybe half the day. 

When we got up, SKT introduced me to H, his eleven-year-old nephew from Perth, whom he brought with him.  They're visiting family; SKT normally lives in Macau.  H is bright and self-assured and says plenty of knowing, proto-adult things I certainly wouldn't have been saying at the age of eleven (I was a dag).

Later in the afternoon, SKT took me along to the wedding of hip, happening Chinese Christian students.  It was at a bar in a yuppified area off Dempsey Road, which had once been the military barracks.  SKT had spent time there as part of his national service, and provided a lugubrius commentary on the previous uses of some of the buildings.  ('Yes, that is the place where the doctor looked at my willy.  I do not remember such things happening in American military movies,' etc.)

The wedding, rather than being startlingly traditional or Chinese (we missed the service), reminded me of some of the receptions I attended during the eighties -- in a flashy pub or bar, Rasta-style DJ and drum machine music throbbing in the background, canapes and drinks on offer, standing room only.

I have been finding Singapore is almost unexpectedly lush and pretty.  I don't remember it being so when I visited six years ago.  Its boulevards are lined with trees burdened with staghorns and furry lichen.

SKT says that while a lot of academics and other professionals grumble about the bureaucracy of the place, they make Singapore their base because it's so ideally situated in relation to Asia and the rest of the world.  It's hard to explain this, but I find Singapore less alien than I do most American cities, whereas I'd almost expect to find the opposite.  I'm wondering if it's because we are more a part of Asia than we realise, and because cities like Darwin and Sydney are probably classifiable as Pacific rim cities.  (I also have a theory that the typefaces used on American signage and packaging are different from those used in Australia -- which are more similar to those used in Singapore.  But that's maybe a strange minor obsession of mine.)  Nevertheless, I feel large, white and out-of-place, like a missionary.  People stared at me when I put on sunblock in the subway: it's evidently not part of their national ritual.

I started my wanderings yesterday at a place named the Red Dot Design Museum, which a friend at work had suggested I visit.  It was modestly interesting (a showcase of successful design innovations), to me anyway, but otherwise a good point from which to walk into the city centre.  Before I left, SKT's sister had been certain I would get lost, and admonished me to ring home if I did, but I didn't even use a map.  I relied on names of the MRT (= subway) stations and my spatial memory of the city from my last visit six years earlier, which turned out to be reasonably good.

I walked along Maxwell Road to Chinatown, where many of the market stalls were resplendent with red in recognition of the impending New Year celebrations.

 

I also had a look round inside the nearby Hindu temple.

Afterwards I went to Raffles Square and took photos of a storm coming in across the bay.  A torrential downpour started, and I took refuge in the Museum of Asian Civilisations, where there was an exhibition of artefacts of the Buddha's progress across Asia.  In the evening, I to SKT's sister's flat, where an early New Year's family dinner was being held.

Much of today has been spent bumming around in the shops (if they can be called that; some of them are more like temples) on Orchard Road, and catching up with SKT and a friend of his for a late lunch.  In the evening, SKT and I went for a ramble around Little India, another fascinating cultural enclave.

Comments

[M-H]

We visited Singapore a couple of years ago and I loved it too. I think I like the scale - nothing seems too big (except maybe the shops on orchard Rd!). It's very compact.

[Jennifer]

I find that whenever I transit through Singapore it does feel like home, compared with wherever I've been to (mostly Europe, but sometimes even Asia). Sydney these days is an increasingly asian city, and even when the brands aren't the same in Singapore, they feel like the same style. I think Singapore's neatness means that it feels much more familiar to an Australian than other asian cities, and there is a lot of cultural cross fertilisation back and forth.

[elsewhere]

And even Australian voice-overs on some of the ads and other disconcerting touches like that.