I’m no longer living in Singapore, but found that I had one last post buzzing in my head, so here is my meditation on domestic workers in Singapore. What am I, the maid? In the US this is a rhetorical question generally employed by people who wish to draw their family’s attention to the fact […]
Everyone’s excited about this, because of the 87 seats in the Singapore Parliament, 80 are being contested. In the U.S., that would be like 89 Senate seats and 398 House seats being up for grabs simultaneously. And for the first time there are a lot of people opposing the single-party system, and they’re not just […]
OK, buying an apartment in Singapore is a highly controlled affair. The Housing Development Board (HDB) controls what sizes of apartments are built, how many, where they are located, and who can buy them. So limiting, lah! But I just heard from my officemates that Singaporeans get a 2.6% interest rate, which my Singaporean […]
I was telling my officemates about my affection for the Sarawak Museum, but had to mention (of course) the strangely nasty toilet facilities there. Why is there such a contrast between the exhibition halls and the fairly simple matter of clean toilets? Turns out it’s not simple. In the first place, the whole building and […]
We went to see The King’s Speech last weekend (excellent, and with a fun audience that laughed at the jokes), and in the interminable round of advertisements before the movie began, pride of place (just before the movie itself) was given to the Singapore My Home music video. This is a full-on production with all […]
Who says pink clashes with red and orange? These are the decorations at our local giant mall, and I like them! In fact, I’m trying to design a house in which I’d have light fixtures like this in every room. Chinese New Year is a 15-day period in which you stage many family reunions and […]
This is an addendum to the previous post. Another way the government of Singapore has to influence the economy is through its more or less direct interference, for all Friedman’s claims that Singapore is a free market. The government has a company, Temasek, which owns a significant percentage of every large commercial concern on the […]
You may be wondering about my reaction to Tom Friedman’s opinion piece about Singapore in today’s New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/opinion/30friedman.html?src=me&ref=general ) It’s about educational and governmental seriousness in Singapore, and a plea for the U.S. to emulate it. His hook is the story of a primary school teacher conducting a DNA workshop with her […]
The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is also the Lantern Festival. The lanterns are traditionally made of silk over a wire frame, and little towns have parades and contests to see who produces the best one. Here’s Singapore’s version of that tradition, based in the main tourist district along the river downtown, with sponsorship from many companies. […]
Here are some pictures of Chinese Gardens on a rainy afternoon, with the lanterns in place but not lit. They’re still terrific – a spot of red really brightens the place up. Singapore’s version of the terracotta soldiers, with cheerful decorations. The bridge from the main entrance. The building in the background is an apartment […]