The Vegasification of Singapore

0 comments

[img: Will the new Singapore look like "Paris?"]

With URA's new lighting plan, Singaporeans will soon experience unprecedented freedom in choosing their paths - at the Orchard and Bideford road junction. At other decisive junctions, STB remains firmly in control.

In the 90s, Singapore was Disneyfied to attract more tourist dollars. The historic Tiger Balm Gardens was insensitively developed into the multi-million dollar theme park "Haw Par Villa." A new Chinatown was constructed because the living version was not sanitary for tourist consumption. In September 1993, William Gibson named Singapore "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" in Wired magazine. Rem Koolhaas followed with an even more scathing critic:

Well, Singapore has succeeded in removing any trace of authenticity. It is a culture of the contemporary. And many Asian cities are like this now, seeming to exist of nothing but copies - in many instances bad copies - of Western architecture.
Now as we enter the age when the ash has settled from the failures of the commercial Haw Par Villa and Sentosa's Volcano Land, when Dubai has become more Disneyfied than us, we decide to enter the next stage: Vegasification. Developments like the XL mall Vivocity and two future casino resorts aren't enough - we need bright lights a la Times Square or the Strip. The city is already warm enough and guzzling enough energy, but we now have the CBD in a "blue-white glow" that does as much as air-con in truly bringing down the outdoor temperature of Singapore.

Why are we doing this? The Straits Times vodcast suggests that we can't be contended "after being voted number two most exciting city for dining and nightlife, the city will certainly have a glowing future ahead and become number one."

Yes, it's back to being number one again. Meanwhile, let's relocate Geylang next to the casino resorts - what is Vegas' exciting nightlife without the seedy side?

Related posts:

"Uniquely Singapore"

3 comments

Are Singaporeans Spoilt? Once again another complaint has managed to garner newspaper coverage, this time with regards to overcrowded trains. SMRT says that trains do not reach full capacity even during peak hours whilst commuters claim that trains are overcrowded and indadequate. What is interesting is the inclusion of opinion from "people who have experience of commuter trains overseas" who are full of praise of our train system. Comparisons were made with the London, Tokyo and NY with the final conclusion that our system is not as screwed up as theirs and therefore we should quit complaining. Being "very famous overseas" ( probably becasue of my chewing gum jamming up a train door in Tokyo) and having travelled on all the 3 subway systems mentioned I do agree that Singapore's MRT system is pretty SMaRT. BUT so what if their rush hour transport system is worse than ours? Does that mean that it is tolerable for us to put up with this status quo? Complaints and criticism is the way Singapore works, it is part of our culture making us "uniquely Singapore".

Admittedly, all we did in the past was to complain and complain but at least now the complaints have shifted into more credible forums (from kopitiams to intellectual blogs and the www). I believe that this need for criticism and synicism is a positive point that should be harnessed. It should also extend beyond the realm of public transportation. Take the recent Biennale 06 for example. Some people loved it and some people touted it as absolute rubbish. Those who loved it will feel that people who don't are probably ignorant and vice versa. The right view is not important. Rather what is important is the discourse itself. And with that I think that the Art Scene in Singapore is off to a good albeit late start. Fabian has always been moaning and groaning about the state of architecture in Singapore. Why? Because of a lack of feedback from the people? Because of a general lack of interest in the topic? And his conclusion is that Singaporeans get bad buildings because we don't Complain.

Ahhh the magic C word.

