Singapore: The Land Trade Made

Posted by John
Singapore’s subway puts the proverbially punctual trains in Mussolini’s Italy to shame. And it’s not just trains that conform to expectations in the Southeast Asian city-state — scrupulous attention to detail characterizes every aspect of Singaporean life. With the city’s perfectly apportioned buildings, pristine streets and frequently posted regulations, you have to strain to find anything that’s out of place.

After a while, the whole country begins to feel carefully stage-managed, a sort of nation that’s actually a theme park. And if a sense of artificiality often pervades the atmosphere, there are some consolations. Theme parks are, after all, places where lines form calmly and trash gets picked up—all which can feel welcome after some of the comparative chaos of Indonesia.

Singapore’s character emerges from the city’s thoroughgoing commitment to commerce, which dates back to the city’s foundational myth. Exhibits at Singapore’s National Museum practically canonize Sir Thomas Raffles, the British administrator who saw the sleepy Malay fishing village of Singapore as a diamond in the Southeast Asian rough. As a port, Singapore was perfectly situated between British interests in China and India and could serve as an island of free trade in the Dutch-controlled Straits of Malacca. Singapore quickly became the leading trade post between Hong Kong and Bombay, a position it never relinquished. Today, it’s the world’s biggest port in terms of shipping tonnage, handling much of the Middle East’s oil that is exported to Asia.

My own trip to the Port of Singapore revealed more of the country’s theme park–nature, quite literally in this case. I boarded the overhead carriages at the end of the subway route on the southern end of the city, eager to get a bird’s eye–view of the tanker traffic. I got my view alright, but also inadvertently ended up in Sentosa, the amusement park Singapore has built next to the port. Even the potentially untidy aspects of maritime trade in the world’s biggest port are dressed up with faux beaches (including sand imported from Indonesia’s Riau islands), butterfly parks and the oddly compelling 37-meter Merlion statue (see photo below). The merlion, half-fish, half-lion, was once the official mascot of Singapore (“The Lion Port City”).

Starting in the early 19th century, British imperial rulers encouraged Chinese merchants to make Singapore their home, and the result is that 75 percent of the citizens of this once-Malay village are Chinese. Indians also came to Singapore in large numbers and form 8 percent of the city’s population today. Malays, the majority in the early 19th century, are now less than 15 percent of the city’s population. Some signs are still posted in Malay, but English and Mandarin predominate.

After its independence from Britain in 1963, Singapore continued to cultivate its image as the place in Southeast Asia where the world comes to do business. Companies love the sense of predictability that Singaporean authorities have created through laws and regulations. Goods and services flow smoothly through the port, and international companies have a presence in the city to monitor the commercial comings and goings. The mores of capitalism govern the rest of Singapore, too, with well-stocked shopping malls at seemingly every subway stop. If you know what you’re looking for, you can probably find it in Singapore.

The country’s attempts to foster clear expectations can reach a point of absurdity, however. Doorways in several locations are labeled as “breeching inlets.” Partitions in the subway stations have signs indicating that they are merely “temporary hoarding” and that passersby should not lean on them. Compare this to Indonesia, where huge chasms in the road persist for weeks without any sort of warning. When I passed a government building in Singapore that labeled its “concealed exit,” the limits of literal-mindedness became annoyingly apparent.

Still, I’d like to import some of Singapore’s stricter regulations to Indonesia. Indonesian sidewalks, for instance, are full of vendors, which means pedestrians often have to walk in the road. Meanwhile, motorcycles frustrated with traffic jams decide to move from the street up onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians in the street, motorcycles on the sidewalk—both solutions work at cross purposes and upset the natural order.

And yet there’s an intimacy to most Indonesian neighborhoods, or kampung, that you won’t find in Singapore’s high-rise, high-end apartment buildings. Even in a big city like Jakarta, neighbors know each other and offer smiles and greetings to anyone passing through. People gather at the warung (corner stalls) for lunch and dinner and huddle around small roadside TVs for World Cup soccer or badminton championships (the sport where Indonesians have the most international success).

Is there a way to combine Singapore’s on-time trains with Jakarta’s close-knit neighborhoods? Sounds like Disney’s Tomorrowland. Perhaps that’s the Holy Grail for 21st-century urban planners.