Singapore

Visited: October 2016

Duration of visit: 4 days

Capital city: Singapore

Population: 5.6 million (2016)

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

• Clean streets, hassle free, quiet and organized, well-functioning environment.
• Drinking overpriced beer at the top of Marina Bay Sand Skypark observation deck, while enjoying the view over city skyscrapers.
• Incredible variety of Asian food in food courts at main shopping malls or so-called hawker centers.
• Supertree Grove in Bay East Garden, where iconic giant tree shaped monuments provide shade in the day and come alive with an exhilarating light and musical show at night.
• Merlion Park, with the figure of a mythical creature that combines a lion´s head with a fish´s body.
• Jewel Changi Airport – many times voted as the best airport in the world: shops, waterfall with a small jungle, gardens, view decks and entertainment center for children.
• Ban on the sale of chewing gum since 1992.

Singapore has been on my bucket list for a long time, but, due to budget limits, I always put it aside, waiting for an economic boom of my personal budget. Finally, in 2016 an opportunity aroused, when a particularly favorable airplane connection with Oman airways opened up to combine Singapore with a visit to Kuala Lumpur.

It was a short, but intensive trip of 8 days (4 days in Singapore), which introduced me to a small country that transformed itself into a nation of successful, well educated professionals with high income, excellent services, efficient and zero corrupted public sector that triumphantly combines quality of life, tradition and progress.

The trademark of Singapore – its skyline – expresses the harmony of tall, modernly designed high-rise buildings.

During the day, Marina Bay Sands somehow coincides with the symbol of Singapore, as a modern, advanced and technologically developed country. At night, this feeling is intertwined with the magic of the lights.

Marina Bay Sands tower has been the most famous landmark visible from many different directions since 2010. An airplane structure of 55 floors connects three towers, offering casino, shopping mall, conference center, nightclubs and bars.

The Art Science Museum in lotus shape is constructed next to the three blocks. Its roof is retractable, providing a waterfall through the roof of collected rainwater when closed in the day and laser shows when opened at night.

Infinity pool on the rooftop might be reserved for guests of a luxurious hotel, but the bar is open to all visitors who are willing to pay prohibitive price for a drink. I used this option and ordered a Tiger beer at 8-times higher price than available at supermarket on the ground floor. It’s the price to experience the rooftop, view over Marina Bay, Singapore’s world-class cityscape.

Just below the Marina Bay Sands, Luis Vuitton Crystal Pavilion floats on the waters with nautical-inspired interiors, illumined by natural light through its magnificent glass façade.

Gardens by the Bay is a huge artificial park behind the Marina Bay Sands. The three main attractions are the Flower Dome, Cloud Forest and, of course, the Supertrees. The gigantic garden with green areas was created to increase the quality of life of the inhabitants of Singapore and to bring many tropical plants under the same umbrella – a kind of zoo for tropical plants.

The Supertrees – 18 artificially laid trees made from reinforced concrete and wrapped in a steel frame, have planting panels which are installed along the trunk of the tree. This creates a living skin of plants that cover the entire tree trunk. There are more than 200 species and varieties of climbing flowering plants, including orchids, ferns, tropical climbers and bromeliads.

Rising up to 50 meters above ground, these iconic giants provide shade in the day and come alive with an exhilarating light and musical show at night. On the top they have solar collectors to generate energy from the sunlight.

The Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest are two huge greenhouses with different climates and plants from various regions of the world.

Even though it is hard for me to determine the country of origin for Asian visitors, most of them share one characteristic: walking around with smartphones in their hands and using it all the time.

Never before had I seen so many people being focused on the phone screen instead of observing what is happening around them.

Merlion is a mythical creature depicted with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. It represents the city’s humble start as a fishing village of Singapura – lion city. The official mascot of Singapore, located in Marina Bay, the statue of Merlion was developed in 1964. It expresses strength and the relationship to the sea since Singapore has one of the largest ports of the world.

Always surrounded by tourists who want to pose in front of the statue, is not an easy task to take a good photo of it. Due to blocked view from the Marina Bay waterfront in 2002, the statue and its cub were relocated 120 meters to the current Merlion Park.