Last friday, the Straits Times ran an article, "Make not owning a car the smart choice". The article started off with an introduction to the transport system in Singapore starting from the 1970s all the way to the present. He then went through all the acronyms from LTA to COE and ERP eventually arriving at "The Solution". However, I was surprised that the Singapore Dream and the 5 Cs were not once addressed in the article. Isn't one of the reasons for owning a car in Singapore that of it being a status symbol. And what better way of flauting a status symbol than to drive it around. Especially since this status symbol happens to be extremely mobile with 4 wheels and all. The article does suggest that a lifestyle change is in order, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think a psyche change is in order. True, the car sharing system in Switzerland seems to work very well for the Swiss and could possibly work well here on one condition. That the cars being shared are all Mercedes. Besides, the Swiss have other status symbols to boast of such as owning a ski chalet at St Moritz and proper cheese fondue. At the end of the day, unless we are able to remove the social premium that comes with owning a car (preferably a Mercedes), the problem of high car usage will always remain. How do we go about doing that? Well ensuring that the public transport system is relatively complain free is a good start. Better still why not remove Car from the the 5 Cs and replace it with Complain instead.

GST Hike: Sugar-coating backfired? Look again and spot the trojan horse.

18 comments

Just as Wee Shu Min slid off the Technorati charts, the GST hike focused Singaporean bloggers on the elite/lower-income divide again. PM Lee sugar-coating of the bitter pill as an "offset package" appears to have backfired - the widespread knowledge that GST is regressive has riled bloggers into exposing what seems to be a "robbing Peter to pay Peter" scheme. I think the center of gravity of the issue has been misplaced. The lower-income group has been politicized as a red herring. We need to clarify our thoughts. We should separate the issue into its two dependent, yet distinct constituents: first, the GST hike should help Singapore's economy improve its competitiveness and second, the government should offset the regressive effects of GST. And while we've been so busy arguing about the GST hike, did we just let something slip past us? (more on that later)

Lower-income group used as a political tool
During elections, the opposition parties frequently painted the PAP as a party that neglected the lower-income group. In return, the PAP drills new recruits into acting like nuns, making sure their resume includes the item community service. The handshakes made in wet-markets and other photo-ops involving MP+lower-income person is PAP's way of saying "we care."

Bloggers, use our collective wisdom...wisely

Bloggers have been flailing their hands (on keyboards, no less), churning out data, writing to the ST Forum to show how regressive GST is. Bloggers form a tremendous source of intelligence in Singapore - I hope we will stop chanting "GST is regressive" (because we all now it is true) and dig deeper for more problems/solutions. Anecdotal evidence is really flimsy, the other camp has a Finn saying he left his welfare state to come to Singapore and did that convince you? PM Lee already stated how he is going to tackle the regressive problem. Is GST the best way forward for our economy? Let's discuss that.

The GST hike is economically sound
Let us leave the minefield of social policies for a while and look at the other issue - economics. I am of the very few, but certainly neither the first nor the second, who believe that the GST hike is economically sound. The general understanding is that raising the GST creates room to lower the corporate tax rate and attract foreign direct investment, which should eventually benefit all involved in Singapore's economy.

A blogger erroneously concluded that only Hong Kong has a lower corporate tax rate than Singapore. I say that because Reuters already reported that Slovakia's is lower. However, he is right to focus on Hong Kong because Hong Kong is what we are worried about. I found an OECD report that states "corporate taxation has a non-negligible impact on FDI location choices" while emphasizing that other legislative and fiscal policies are equally important in determining FDI. Singapore is on an all-else-equal situation with Hong Kong, (even air quality has become equally bad in both cities) and corporate tax might decide which is favored. The bigger act PM Lee might be trying to achieve is to tilt the FDI balance towards Singapore. The last lines of the Reuters report implicitly praised Singapore as being prescient. In another part of the same article, he succinctly argued that "the lowest-wage earners might not take so kindly to a S$2 increase in their S$100 electricity bill. Yet if people don't have jobs, electricity will be expensive at any price."

On a somewhat related note, Germany aims to lower its corporate tax from 39% to 29% in response to globalization (from IHT).

The GST hike might not be the best way forward
We have PhD in economics candidates arguing about this issue, so I hope we'll see more academic discussion being pulled in. Today, one of the greatest economists of all time died. Coincidentally, Milton Friedman championed one of the most innovative taxation and welfare policies. His idea was to have a "negative income tax" that involves a flat tax (like GST) coupled with reimbursements based on income. He argued that it was a progressive tax while not being dragged down by (inefficiencies of) bureaucratic welfare systems. A paper from Johns Hopkins on NIT is available here. The government needs to explain to us why the GST hike is the best way forward, compared to the alternatives like NIT.

