Just what is it about Singapore...?

[storyman]

1995

Just what is it about living in Singapore that makes living here so frustrating? We all complain about the lifestyle but when taken to task over specifics we yield the standard “everything”. So lets try and be a little more scientific about it; lets try and make a list of just what it is that irks us so intensely. Before doing this though it is not a bad idea to counteract the Singaporean indignation at criticising their small, friendly and so very successful country. The standard response is that we are guests in their country and therefore have no right to criticise. This may have been true at the turn of the century when fervent nationalism wasn’t just the cry of third world countries with an inferiority complex. However, we now live in a global community and it is this global community that Singapore owes not only its economic success to but also its very existence. To play ball you must first commit the rules to heart otherwise you find yourself playing alone. We are guests in Singapore as much as Singapore is a guest of the Western world’s community.

Things that peeve me :
·Lee Kwan Yew is an honest man
·Singapore owes its success to Lee Kwan Yew’s iron fist style of rule
·LKY and only LKY is responsible for Singapore’s success
·Prime Minister Goh’s salary and his attitude that such restitution is the only way to attract the calibre of people suitable for such a job
·The way that Singapore panders to China’s spoilt child antics
·The way that Singaporians pretend there is racial harmony in their tropical paradise
·The exorbitant cost of cars and the more than one billion dollars that the government has made from car registration plates
·How the rich keep getting richer and the poor get poorer
·How there is 3% inflation per year when land prices go up by 60% and COEs by the same
·How only Singaporeans can own landed property yet take it as their right to buy up Australian land and then sneer at Australians for letting them
·How most Singaporean wealth is based on the rapidly rising property prices rather than actual value added production
·That most Singaporeans can’t see that their wealth is based on a forced savings rate 10 to 30 times greater than other developed economies
·That their economic success is largely dependent on this forced saving and the lack of welfare payments to the community which account for 30-40% of total government expenditure in developed economies
·That Singapore owes its success to its British past which left behind a developed and workable system of law, order and government infrastructure
·The way that Singaporeans are so insular in everything they do
·The way that Singaporeans lack a constant awareness of their surroundings and environment which is born out in their high motor vehicle accident rate
·Their inability to use an indicator when changing lanes
·Their habit of pulling straight out in front of on coming traffic and then believing that everything will be okay if they simply don’t look at the vehicle taking the avoiding action
·The way that the Indians pull out in front of anyone with a less expensive car than their own
·How riding a bicycle is so dangerous in Singapore not just because the drivers don’t look but also because when they do they won’t accept your right to passage
·How white lines on the road have no other purpose than to look interesting
·How most Singaporeans can’t ride a bike
·How most Singaporeans can’t swim
·How all unmarried Singaporeans can’t cook
·How all Singaporeans walk on the bicycle track without any comprehension of the possible consequences
·How the government forces families to fork out a minimum $70 000 or one years salary, which ever is more, as a surety when male students study overseas to ensure that they return
·How Singapore continues to be built on the exploitation of foreign workers who work 12 hours a day for $25
·The atrocious living conditions that foreign labourers are forced to live in
·The high crime rate that all who live in Singapore know exists but which the government refuses to admit to
·The high level corruption that everyone knows is present but nobody can talk about
·The way that the only green areas in Singapore are the parts that the tourists see
·The exorbitant cost of golf club membership
·The lack of recreation for the common man
·How everything in Singapore costs money
·How the new Super-buses that are to take Singapore into the next century are now coming out without air-conditioning
·How everyone is so paranoid about security when they are suppose to live in one of the world’s safest countries
·How every day the government, by way of the newspaper, indulges in America bashing
·How if Singapore’s security is ever threatened America will be the first country they squeal out to for help
·How Singaporeans truly believe that the world actually revolves around them and their indignation when people say they don’t even know where the country is
·How their airforce pilots find it reassuring to make as much noise as possible when flying over the island
·How in this day of satellite imagery their airports don’t appear in road directories or on maps
·The inability of the entire population to think laterally. Square blocks in square holes only.

[Whiskery]

Fair enough storyman, if you're writing a political and social critique on a country in Asia.

But can anyone please tell me what this story has to do with Professional Pilots and their careers ????

[Jetlegs]

Whiskery, Puhlease...........Is that the best you can come up with?

Storyman, nice bit of "perspective". Have never been very interested in Singapore as a country, despite flying into it a couple of times a year on average. (allergic to shopping, weather too muggy, people not very communicative)

But with all the discussions on pprune regarding their airline, i must admit i'm beginning to take an ever dimmer view of the place. So as far as i'm concerned, any background info is interesting.