I continued walking on pedestrian Helix Bridge, which connects walking paths offering 4 viewing platforms with a great view at the skyline of Singapore and Marina Bay Sands. A spiral form of the bridge resembles structure of the human DNA. As any other relevant structure in Singapore, Helix Bridge would be illuminated by a series of lights that highlight the double-helix structure.

Formerly used as a British military base and, afterwards as a Japanese prisoner-of-war, Santosa Island was transformed into a popular resort that receives more than twenty million visitors per year. From nice beaches, to Universal Studios, Madame Tussauds Museum, a fort, golf course, pristine beaches, exciting attractions and tropical landscapes, it is a perfect place to escape daily life from downtown or spend extended holidays there.

In 2018 the area offered a perfect location to US president Donald Trump to meet North Korean president Kim Jong-un.

I visited the island with Cable Car Sky. Most of the attractions (especially payable) are not of mi interest, but the ride above the island and walk to the beach were really rewarding.

The National Museum of Singapore is the nation’s oldest museum; it seeks to inspire with stories of Singapore and the world since 1849. Even though I am not a big fan of museums, I learnt some very important facts about this tiny country that helped me understand how Singapore became such a successful country.

Outstanding from its neighbors and setting a worldwide example, Singapore’s strategy, leadership and honesty translated into benefits for the majority of its citizens. Being an economist, I consider this story so important that I will try to make a summary in the following lines.

The history of Singapore is a clear example of the close link between economic growth and political stability.

It all began when Singapore was expelled from Malaysia and became an independent republic on 9^th August 1965.

After the separation, the fledgling nation had to become self-sufficient, however it was faced with problems that included mass unemployment, housing shortages and lack of land.

The first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew served the country between 1959 and 1990. Lee and his cabinet decided that the best way to boost Singapore’s economy was to attract foreign investments from multinational corporations to establish Singapore as an international financial center.

His government curbed unemployment, raised the standard of living and implemented a large-scale public housing program. The new direction that Singapore took demanded a skilled labor force to engage in its revised role of refining raw goods, as opposed to the traditional natural resource extraction industries of its neighbors.

Its leaders decided early on that the population would need to be fluent in English language, as they would be communicating and cooperating with foreign employers or business partners abroad. English was adopted as the medium of education for all schools.

The education system was designed to be rigorous and intensive, with emphasis on immediately practical, rather than intellectual applications. For example, technical sciences as opposed to political discussion or philosophy. Around one-fifth of Singapore’s budget was devoted to education to facilitate a large and competent workforce upon graduation. The government of Singapore currently still maintains it at this level.

With an open-door policy to foreigners, they attract foreign investment through world-class infrastructure, a skilled workforce, open trade routes, a well-enforced rule of law and low taxes.

In the 1980s, Singapore faced the challenge of its neighbors, which were exporting the same products at a lower price. Cleverly, Singapore decided to change focus to high technology industries. A skilled workforce with an aptitude for learning helped ease the transition to new jobs in the wafer fabrication industry, which was quickly being established in Singapore.

Singapore’s entire government spending (17 % of GDP) is approximately equal to the USA’s spending on the healthcare sector. Taxes are low, and there are no additional state or local government taxes.

Singapore’s government officials rank among the highest paid in the world. Singaporeans believe that high pay for government officials will reduce or eliminate corruption.

The salaries of Singapore’s judges, ministers, and top civil servants resemble the salaries of leading professionals in the private sector.

The bottom-line: the country’s economic infrastructure was developed; racial tensions were eliminated and Singapore evolved from a third world nation to a first world country in less than four decades. It seems that it will keep this position in the future.

In Singapore, food is viewed as crucial to its national identity and a unifying cultural thread. Beside the local Singaporean cuisine, it is also common to find restaurants specializing in cuisine from a great variety of countries around the world.

I love Asian food. Singaporean food scene is as ethnically diverse as its people, blending Malay, Chinese, Indonesian, Indian and western influences. A visit to one of the hawker centers or shopping mall food courts is as eye-opening as gastronomically gratifying.