Trojan Horse
The GST hike has featured so prominently that we seem to have let a greater sum of money pass by without being debated. The Channel News Asia report on the GST hike ended with these words

"Another change will be the amending of the Constitution to allow the government to tap the capital gains received from investing the national reserves."
If you remember ex-President Ong Teng Cheong, arguably our President who did the most to act as an agent of checks-and-balances against the government, you will remember that he ran into most trouble using his Presidential power vested by the Constitution to investigate the use of our national reserves. I haven't investigated how much "capital gains from investing the national reserves" amount to, but I suspect the GST money will appear to be peanuts. (Disclaimer: I am not an elitist, the GST hike is painful and involves lots of money).

I would deeply appreciate feedback on this blog post. Thank you for reading.

Language links and breaks

3 comments

Just picked up a book about the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia (SEA) and that got me thinking...

For those who have done a bit of travelling in Southeast Asia, you would have realised that Chinese can be a very useful language in the region. If one can speak the native language, that will be the most ideal. But many a times, i feel that Chinese comes a close second to English as the next widely used language in the region.

The Chinese influences on Thai language and culture are aplenty. For instance, as many Sino-Thais are of Teochew origins, the Thai language has absorbed many Teochew words into the language system, such as tâwkay, tâuhuay, suai... If you are familiar with either Teochew or Hokkien, i am sure you will be able to figure what these few words mean.

I have had several amusing encounters with the Thais. Once my friend and i stopped by the roadside to buy some street goodies to fill our rumbling stomachs in the middle of the night. As i was still speaking in halting Thai then, the hawker could not hold his curiousity and asked where i was from. So i replied Singapore. He continued to ask me if i have heard of a guy called Kim Yõng. At that moment, i was thinking inside my heart "there are so many Chinese in Singapore, how would i know a guy called Kim Yõng?" Seeing the blank look on my face, my friend went on to tell me that the hawker was actually referring to a writer. Then it struck on me that he was referring to the famous wuxia (martial arts & chivalry) author - Jin Yong (Louis Cha).

And then there was another time when i sat down for coffee with a couple of newly-made Thai friends at a local cafe. Knowing that i am a Singaporean Chinese, one girl was very interested in the Chinese language, so she enquired if i have read sãam kok. I was once again lost for a few seconds until they said curiously "don't your know that book? It's a chinese classic." It then dawned on me that they are talking about Sanguo Yanyi (or widely known in English as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

Last December, a group of friends and i decided to take a trip to Cambodia. There, we also had quite a few instances of talking to Cambodians of Chinese origins. There was one evening where we stopped at a roadside stall for supper in Phnom Penh. When the young girl delivered noodles to our table, we asked her the price of the food in English. She then surprised us by replying in Mandarin! That really piqued our curiousity, so we enquired about her background and found out that she learnt Manadarin from her mother and she had a keen interest in learning the language.

Isn't this interesting? The Chinese has a popular saying - wherever there's water, there will be Chinese. (Just a side note at this juncture: Hey, i am no Chinese chauvinist, just like to ponder how the identify of the SEA Chinese will differ from society to society, and time to time).

In SEA, the Singaporean population has the greatest proportion of ethnic Chinese. Elsewhere in the region, some of the Chinese have successfully assimiliated into the local society, adopted local names, etc. but there are examples where they still stick out like sore thumbs from the so-called indigenous majority. There were also periods in recent SEA history when the Chinese were labelled Communists, suspected of disloyalty to the native country, suffered discrimination, etc. With the exception of Singapore, the Chinese diaspora in SEA are often viewed as having immense economic power but lacking in the political power.

Sometimes, i wonder how differently our lives would have mapped out if our grandparents and forefathers had not chose to sink their roots in Singapore.

