Singapore Remains Upbeat
TUCK, JIM
A TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK Singapore Remains Upbeat By Jim Tuck Singapore Most citizens of this eponymous capital will respond with a weary groan if you parrot that old bromide, "Singapore...
...The angry Malaysians feel his treatment of their country is both slanderous and self-serving...
...Noting that they failed to order a blackout even after the disastrous air raid of December 8, 1941, Tan commented: "Singaporeans are wrong in laying more emphasis on planning for the best, instead of putting that emphasis on preparing for the worst...
...It was released on September 16, the date of Lee's 75th birthday...
...Jim Tuck, a previous contributor to the NL, is a freelance correspondent...
...Singapore is 14 per cent Malay...
...Both countries now use their minorities to beat each other over the head...
...Science Hub publicists predict that it will be to high-tech research and development what Raffles Place, Singapore's financial center, is to the finance sector...
...In addition, Indonesia provides the only ethnic Chinese available for domestic service, because racial violence has left many Sino-Indonesians homeless...
...On August 9, 1965, Singapore was expelled from the Federation and set itself up as an independent state...
...feeding animals, $1,000...
...Malaysia and Japan (for all their financial woes) are absent from these listings...
...In a spirit of "if you've got it, flaunt it," they manufacture and widely retail a T-shirt that depicts a variety of offenses and their penalties: Smoking (in nonsmoking areas), $ 1,000...
...urinating in lifts, $500...
...Singapore ministers were not pleasureloving, nor did they seek to enrich themselves...
...Singapore has been accused of authoritarian capitalism, but there is no sign that it will try to overcome the present crisis by taking the road of Malaysian dirigisme...
...Finally, the airline has hired seven culinary experts to prepare 40 gourmet dishes, from lobster with quails' eggs in first-class to smoked chicken salad in economy...
...Unlike Muslim Malaysians, who scorn work in a pork-consuming household, Muslim Indonesians are often so desperate that they waive Koranic strictures...
...you can see that Malay readers are responding as Singaporeans [to Lee's book] and not as a racial community...
...The number of spaces in the firstclass section will be reduced from 16 to 12, to allow room for what are described as "flying minisuites...
...All three classes—first, business and economy—will be affected by the upgrade...
...drug possession (more than 20 grams), death by hanging...
...not flushing a toilet, $ 175...
...It would be incorrect to describe this tiniest of the ex-Asian tigers as an island of prosperity in a sea of financial misery...
...Having suffered the Dotheboys Hall cuisine of a recently struck major airline, this news filled me with wistful envy...
...UMNO [the Malay national party] had developed to a fine art the practice of accommodating Chinese or Indian ministers in Malaya who proved troublesome...
...A TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK Singapore Remains Upbeat By Jim Tuck Singapore Most citizens of this eponymous capital will respond with a weary groan if you parrot that old bromide, "Singapore is a fine city...
...Teo Ming Kian, its chairman, envisions "a vibrant area where ideas and innovations can take place...
...Michael Tan, executive vice-president of SAL, says confidently that the airline improvement, initiated two years ago, will be completed by the end of 1999...
...Maids are sought out by nationality and religion, thus you will see over and over again "Christian," "English-speaking" and "will handle pork...
...Nightlife is animated, if tamer than in Johor Baru, the Malaysian "sin city" across the causeway...
...The marriage was short-lived...
...These will offer such features as seats that recline into beds equipped with extensions to accommodate each passenger's height, divider screens to ensure privacy, flip-up 14-inch TV screens, and hot meals on demand— plus special check-in at a new lounge...
...Singapore may well be experiencing the proverbial darkest hour that immediately precedes a bright dawn...
...Dow Jones averages, moreover, do not always tell the story...
...Two ambitious programs are emblematic: the upgrading of Singapore Airlines (SAL), already considered by many to be the world's best, and the planned creation of a Silicon Valley-style Science Hub...
...counterpart by roughly 13 per cent since September 1997, for example, has been a boon to tourism...
