22 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Singapore’s “hawker centers” are famous for providing inexpensive local fare. As the photo suggests, stalls in hawker centers are quite different from mall food courts back in the U.S. These centers provide at once an opportunity for Singaporeans to enjoy traditional selections without great expense, and an opportunity for visiting Americans to step into “the real Singapore”.
15 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
You never know what you’re going to find when you step out for a walk, or at least you never know here in Singapore. A couple of weeks ago, I stepped outside of the apartment to find the street barricaded and with crowds of (mostly Hindu) locals lining the streets. If I had checked a cultural calendar, I would have known that the Thaipusam festival was happening that evening. Since I did not, however, I instead had another fresh look at a cultural phenomenon a bit different from life back home. If you would like more information on the festival, it is available here:
http://www.mydestination.com/singapore/events/73557429/thaipusam-2015-4-february-2015
If you would like to experience the festival as I did, however, surprised by the colorful display (and the body piercings), have a look first at the video below of one of the participants in that evening’s parade.
R
08 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Singapore is often considered one of the crossroads of the world, uniting elements of culture from both East and West. A visitor to Singapore will find this description apt in many ways, but need look no farther than the Singaporean provision of public restroom facilities to find a ready example. For many Americans, the Asian squat toilet (shown on the left in the photo) would not be a familiar sight in comparison to its Western cousin (shown on the right). Perhaps for visitors to Singapore from some countries in the East, the experience may be the opposite. What is interesting in Singapore is not so much that one or the other is made publicly available here in Singapore, as seen in the stalls pictured from the Bras Basah MRT (subway) station or at the Changi Airport, but rather that the government of Singapore felt it necessary to accommodate both expectations in the building of public facilities in spite of any additional cost involved in adopting the hybrid design. Perhaps this was a practical decision to make public facilities easier for visitors to use, or perhaps it was a more intentional recognition of the meeting of East and West that happens here in Singapore. In either case, however, the presence of both styles of public restroom facilities is a simple but constant reminder of Singapore’s placement at the crossroads of East and West.
You really can learn a lot by seeing how other cultures devise of public spaces like restrooms, and even by public signs, including the sign below for public restrooms inside the PoMo shopping mall here in Singapore. It may provide a clue as to the Singaporean sense of humor.
R
01 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Public Housing High-Rise, or “HDB” in the Bukit Panjang Area
As one visits Singapore, one is quickly impressed with the amount of towering public housing apartment buildings there are here in the city-State. Most people here in Singapore refer to such apartments as “HDBs” after the acronym of the Housing Development Board (“HDB”), Singapore’s public housing authority. The Housing Development Board estimates that “[t]oday, more than 80% of Singapore’s resident population live in HDB flats” (http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10320p.nsf/w/AboutUsHDBHistory?OpenDocument). The Board touts this as a success story as it notes that “HDB was set up on 1 February 1960, during a housing crisis” and that “[a]t that time, many were living in unhygienic slums and crowded squatter settlements” as “[o]nly 9 percent of Singaporeans lived in government flats” (id).
Indeed, times have changed. HDB apartments now provide a less expensive alternative to many of the condominiums here, and have fundamentally changed Singapore from the time of slums and unhygenic squatter settlements the Board describes to a city of high-rise living. Of course, moving skyward may have been necessary to achieving the economic progress Singapore has experienced over the last half-century. A recent estimate of the population of Singapore set the number at 5.47 million (http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/singapore-population-now-547-million-slowest-growth-10-y), and all of those folks have to live somewhere.
A Closer Look at Painters Adding Color to the Above-Pictured HDB High-Rise Building in the Bukit Panjang Area in Singapore
HDB may not be the only one deserving credit for the success of HDB apartments here in Singapore, however. As I was walking in the Bukit Panjang area near the center of Singapore recently, I saw the HDB building pictured above, and at first saw nothing more than a building. When I looked again, however, I noticed, just as you may in the image here, that just over half-way up the side of the building was a group of HDB painters adding a blue stripe on what would otherwise be a white HDB building side.
It occurred to me that, contrary to what some may tell you, bravery is not dead in the world today. I imagine that it must take a great deal of courage and skill to hoist oneself and one’s team up and down the side of a high-rise building (I count about 28 floors to this one) to add a bit of color to the lives of those coming back home to it from work during the week. While the story of HDB construction is one often told as a monumental success of the Housing Development Board’s approach to public housing, I would just like to take this opportunity to recognize the very human effort it takes to make that happen, and to encourage my friends here in Singapore as well as Americans who may visit and stay in the HDB of a Singaporean friend to remember the hard work of those who, like the HDB painters, do a job that we may not recognize at first glance, but that is essential to painting the successful image of public housing all the same.
R
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