Tintin in Singapore

0 comments

I went to a talk called "Comics Strips in Belgium - The big success of a small country."

The first reason Willem De Graeve, deputy director the Belgian Comic Strip Center, gave for the success of comic strips in Belgium is Hergé, creator of Tintin. He described how Tintin inspired many young Belgians to choose drawing as a career, and today Belgium has the highest concentration of professional comic artists in the world.

I feel that comics help define culture in Belgium - a country that might otherwise struggle with an identity crisis from being sandwiched by three bigger neighbors who used to colonize it (Netherlands, France, Germany). Belgians speak Dutch (Flemish), French and German. Arguably, the lack of a spoken national language created a visual alternative in comics.

Singapore appears similar in that we have bits and pieces of our culture from China, India, Malaysia and Britain, all (but India) of which used to hold political sway over our country. We struggle with the same language issues - there's English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, none of which are our own. Other than food and Singlish (more on this later), we don't have much we define ourselves by.

Perhaps we Singaporeans can be defined as being mostly very materialistic? It is difficult to imagine a Singaporean parent supporting his/her child's ambition of being a cartoon artist. We lack inspiring role models who have taken more alternative paths to success. Is that because we prefer everything, including success, to happen within the short term?

Growth of culture is tied to media freedom. Contrary to that, the Singapore government views the media as a form of control, and culture as a form of tourist or export revenue.

Culture is inevitably intertwined with politics. Tintin began his career uninterested in politics. Although in Tintin's debut, Hergé spread counter-propaganda against Soviet communism, he was acting as a mouthpiece for a conservative Catholic newspaper. As he progressed in his career, he became more interested in political causes. The Blue Lotus is widely regarded as the turning point, where he infused the story with anti-Imperialist sentiment.

Today, Singapore filmmakers run into the censorship wall frequently. Although sometimes the issue is politics, most of the time it is because films use Singlish. Singlish films gets the worst of both worlds - they would not qualify at the Academy as a foreign language film, but would get cut by Singapore censors. Why? Apparently, 2 hours of Singlish exposure in the cinema is dangerous, considering we get many times that in our everyday lives. I call the Singapore government action against Singlish the disease of autoimmunity.

Perhaps if we belong to an *dirty word alert* elite stratum, we can avoid Singlish, supposedly the language of the heartlanders? You hear Singlish much less in locations like Paragon and Palais Renaissance. Is the current debate on elitism a failure of Singapore's supposed meritocracy?

As it happened, Tintin was read by the upper class in Belgium. There was a corresponding comic, Spirou, popular among blue collar. I don't know if there was a class issue with Tintin.
The speaker today, Willem De Graeve, said that Tintin is a hero, not a superhero, and we can find a bit of him in ourselves.

Do we see everyday leadership in our politicians? Probably no, but I'm glad Wee Shu Min's dad was honest in his opinions. I would rather know of his true leanings than have him pretend he sympathizes. That's the part I like most about some Singapore politicians - I may not agree with them, but at least they're still not smooth enough and let their tails out of their coats now and then.

Towards the end of today's discussion about Belgian comics, a few of us in the audience brought up the idea of fan culture in comics. Since the speaker was a Public Relations man and not an academic, he was not entirely familiar with Henry Jenkin's work. Eventually, a Belgian girl from the Comparative Media Studies explained the ideas to him in Dutch. I actually understood quite a bit of their conversation. Listening to a discussion about fan culture in Dutch was one of those moments when I felt my diverse education paths converge.

Yet I fear. Will "useless" skills like understanding other countries, understanding others unlike us be appreciated in Singapore? Is there only a single path to success in Singapore - agree with what's printed on the ST, support the ban of Feer, keep hushed about condoning the house arrest of Aung Sang Suu Kyi (while trading with the drug lords indirectly).

I'm not talking about the Chee Soon Juan version of being a self-burning martyr. I'm saying that it is hypocritical to hold back alternative views claiming to champion heartlanders who care only about bread and butter issues while telling heartlanders to grab their own bread and butter.