[Fuel Burner]

Jetlegs

Don't get sucked into this crap.

Take a country as you find it.

[hounddog high]

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/forum/for1_0424.html

storyman, I have to respect your perspective which you have gathered over the years from whatever experiences.

The above is another.

[Gladiator]

Can someone please translate the article in plain english.

The writer, I do not know, PSP, LSD, other!!

[A Few Good Men]

The Washington Post
Singapore is a dressed-up dictatorship

When Alex deTocqeville wanted to look into new forms of governance, he travelled West to the new worlds and spent nine months studying America. With the same idea in mind, but not supposing that these days to find the new world one travels East, I went to teach for a year in Singapore.
I especially wanted to look into what Singaporean officials tout as a new, unique blend of Confucianism and capitalism, an Asian-style of governance that corrects what they call the West’s excessive emphasis on the rights of the individual.
Singapore’s government, the argument goes, focuses on the needs of the community and so spares its country the ills of the West while it promotes prosperity and general happiness. This new form of governance they call “authoritarian democracy”.
Since that country is a good deal smaller than the United States (three million people in a little over twice the area of Washington), I got to see it very thoroughly over the course of a year. At the outset, the country didn’t seem strange. Singapore is a modern, Westernized, consumerist society. The cultural overlap between Singapore and Tyson’s Corner must be at least 80 per cent.
Nor was the famous skyline hard to get used to: “Like Rosslyn on steroids,” a DC friend remarked. The longer I stayed, however, the more peculiar Singapore became.
There was a grim air about the university. On the chairman’s desk, propped up on a little easel and aimed to catch your eye as you sat in the visitor’s chair, was a small sign that read, “An ounce of loyalty is worth more than a pound of cleverness.”
Though I came from a military academy and was not likely to be a radical, the Singaporean authorities demanded that I be interviewed for political reliability by their ambassador in Washington. I was directed to furnish copies of everything I had published and was required to have a phone interview with the acting chair of the department before I finally was pronounced acceptable. Even so, I was in the country for almost 10 weeks before I was permitted to teach a class.
It took months to piece together what I was seeing in Singapore. Why did the chairman of my department bring two agents from the Internal Security department to the office of one of my colleagues and watch while they questioned him for 90 minutes and stripped his office of papers, records and computer files?
Why did the newspapers brag of the Government’s ability “to take a firm hand with irresponsible journalists”? Why was I visited after 10 pm by two policemen who demanded that I empty the water out of the saucer underneath a potted plant on my balcony (a threat to public health, they explaned) and which of my neighbours had called them to turn me in?
It took the entire year to appreciate fully the achievement of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the man who ruled Singapore as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990 and is still its dominant political figure in his role as elder statesman. Slowly his astonishing array of social controls became clear and the character of “authoritarian democracy” became obvious. I found that no organization on the Island has been left unpenetrated by his People’s Action party. His control of that compact and technologically sophisticated country is more total than any other national leader has ever achieved. Mr Lee has created the most perfectly realised autocracy anywhere, the world’s state-of-the-art dictatorship.
The press, the police and military as well as the electoral, legal, housing, education, trade union and employment systems are all entirely under his control, so dissent, even at the polls (where voting is compulsory and ballots are serially numbered) is quixotic. Total government control of a very successful economy permits the regime to scatter largesse, so compliance is richly rewarded.
Mr Lee has woven a web of rewards and punishments around every aspect of life in Singapore. Nine out of 10 Singaporeans live in housing on 99-year lease from the government. Their leases can be terminated on a pretext. In other words, their apartment, which typically represents most of their savings, can be seized.
On the other hand, if they behave well they get to live cheaply in safe, subsidised, spartan housing in a society where other real estate has been bid to well above Washington levels. If they do not behave, the consequences are dire. If, for example, a young woman engages in what the Government sees as morally inappropriate behaviour, such as having a child outside of marriage, she may be reported by the monitors in every housing block and expelled.