...In Singapore, Community Development Minister Abdullah Tarmuggi has declared that "from letters to the Straits Times...
...290 million...
...I thought our people should understand how vulnerable Singapore was and is, the dangers that beset us, and how we nearly did not make it...
...Said Chan: "The reality today shows that the position of the Chinese in Malaysia is not as bad as Mr...
...South India and Thailand are lesser suppliers...
...Chan Kong Choy, head of the Malaysian Chinese Association, has denied Lee's charges of Malay cultural hegemony...
...His memoirs, in fact, have been the stick that poked the hornets' nest...
...Lee has made it out to be...
...The overhaul, affecting 60 aircraft, will cost U.S...
...The Malay leadership in Kuala Lumpur resented the efforts of Lee's People's Action Party (PAP) to create a multiracial state...
...One of the first things that struck me during an extended visit was the defiant pride Singaporeans take in their hardnosed approach to what they consider deviant social behavior...
...And five major religions—Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity—coexist in complete harmony...
...His words brought forth a stern admonition from columnist Tan Sai Siong, who compared such complacency with that of British colonials during World War II, as Japan was invading the Malay Peninsula...
...Yet too much should not be made of Singaporean puritanism...
...possession of firecrackers, caning...
...He has further charged the former Singapore strongman with playing a major role in fomenting the 1969 Malay-Chinese riots in Malaysia...
...Malaysia—formerly Malaya—became an independent state within the British Commonwealth in 1957...
...People live a lot better in a prosperous country whose market index is down 40 per cent than in abasket case country down 20 per cent...
...The Singapore Story drew plaudits from such international marquee figures as George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, and Henry Kissinger...
...the current U.S...
...vandalism, caning and imprisonment...
...and Sri Lanka, victim of a vicious ethnic civil war...
...Overcoming a recession/depression is often as much a matter of psychology as of economic tinkering...
...In 1963 it merged with Singapore to form the Federation of Malaysia...
...At a threestar hotel my wife and I paid about US...
...Prostitution is legal, although localized and well regulated...
...The complex is being sponsored by the National Science and Technology Board...
...80 a night, less than half what we would have paid at a comparable accommodation in New York or San Francisco...
...littering, $ 1,000...
...This is not Cotton Mather's Salem, Calvin's Geneva or an area controlled by the Taliban...
...Similarly, since last December 31 the Singapore Stock Exchange's average has dropped by 39.6 per cent, but an editorial in the Asian Wall Street Journal sees a distinct silver lining, partly due to neighboring Malaysia's current policy of aggressive economic nationalism...
...Minister of State for Defense David Lim, looking to the 21st century, recently predicted that "life in Singapore will be vibrant and vivid...
...With Malaysian credit controls sparking capital flight, says the Journal, "Singapore stands to get a huge boost as a regional financial center from all the business that flees Malaysia and settles in a more realistic haven...
...If confidence, intelligence, discipline, and a superlative work ethic have anything to do with it...
...I didn't plan to write a book," Lee said in a press interview...
...An unorthodox yet highly reliable way of gauging economic and social health in East Asia is by looking at the classified sections of Singapore newspapers under "Domestic Help Available...
...SinoMalaysians attack Lee, and Malay-Singaporeans defend him...
...Malaysian Works Minister Datuk Samy Vellu countered: "When Malaysia signs an agreement with another country, we stand by it...
...Lee, noting that he began working on his book three years ago, staunchly denies that he wrote it with the intention of kicking Malaysia while it is economically down...
...On two day trips to Malay sia, I encountered intense hostility among Malaysians (including one of Indian descent) toward the stand of Malay Singaporeans...
...More specifically, they describe it as "a self-contained focal point for...
...The 680-page work was begun in 1995, with the aid of three researchers...
...The local dollar's decline against its U.S...
...Their attitude made me think of the Hawaiian Kanaka separatist leader's statement that full-bloods who take U.S...
...Financial analysts point out that Singapore has the second-lowest number of state-owned companies in Asia—following, ironically, Communist-controlled Hong Kong...
