7 Comments

"The secret is that there is no secret; Singapore simply tries." 🥲

Excellent line!

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Singapore government is truly world-beating in many areas, water and environmental management, public-health, transport infrastructure and public order, and as a high-earning foreigner, it may seem like utopia. However, kaisu is problem, it is more a paralysing fear of not conforming and of taking risks. That the government came once a quarter to inspect my toilet bowl was a surprise to me and symbolic of a cowed citizenry and stunted civil society. Go into a Starbucks on Orchard Road at 2am on Sunday morning and half those sitting down will be reading marketing textbooks.

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It's no libertarian paradise: The hacker, maker and entrepreneurial cultures are somewhat countercultural, the artistic one more so. COVID restrictions came as a shock to many affluent westerners who assumed otherwise.

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The cultures of the different Chinese regional groups, relations with the Malay and Indian minorities, the role of the media, religious beliefs, the burden of military spending and service, managing housing rights and prices - all seem quite unsettled.

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William Gibson: Disneyland with the Death Penalty is a classic travelogue that I found very insightful https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/

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Ian Buruma, who had been the culture editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review when it was suppressed by government in Singapore covers the political opposition in his 2002 book, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Elements

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Writing on Sinagapore, as opposed to taking down what the government of the day says, is hazardous to journalists and academics, even those based abroad. Some academics and journalists persist, however, including Cherian George:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherian_George

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