Singaporeans pensions are also held hostage: between 30 and 40 per cent of most people’s income is taxed away into a “Central provident Fund” and held by the Government. Those who behave get a sterling reward: Their compulsory contribution is matched one-for-one by the Government. On the other hand, they live in fear that their retirement will be expropriated. My colleague Christopher Lingle, the American academic referred to above who angered the authorities by publishing a piece in the International Herald tribune mocking singaporean propaganda, lost about $20,000, all his savings in Singapore, in this way.
The education systen is similarly rigged to provide huge incentives for compliance and lifelong punishments for deviance. Students must be certified politically reliable by their high schools or junior colleges before they attend a university. Males undergo two or more years compulsory military training before college; some among them are recruited by the Internal Security Department and directed to report on their classmates. Refusing such recruitment, I was told, is not an option.
In sum, civil society has been dismantled; the judiciary is utterly compliant and the legal profession has been reduced to a largely technical function. Complaints may be submitted to the official “Government Feedback Unit”.
Legal protections of such basic rights as habeas corpus have been abriged and trial by jury has been abolished. Paradoxically, Singaporeans were much freer under the british than they are today under Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Their civil liberties had much fuller legal protection when they were colonials.
When one district in the city had the temerity to elect to parliament a candidate from the tiny, feeble opposition party, the government launced a barrage of allegations, investigations and legal proceedings against him that lasted eight years, imprisoned him and left him ruined. When the victim took his case to the Queen’s Privy Council in Britain, they found he had been “fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which he was not guilty.” One year later, Parliament asbolished appeals to the privy Council for disciplinary matters.
Mr Lee also warned the dissenters that “the Government will not be blackmailed by the people…To make sure the excesses (votes against his party) are not carried too far…it is necessary to put some safeguards in the way in which people use their votes to bargain, to coerce, to push, to jostle and get what they want without running the risk of losing the services of the Government.”
Nonetheless, Mr Lee’s party intervenes to keep that opposition party alive, alternately mocking, intimidating and infiltrating it, then appointing a handful of its candidates to the Parliament, in order to sustain the fiction that genuine politics are possible in singapore.
The striving for control takes laughable turns. Last year high school debating teams were imported from several countries to demonstrate Singapore’s openness, but someone failed to apply in time for the permit that must be granted by the Internal Security Departement for any formal gathering. No exception could be made: The foreign students had to sit silent and watch the locals debate each other.
At other times, the control grows ugly. The leading creative writer of Singapore, Catherine Lim, was attacked and repeatedly humiliated on the front page of the straits Times by Mr Lee himself after she made a cautious plea to the People’s Action Party to soften its style or risk creating an :effective divide” between itself and the people.
Mr Lee used the occasion to establish a new limit on political expression, describing how he would confront those who questioned him. “I would isolate the leaders, the troublemakers, get them exposed, cut them down to size, ridicule them, so that everybody understands that its’ not such a clever thing to do. Governing does not mean just being pleasant. If you want pleasant result, just as with children, you cannot just be pleasant and nice.”
Such language was printed with approval in all the papers of Singapore. Editorialists professed to find his statements “reassuring”.
But Mr Lee went further in his intimidation of Ms Lim: “Have a one-on-one. I’ll meet you. You will not write an article – and that’s it. One-to-one on TV. You make your point and I’ll refute you…Or if you like, take a sharp knife, metaphorically, and I’ll take a sharp knife of similar size; let’s meet. Once this is understood, it’s amazing how reasonable the argument can become…”
In this, as in all arguments in singapore, Mr Lee has the last word. Outside Singapore, however, it is still possible to point out that under his rule “authoritarian democracy” has come to mean totalitarian control. What he touts as Singapore’s political innovation is in fact merely a sophisticated refinement of this century’s political invention: the totalitarian state.

