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In the past five months that I’ve lived in India, I’ve miraculously seen more places outside the country than I have within the state of Karnataka. Last week I took my second big trip, this time to Singapore for five days. I had a business school interview there (it was either there or Bangkok), but I also took the opportunity to stay an extra few days and do some sightseeing. Luckily I have an old friend who used to study in Boston and is now working there, so for much of the time I had someone to show me around.
I had a great time but, wow… what a strange place. This was my first trip to Southeast Asia, and hopefully one day I’ll get to visit some of the other countries in the region. I was very close to visiting Malaysia or Indonesia for a day or two, which you can get to pretty easily by bus or ferry. But in the end I decided to stay in Singapore and squeeze out as much as I could from one tiny country.
For a hundred reasons, Singapore is unlike any other country on earth. First of all, it’s a place filled with Asian people, predominantly Chinese, almost all of whom speak fluent English. In itself that’s not really strange at all; English is a legacy of British colonialism, but it’s is also a useful common language for the three major ethnic groups there. But regardless, you can imagine what it’s like for an American who has never been to East Asia to be surrounded by people chatting in English, particularly when the people there speak it much better than in the Chinatowns in the U.S. The Singaporean accent, to me at least, sounds pretty Chinese, which brings about another weird sight: an ethnic Indian, born and raised in Singapore, speaking English with a Chinese accent.
There are tons of Indians, mostly from the South. One morning I asked the front desk at my hotel for a good breakfast place. He told me to walk down Dunlop street and look for a small café on the corner. When I found the place it turned out to be a guy selling dosas, something I eat at least three times a week in Bangalore. I tried to stay away from Indian food that week, even though I’m sure it would have been delicious. There was just too much delicious Malay and Chinese food to be eaten, and you can get a pretty good meal for 2-3 dollars (US). I got to partake in a favorite activity of mine which I’ve had to abandon in India: eating little foods from street vendors. From tapioca pancakes to toast with coconut jam, there were a hundred little foods you’ve never seen or heard of, most of which turned out to be great.
With so much wealth and so many cheap and delicious places to eat, how on earth are all these Singaporeans so skinny? It was clear after just a couple hours in the city that many people are obsessed with physical beauty. Every woman I saw on the subway seemed to have perfect hair and skin, expensive clothes, and high heels. And without exaggeration, out of all the people I saw during my stay there, I saw at most five fat people. I almost felt embarrassed, a hairy Iranian guy in flip flops and glasses, making his way past rows of perfectly primped Chinese women.
No one is an expert on a place after five days, neither is he an expert after five years. But soon it became very clear to me that with all the wealth and, well, bling in the city, it could get nauseating after a while. The streets are wide and well marked, and you hardly find any garbage anywhere (what a shock coming from Bangalore). There are towering shopping centers filled with expensive stores, stacked back-to-back-to-back with one another on busy, sparkling streets. Everyone looks perfect. It’s very pleasurable and inviting, but it’s also somewhat antiseptic. I repeatedly joked with my friend that Singapore felt like “Las Vegas with Asians”. But I was only half-joking.
Every February, Valentine’s Day reminded me of everything that makes me nervous about the USA, a country which I generally love. It’s an explosion of consumerism and bastardized capitalism, enough to make both Adam Smith and Karl Marx roll over in their graves. Strange coffin-fellows. I’d walk by Macy’s and see “Cupid can be bribed” on a big plastic window display, featuring a giant plastic heart and a mannequin with exaggeratedly pointy nipples poking out of a cheaply made sweater. We must all be idiots, because we repeatedly fall for it, and not just on that one day but also on the other 364. Maybe this time will be different, we figure, as we pull the trigger on the designer heated ice cream scoop that will surely change our lives forever.
Well, Singapore is more American than America in this regard, it seems. The lights are brighter, the streets are newer, and the girls are skinnier. On the subway, the most visible ad is for uZap, this electric wrap that goes over your belly, butt, or thighs and zaps them into shape. A gorgeous two-dimensional woman with a perfect figure pitches it to me and to sleepy commuters with loosened ties. But the Singaporeans are not idiots. The country is sitting on a cultural goldmine, a sleepy fishing village that somehow brought together a dozen peoples into one economic, cultural, and religious marketplace. It has the chance for a remarkable 21st century. Say what you want about the public humiliation, the executions, and the heavy fines, but their government and their premier are more concerned with making real decisions than performing airplane stunts. They’re at least cognizant of the fact that people can get rich and miserable at the same time.
The way I see it, America is the ex-hippie father who partied hard in the 60s and is now hoping that his kids don’t go down the same road. He turned out alright, after all. Back then the weed was mild, and free love at worst meant some itchiness and a trip to the doctor. But now the drugs are deadly laboratory creations, not plants in a friend’s backyard. And this time, getting a little too comfortable with Little Suzie could mean death at 35. So the father bites his nails, not just hoping that his kids don’t mess up, but knowing that they can’t afford to.
Bangalore and Singapore are just two of dozens of kids who have the chance to do it right this time. Will they? Probably not. I mean, even dad still falls for the same stupid trick every Valentine’s Day.
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The week before I left for Singapore, I was running around the city trying to get an extension on my visa, which expired yesterday. It turns out I was wrong about the police commissioner’s office; they make everyone go through the same rigorous nonsense. Who knows why it takes two hours to get a visa from the Indian consulate in New York, but one week to do the same in Bangalore. I ended up visiting the commissioner’s office five times, the Koramangala police station three times, the Ul Soor police station once, the State Bank of Mysore twice, the photo lab once, and the notary twice. In five work days, I did about four hours of real work. The police came to both my office and my house, which frightened my coworkers and made my neighbors wonder if the foreigner on the block was getting dragged to prison. On my fourth visit to the police commissioner’s office, after getting signed approval from a third and final official from that single office, I was told that the visa would be ready the following afternoon. When I came back a week later after Singapore, they gave me a temporary document and told me to come back in 60 days. Who knows what will happen then. All I know is that after dealing with the Bangalore police commissioner’s office, I now long for the clockwork-like efficiency of the DMV.
My boss gave me the most believable explanation for the ridiculous number of hurdles: The institution itself has created all these steps as an extra source of revenue. People like me, especially those who don’t have the luxury of taking a week off from work, get impatient and pay “speed money” to get everything done fast. This was my original guess, although it never occurred to me that the rules of the institution itself, rather than just a single greedy employee, might actually be creating so much needless work. In such a situation, even if the official you’re dealing with isn’t corrupt, his job requires him to stick to the original rules designed for him to make a few extra bucks.