March 15 – 17th, 2023 – Days 84-86
Today’s post is a collaboration between Donna and I, I hope you’ll enjoy hearing both our voices in our narrative about our visit to Singapore!
We left Singapore a week ago, but Singapore has not left our thoughts and has made a major impact on our hearts. Singapore is an island nation city made up of six million people living in an area covering 283 square miles. That works out to a little over 21,000 people per square mile. In contrast, Thousand Oaks has about 2,300 people per square mile and Los Angeles has 8,300 per square mile.
Singapore’s name is derived from Singapura or Lion City, from a legend featuring a half lion/half fish creature called a Merlion. The Merlion is one of the iconic symbols of Singapore and is prominently displayed at the water’s edge, much like Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid.
Singapore is located at the southernmost tip of the Malay peninsula in southeast Asia. So many of this area’s countries are dealing with extreme poverty. In stark contrast, Singapore has one of the world’s highest GDP per person income. Higher income per person than the United States. It is also one of the world’s most expensive places to live. Yet over 90% of its population own the homes they live in. The homes are what we would call condos, all in high rises. They have very limited land, and their neighboring countries are not happy when they look to building into the sea by creating more land, so they build up. But they can only go so high, so now they are starting to build down to.
With so many people living in such a small area, Singapore recognized the need for green open spaces. To achieve this, they have planted many, many trees and created many parks; often on land reclaimed from the sea. We visited the Garden by the Bay and the National Orchid Garden, both absolutely beautiful! As the locals say, they have gone from a city with parks to a park with a city.
Donna and I got to visit the Singapore Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino. This is a complex of three high-rise towers with a large observation platform and pool that spans the towers on the 56th story. We enjoyed the incredible view from the top deck that overlooks the city. The casino is free to go in if you are from another country, but Singaporeans have to pay $150 per day just to go inside to gamble. It’s one way to discourage locals from the vice of gambling while still making money from noncitizens. The rooms at the hotel, we were told start at $700 US per night and they have a 3% vacancy rate. The complex is so successful that they have already started construction on a fourth tower.
Singapore is a city on the move. That includes having the world’s busiest port with one ship either arriving or departing every two minutes. In fact, even the port is moving. Over the next 5-10 years Singapore’s port is going to move from the southern part of the island over to the west so they can accommodate bigger ships that need a deeper harbor. They will build additional housing in the area that will become available once the port has been moved.
Singapore has multiple modes of transportation in the city. There is a metro/train system, public buses, a cable car that crosses much of the city, a monorail that runs out to the Universal Studios theme park area; and there are private cars. But personal autos are outragedly expensive. First you must qualify for a limited number of permits to even buy a car. An annual lottery is held for the few permits to buy a car. This permit costs somewhere between $20,000-$25,000. Then, you have the right to buy a car. But this permit is only good for a few years, after which you have to reapply for and repurchase a permit to continue to operate a car. When you do buy a car, the tax on the new car is almost 100% of the cost of the car. So, a small Honda or Toyota will likely cost close to $100,000 (that’s after the cost of the permit, assuming you can get one!). So, there is good reason to use Singapore’s amazing mass transit system! It is efficient and cheap to use. So, there is little need for personal transportation.
Singapore is also one of the cleanest big cities in the world. Famously, chewing gum is illegal in Singapore, you can’t buy it here! There is no trash because if you are caught littering, there is a hefty fine. One of our local tour guides told us to look for a T-shirt that describes the Singapore …on the front it says Chewing Gum… $$ Fine, Littering… $$ Fine, Jaywalking… $$ Fine; on the back it says ‘Singapore, a Fine City!’ We didn’t see the actual t-shirt, but she got a laugh telling us about it!
Singapore’s system of government is much like the British system. They hold open elections (where voting is mandatory) to determine the party that will appoint the Prime Minister. They also elect members of their Parliament. Like the US, the citizens freely choose their leaders. Two of our guides said, ‘We leave the decisions to our leaders, they are paid well to make them.’
There also seems to be a fundamental difference in how their society operates, and it seems to operate very, very well. There are surely many reasons Singapore runs so well; most notably to us was that Singaporeans have given up some of their personal freedoms to make sure their country runs in a way that all elements of their society are as successful as possible. Individual success is not as highly valued as national success. It is a different way of thinking. They talked about how their mandatory personal savings (payroll deduction) was contributed to by their employers, so that everyone could use their funds to have a “roof over their head” and medical care, etc. Individuals and Business’ are required to make these financial sacrifices for the common good even as it effects their bottom line or personal spending.
The guides we talked to were very proud of their multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-faith society; these ideals are part of their constitution. Also constitutionally mandated is that English is the language of education and business. Yet, every citizen is encouraged to also retain, or obtain, the ability to speak their “mother tongue”, but they must master English. After the first 6 years of school, students are evaluated and offered two equally valued learning tracts for secondary school – Academic or Technical. Two years of military service is compulsory for young men at 18, young women can also serve, but that is currently elective.
There is little crime in Singapore. Maybe because the penalties are so severe. One of our speakers described Singapore as ‘Disneyland with the death penalty’. While he said this in jest, there is certainly an element of truth in this. The speaker then told us of a friend from the US who left his teaching position at a US university to take a similar position at a Singapore university. His friend said you might get in trouble if you wrote a letter to the editor criticizing the government but the tradeoff is living in a county that runs more efficiently than a Swiss watch.
This isn’t the model we are used to, but it sure seems to work well here.
Singapore – a country of great contrasts and compromises.