[Whiskery]

Jetlegs - just wanted this topic moved to where it should have started :-

OUT of the aviation section and into FAR EAST,where it belongs.

Keep the faith :]

[storyman]

For info & perspective

"Capt Pprune. I apologise if this topic breached the Rumours and News guidelines. What I failed to state was that this article was composed by about a dozen pilots sitting around a dinner table in Singapore in Jan 95. The focus of the discussion was to highlight whether it was just SIA that was the problem, or living in the country itself. I thought the article may have been worth reading for pilots considering a move in that direction.................."

[locgreen]

Hey Guys...chill out. It ain't so bad. If you are an expat living in s'pore, lets not forget the sole reason we're here is to make money. That aspect is pretty reasonable here. Also, politics is so boring anyway. As for the weather...ah, the wonders of air conditioning :)

[Girl Flying School]

Another little known fact about Singapore is that prostitution is legal....you won't find this fact in many tourist guide. :) And they claim to be such saints!

[This message has been edited by Girl Flying School (edited 13 May 2000).]

[wondering]

You have to admit LKY is a lot smarter than Stalin and Hitler combined.

[titan]

No I dont have to admit that. LKY only has 2.5 million little people to boss around. Hitler was going for 500 million while Stalin was happy with 220 million.
There is no comparison. Hitler and Stalin were beyong pretending that they were anything else than what they were. LKY runs around proporting to be an honest hero. He is neither; just a corrupt old crony.
No doubt he will come and sue me now!!!!!!

[beeforchicken]

think singapore is bad?
you should try living in hong kong!!
probably similar to sin except the drivers are worse and the pollution uncontrollable. amongst all the other things of course. how much does it cost to rent places over there?
sorry to butt in on your conversation.

[Mice]

You can get a decent 3 b/r apartment (1500sq/ft) with maid quarters for around 2000SIN$/mth, then on up, depending on location/quality/size.

------------------
When all else fails, read the manual!

[aerobridge]

This year's bonus is 4.1 months. Enuff to take LKY off one's mind for a while, don't you think so? At the rate SIA is goin' next year's bonus will take Goh off our minds too. Like locgreen said, we are here for the money. If politics is what you want, take it to a country where you have voting rights. Leave the running of the country to the locals. Get out if you have enough. Cheers, have a Tooheys mate.

[Whiskery]

aerobridge - couldn't agree with your more. Made a tidy little sum up there in SQ with the bonus and CPF. I prefer VB, but cheers and good luck anyway!

[nice_beaver]

How's the speakers corner coming on in Lyin city???

[titan]

Speakers Corner in Singapore isnt going so well. Seems that foreigners are banned from using it. Why? Because its alot harder to throw foreigners into Changi prison and use the State Security detention without charge law against them. And for some reason the locals seem a little apprehensive about using this new found freedom of expression.

[Whiskery]

You are really "hung Up" aren't you titan?
As Len McCulley used to say - "Some guys just can't cut the mustard!"

[Rockhound]

I'm with Whiskery, both on this thread and in reference to Storyman's puerile posting on the "Singapore Girl" in Rumours & News.
I've been to Singapore all of three times, each time for a few days only. Speaking from this vast storehouse of experience, I can unequivocally state, in regard to Singapore:
The airline is terrific.
The airport is terrific.
The people are terrific
Public transport is terrific.
The shopping is terrific.
The food is terrific.
Tiger beer is terrific.
I guess Storyman and Titan would say that, somehow, I missed the real Singapore.
Happy landings,
Rockhound

[Gladiator]

Rockhound there is a difference between visiting and living in a certain place.

Titan and storyman do not speak with a forked tongue. Trust me.

Whiskery, Lenny is pissed off because expat on local term pilots were his idea and the project was a failure. Lenny and what he represents could not cut the mustard and keep the expat on local term pilots.

We the expat on local term pilots left, we made the decision to leave. We made the decision not to be the employee of the world's best airline. That makes Lenny a disgruntled employer. Get over it Lenny.

Only those who have walked the walk can talk the talk. The rest is just conversation.

[Rockhound]

Gladiator,
I agree absolutely that there can be a world of difference between visiting a place and living in it. However, the virulently anti-Singapore/SQ diatribes that regularly surface on PPrune I find hard to take because I sincerely believe them to be unfair. They lead to people like Jetlegs wanting to have nothing to do with the place. Well, he's missing out. The Singaporeans uncommunicative??? I've found them friendly and helpful, from the immigration officer at Changi airport, to the left luggage clerk, to the city bus driver, to the staff of the guesthouse in Bencoolen St where I stayed, to the woman at the ticket booth for the harbour/riverboat cruise.
So the typical Singapore Girl wears a padded bra?? And she's probably Malaysian to boot?? So what!? For Chrissakes, guys, grow up! Employment conditions at SQ may be something else - I know little about them - but I think it's time this juvenile bitching about Singapore and its airline stopped.
Rockhound

[Gladiator]

Rockhound thank you for your objective reply. I too in early 1990 visited Singapore for the purpose of employment with Singapore Airlines. My impression of Singapore mirrored your experience of Singapore, in fact to the letter.

It took better part of a year and a half of living in Singapore before the real picture surfaced.

The bitching you describe is real life experience of a group of guys that have 'walked the walk'. This group of guys left by choice. One would have to stop and ask, why would these guys by choice leave a world class airline? Would you not think there may be reasons, reasons not visible to the eye of a visitor.

The descriptions you read here in PPRuNe are factual and real life events. In my days had PPRuNe existed I may not have gone to Singapore. People have sent me e-mails thanking me for saving them from falling into a hole. Not to mean that they took my word for it. We are merely a catalyst for second thought leading to further research.