I found out this by chance, since I hadn’t done much previous research on food. While window shopping in one of the malls, I descended to the basement, where a food court appeared in front of my eyes. In many countries food in shopping malls tend to be of poor-quality offering predominantly fast food of international chains without taste and style.

This food court was completely different. Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese and all kind of Asian cuisine, which seemed fresh and prepared in an authentic way, served with enthusiasm in a polite way on solid tables, with real dishes and cutlery or sticks.

Plenty of people, acceptable prices and energetic atmosphere left me speechless and hungry.

It wasn’t easy to decide from so many delicious options, but I made a good choice with laksa. Rice noodles make up the foundation of laksa, complemented by a sauce or curry, a few pieces of protein and often some vegetables and herbs. A little bit too spicy for my taste, but still delicious.

Later, I confirmed that a large part of Singaporean food offer revolves around hawker centers. Hawker stalls were first set up around the mid-19^th century. People were able to choose from several street food stalls selling a huge variety of foods. Even today, vendors usually set up stalls by the side of the streets, with push carts or bicycles, and serve cheap and fast foods to coolies, office workers and those that did not cook at home.

These days, when dining out, Singaporeans often eat at hawker centers, coffee shops or food courts rather than restaurants, due to convenience, a wider range of options and affordability.

These hawker centers are widespread, cheap and usually feature dozens of stalls in a single complex. Hawkers are so central to Singapore life that the country recently led a successful campaign to have the practice inscribed on the 2020 UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

UNESCO described the hawker center as community dining rooms, where people from diverse backgrounds gather and share the experience of dining over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Walking around downtown, I noticed a lot of green areas on balconies and terraces of high buildings. In contrast to Hong Kong’s frenetic concrete jungle, Singapore seems to be a green oasis of calm, where plants are integrated into its architectural designs to combine the best of both worlds.

Green supplement is a pleasant response to the concrete uniformity of Singapore’s business district. The plants get naturally watered, which helps keep them healthy without using any mechanical ventilation.

I wanted to buy chewing gums in a local supermarket. I couldn’t find them on the shelves, so I asked a seller about them. He looked at me strangely: “Chewing gums. Boss do we sell chewing gums?” A clear no from his supervisor, was confirming that the ban on chewing gum is still in practice.

The sale of chewing gums in Singapore has been illegal since 1992. It is not illegal to chew a gum, but it is against the law to import it and sell it, apart from the aforementioned exceptions.

Why would a country introduce such a law?

Here is the story.

Chewing gum was causing maintenance problems in high-rise public-housing apartments, with vandals disposing of spent gum in mailboxes, inside keyholes and on lift buttons. In 1987 the US$5 billion local railway system started running. It was the largest public project ever implemented in Singapore. Vandals had begun sticking chewing gum on the door sensors of trains, preventing doors from functioning properly and causing disruption to train services. Such incidents were rare but costly, and culprits were difficult to apprehend.

After the ban was announced, import of chewing gum was immediately halted. A short transition period allowing shops to clear existing stock was followed by suspension of sales and chewing gum was completely banned, with penalties rising of up to 1,500 US$ for those convicted of selling chewing gum as well as importers.

When first introduced, the ban caused much controversy and some open defiance. No black market for chewing gum in Singapore ever emerged, though few Singaporeans occasionally still manage to smuggle some chewing gum from Malaysia for their own consumption.

Singapore became the first nation-​state to unwillingly gain independence, when Malaysia didn’t want to take them under its wing. The disappointment was turned around into a determination to convert a third world country into a modern, prosperous force of the world, where the quality of life and people satisfaction is one of the highest in the world.

Natural growth of economy and people purchase power together are reflected in every level of society. From food to architecture, airport to downtown, transport to parks, healthcare and medical service; it all seems well aligned and logically developed into the right direction.

Singapore can be a case study, how there is still hope for humanity to function without greediness and corruption, in search of sustainable high standard of life for all its members.