...Singapore athletes were booed during the recent Commonwealth games at Kuala Lumpur...
...Business class will go from 65 to 58 seats and have plug-in points for laptops...
...Realizing their destructive potential, the ruling elite has drawn a lethal wall around them...
...A rust belt era industrial park is being razed to make way for the project...
...Chinese education has not been destroyed and in fact is thriving under the enlightened policy of the National Front government...
...The 316 economy passengers will also enjoy wider seats, along with free champagne on all flights except for the short hop to Kuala Lumpur...
...A second volume is scheduled to be published next fall...
...Indonesia, torn by political unrest...
...Nevertheless, it is indeed a "fine" city—and infractions you might consider minor can result in financial exactions unheard of in any other part of the world...
...There is no ban on alcoholic beverages...
...And the government has declared its desire to pull out of the few remaining infrastructure state monopolies, like telecommunications...
...the techno-entrepreneurial culture and environment...
...Drugs are beyond the pale...
...Perhaps to detract attention from the situation on the ground, some government officials have lately been issuing statements that have an unmistakable whistling-in-the-dark quality...
...The Science Hub will be located in the Buona Vista area, at the city's western outskirts...
...If a country is a major maid supplier, you can bet it is in trouble...
...Despite the regional economic crisis and sour relations with its larger northern neighbor, the mood in Singapore remains upbeat...
...English is a lingua franca in Southeast Asia, and Christians are free from the Muslim aversion to swine flesh, a big item in the Chinese diet...
...The PAP leaders," wrote Lee, "were not like the politicians in Malaya...
...The three nations that dominate the Singapore classifieds are the poverty-stricken Philippines...
...At present, the economic picture is hardly encouraging, but it is not totally black...
...There is also a historical basis for the drugs-equal-death mentality...
...It should give each community a better understanding of the Singaporean way of life...
...While it is bearing up sturdily, it is certainly feeling the crunch...
...Christian maids come in two categories, Catholic Filipinos and dark-skinned Melanesians, mostly Dutch Reformed, from the previously Dutch held regions that now constitute eastern Indonesia...
...Outraged Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad has accused Lee of timing his memoirs to take advantage of his country's economic problems...
...Singapore is 76 per cent Chinese, and every Chinese-descended person is aware of the terrible damage wreaked on the mother country by the 19th-century Opium Wars...
...Federal or state jobs are "Vichy Hawaiians...
...exchange rate is $1.62...
...A long-term undertaking, it will not be completed for a decade and a half...
...He changed his mind because he was "troubled by the apparent overconfidence of a generation that has only known stability, growth and prosperity...
...resonating with the colors and sounds of a global trading post...
...Malaysia is 30 per cent Chinese...
...In July 1964,13 months before the break, there had been bloody race riots between Malays and Chinese in Singapore...
...They sifted through Lee's personal papers and scoured archives in Singapore, Great Britain, Australia, and the United States...
...This claim by Lee is, therefore, totally unwarranted...
...Figures are in Singapore dollars...
...Be that as it may, his memoir has helped bring relations between the two countries to a near all-time low...
...An event here that has set off massive political reverberations was the publication of The Singapore Story, the first volume of former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew's memoirs...
...Ideas were formulated after interviewing more than 4,000 passengers from a cross section of SAL flights, including ones to London, Frankfurt, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, and Bombay...
...Not only researchers, but businessmen, lawyers and venture capitalists will be involved...
...Tensions were exacerbated, too, when Lee claimed Malaysia was "bullying" Singapore by threatening to terminate two water agreements, due to expire in 2011 and 2061...
...Next door in Malaysia, though, angry politicians have made it clamorously clear that they think Lee should have stuck to his original plan...
...Singapore is dependent on Malaysia for its water supply...
...When the book came out, Malaysian leaders were particularly offended by Lee's claim that, prior to the ouster, their Singapore counterparts had virtuously rejected offers of prime rubber land and invitations to men's clubs where the finest food was served followed by services of call girls...
Vol. 81 • November 1998 • No. 12