Still many would like to wear Singapore Airlines wings. As of the beginning of 1996 Singapore Airlines ceased hiring of caucasian first officers. If a large number of your employees resign, it is time to think there may be something wrong with the employer. Would you not agree?

[titan]

Dearest Rockhound.....
1 - The airline is not terrific! It pretends to be terrific. Is the cabin crew good at service; yes, but like the French waiter, the smile you get is not real.
2 - the airport is successful, yes. A bit hard not to be given its geographic position. Same goes for the port.
3 - The people are a mixed bunch. Go and ask people for directions, maybe 1 out of 10 will talk to you, maybe 1 out of those 10 will give you the right information. Never got into a taxi with a friendly Chinese driver. Malays and Indians were always pleasant.
4 - Public transport SUCKS! No taxis in the rain, buses that come in convoys then nothing for an hour, no airconditioning on most of the buses.
5 - Shopping is only terrific after a few years when you eventually find someone you can trust. Ripping the tourist off is an institution, not a rarity.
6 - Food; for the first 6 months until you start looking in the kitchens, if you dont mind eating with the rats at the hawker stalls, if you dont mind puking after every second meal of undercooked Chicken Rice, if you never look inside Pow?(dumplings), if you close your eyes in the early morning when you go past the open pork-carcus trucks, covered in flies, sitting on the side of the road in the heat while the driver has makan before making his deliveries....and on.....and on...
7 - the beer - yes, it is better than the stuff in India, marginally. But the beer commercials with the big breasts and aeroplanes were too painful for me to be indoctrinated by.

But then Rockhound, Singapore is a finely tuned charade designed for the 3 day tourist.

And last of all, what a poor fake you are! You are a masquerading Singaporean through and through. Wake up and smell the.....orchids!

[Gladiator]

Titan for the first time I have to disagree with you on one item. The chicken rice are always good.

[Rockhound]

Titan,
Obviously, we'll have to agree to disagree but I can't bale out of this thread before taking you up on a few of your points.
Airport. What the hell has geographic location to do with the organization, efficiency, cleanliness, etc., etc. of Changi airport? I've travelled a fair bit in the world and, in my experience, no other major airport comes close to Changi.
Public transport. On my visits to Singapore I used different bus services to and from the airport and found them fast and punctual, day or night, rain or shine. I have no other experience of bus transport within SIN. I notice you failed to mention the subway. Have you come across a better one elsewhere in the world? I haven't.
Food. I always ate at hawkers' stalls and food centres, except once I had a Western buffet breakfast at a middle-grade hotel. The food was first-class every time and I never had an upset (but then I once lived 3 months in India and never had one, so maybe I'm some kind of freak).
People. I'm sorry you encountered so many unfriendly people in SIN. Personally, I can't think of a single local whom I found uncommunicative.
I readily admit that my experience of SIN is limited but I remain to be convinced that it is largely unrepresentative. At least, Titan, to your credit, you didn't bring up Storyman's schoolboy story of the selection process for the SIN GIRL, which is what got me to offer my $0.02 worth in the first place. On this topic, I'd just like to say that, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian, or Indian, genuine smile or not (and BTW I haven't come across that many French waiters who smile), the Singapre Girl is still charming.
As to employment conditions at SQ, I know nothing about them, so am happy to just sit back and read what I hope is fair comment on PPrune.
Over and out.
Rockhound

[Gladiator]

Titan I am afraid Rockhound is correct. He is actually correct in every point. His impression as a 3 day visitor (tourist) excatly mirrors my impression when I visited Singapore for 2 to 3 days before the shackels.

There is no way you will be able to even come close to explaining the reality of life in the Rock. I would say LKY is better than David Copperfield.

[titan]

Rockhound
The airport: the term "terrific" to any Singaporean means profitable; sorrry about the misunderstanding.
Buses: the government makes sure that only aircon buses are used on the airport route that tourists use, just like how the golf courses and parks are all along airpoirt tourist route one.
Trains: try Washington and Montreal. At least they dont make you motion sick.

Gladiator, do you know how they make Chicken Rice? Dead chickens are hung to drip over the rice bin. Once again the darker side to something that appears great.

[Gladiator]

You gotta be kidding, dead chickens dripping.... Oh that explains my cholestrol level while I was living in the Rock.

[Rockhound]

Hey Titan,
You're a pilot and you get motion sick on the Singapore subway???!!!
Wishing you no more than the lightest of light chop at all times,
Sincerely,
Rockhound