"Singapore is very fake. There's this veneer of artificiality everywhere you go." That was the observation of an expatriate colleague.
She's been here for a few months now, having moved from New York, and she still feels that living in Singapore is like living in Disneyland. "You're just surrounded by all this spanking new stuff and everything's so pretty and everything actually works. That's the scary bit. There are no idiosyncrasies unique to Singapore."
Digression: This really screws up STB's Uniquely Singapore campaign which, in my view, totally sucked anyway. Surely you know something's wrong when one of the visuals you use with the Uniquely Singapore tagline is some asshole dancing on a bar-top which is neither unique nor Singaporean. The bottom line is that Singapore isn't unique at all and we shouldn't position ourselves as something we're not. We should instead tout ourselves as the planet's first democratic dictatorship/monarchy. And then we could build monuments such as the Esplanade or that ridiculously huge ferris wheel in worship of our leaders (all voted into office by our long-suffering people, of course) and then THOSE would be suitable for a Uniquely Singapore campaign. End of digression.
I suppose she means that Singapore has no character. And she's right as well. Singapore has lost much of its charm in the name of urban redevelopment. I'm not talking about HDB upgrading. Redevelopment does have its advantages when it's done in the right places but it seems like the G has been playing too much Sim City.
Take Chinatown for instance. It used to be a true, if not exactly a great, cultural hub. The chaos, the streetside stalls, the cramped pathways, narrow alleys, all those tiny shops packed to the brim, even the dirt and grime all combined to bring you back 30 or 40 years. But look what's happened to it. It's been given a 'facelift' as the G likes to put it. Everything's so watered down now we might as well buy our bak kwa from a shopping center. Anything of cultural importance that the G has touched has become like how the Golf GTI was described in Top Gear. It's a newer, better version of the original. Just not as important.
Perhaps that's why my recent trips to Taipei, KL and Hong Kong have left me feeling that something really is missing here. Over there, the stuff that's old is REALLY old. The stuff that's Chinese is REALLY Chinese. The stuff that's Malay is REALLY Malay. And that's the way it should be. I don't wanna live in some ultra-modern metropolis where everything's the same everywhere. But that's the way that Singapore is increasingly becoming. It's no coincidence that locals complain all the time that there's nothing to do here. There're no mamaks that we can fall back on, no night markets like in Taiwan and the shops close so damn early unlike in Hong Kong.
I know we're a modern city and efficient and all that bull but sometimes life's a little more fun when things go wrong here and there. But then again, “fun” has never been a priority, has it?
She's been here for a few months now, having moved from New York, and she still feels that living in Singapore is like living in Disneyland. "You're just surrounded by all this spanking new stuff and everything's so pretty and everything actually works. That's the scary bit. There are no idiosyncrasies unique to Singapore."
Digression: This really screws up STB's Uniquely Singapore campaign which, in my view, totally sucked anyway. Surely you know something's wrong when one of the visuals you use with the Uniquely Singapore tagline is some asshole dancing on a bar-top which is neither unique nor Singaporean. The bottom line is that Singapore isn't unique at all and we shouldn't position ourselves as something we're not. We should instead tout ourselves as the planet's first democratic dictatorship/monarchy. And then we could build monuments such as the Esplanade or that ridiculously huge ferris wheel in worship of our leaders (all voted into office by our long-suffering people, of course) and then THOSE would be suitable for a Uniquely Singapore campaign. End of digression.
I suppose she means that Singapore has no character. And she's right as well. Singapore has lost much of its charm in the name of urban redevelopment. I'm not talking about HDB upgrading. Redevelopment does have its advantages when it's done in the right places but it seems like the G has been playing too much Sim City.
Take Chinatown for instance. It used to be a true, if not exactly a great, cultural hub. The chaos, the streetside stalls, the cramped pathways, narrow alleys, all those tiny shops packed to the brim, even the dirt and grime all combined to bring you back 30 or 40 years. But look what's happened to it. It's been given a 'facelift' as the G likes to put it. Everything's so watered down now we might as well buy our bak kwa from a shopping center. Anything of cultural importance that the G has touched has become like how the Golf GTI was described in Top Gear. It's a newer, better version of the original. Just not as important.
Perhaps that's why my recent trips to Taipei, KL and Hong Kong have left me feeling that something really is missing here. Over there, the stuff that's old is REALLY old. The stuff that's Chinese is REALLY Chinese. The stuff that's Malay is REALLY Malay. And that's the way it should be. I don't wanna live in some ultra-modern metropolis where everything's the same everywhere. But that's the way that Singapore is increasingly becoming. It's no coincidence that locals complain all the time that there's nothing to do here. There're no mamaks that we can fall back on, no night markets like in Taiwan and the shops close so damn early unlike in Hong Kong.
I know we're a modern city and efficient and all that bull but sometimes life's a little more fun when things go wrong here and there. But then again, “fun” has never been a priority, has it?
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