The Victorian Expansion into Asia...

By: Alexander MacColl

Posted: 10/30/08

The idea of an academic year abroad holds a special romance for students. As an internationally minded, English speaking nation, Singapore seems the ideal spot for some globe trekking for credit. Vic student Alexander MacColl sends a letter home to The Strand.

Hello, loyal readers of The Strand. From the fact that you're reading this I will assume that you're either in Burwash (I suggest avoiding the meat) or lying in residence avoiding the ominous stack of readings that is just next to your left elbow (I suggest hiding it with some socks).

In either case, my name is Alexander and I am a Victoria student. Now some of the more astute of my friends may have realized that I am not, however, currently at Victoria. This is not, as one might have assumed, because I have taken up cocaine and started living on the streets. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have moved to Singapore for an academic exchange. I say the opposite because Singapore has the death penalty for possession of 30 grams of cocaine, and would probably cane you for sleeping in public. They are nice and laid-back like that.

For context; Singapore is a South-East Asian country of 4 million people, all squashed onto an island about the size of Toronto. And not "GTA that includes Brampton, Kenora, and, like, Iqaluit" Toronto, just plain, regular Toronto. It is situated at the tip of Malaysia, a country of which it was a part until 1965. At this point, rather than fighting an epic independence struggle with a Gandhi-esque leader, Singapore was kicked out of its own country. The Malaysian PM liked his chances in the next election if he removed a state won by the opposition. So he just did that, without really consulting the Singaporeans. So Singapore is the only country to become independent against its own wishes. The PM cried on TV when announcing it. It is hard for me not to find that cute.

But they took their lemons, and they damn well made a fully functional city state. Think of an Asian Athens where homosexuality is illegal, freedom of speech is discouraged, and the most ubiquitous food-chain sells skewers of fishballs. So maybe Athens wasn't a great example. Imagine if Pacific Mall were an independent state with a government made up of Trin students. That might be closer.
So what is it like to arrive in this Asiatic Chicago-sur-mer? The first thing that you notice when you step out of the plane from Hong Kong (Singapore is far enough from Toronto that a direct flight can only be made by USAF planes that can refuel in the air over Guam) is that it is about -7?C. This is somewhat surprising considering that I can see the equator from my apartment. The reason for this seems to be that the Singapore has decided, inexplicably, that warmth is something to be avoided at all costs. Singapore's outdoor temperature hasn't fallen bellow 27?C since 1978 but all buildings are refrigerated to a temperature that rests somewhere between the warmth of Steven Harper's smile and the freezing point of helium.

While many Canadians are willing to wear ridiculous puffy coats, drink eggnog or - gods save them - live in Florida in order to seek out the feeling of warmth, Singapore avoids its external temperature at all costs. This led me to the somewhat surreal arrival experience of riffling through my bag to find the one sweater I'd brought. True Singaporeans simply slipped on the jacket they'd brought on their trip. They know that business trips to Toronto will end with a sudden return to the true cold of the tropics.

This desire to change their climate fits into a broader Singaporean desire to micromanage society in the style of an OCD 8-year-old with the world's biggest train-set. The role of this little tyke is played by the Orwellianly-named "People's Action Party" or PAP, a group dedicated the idea that there is no social problem that can't be fixed by a judicious mix of strict quotas, labyrinthine bureaucracy, and the brutal oppression of all opposition. Imagine if the Office of Admissions and Awards had a secret police force and you are most of the way there. This is the government that banned chewing gum for being too messy, put sin taxes on alcohol that makes it more expensive than cocaine, and then shot all of the coke dealers for smiling smugly.

There is no aspect of social life that is not strictly regimented; from the super-efficient public transit system to the streets that are cleaned every morning to the only food markets in Asia where a person as white as me can eat without any fear of discomfort.

But that shouldn't give you the idea that it is a repressive police state. People are happy, and the government generally does a good job. And the state doesn't get in your way unless you do something silly like write provocative newspaper articles, spit on the street or, you know, become gay. A really fitting phrase that has been coined for Singapore is "Disneyland with the death penalty". It's really shiny, the rides are fun; but so help you god if you step out of line they will be angry. Just stay quiet when they tell you, queue when you're asked to, and everything will be fine. Like day-camp. Or the Soviet Union. I mean… like day camp. (They can't read emails I send to Toronto, right?)

One of the most audacious policies of the Singapore government was their attempt to make English into the national language. The population of Singapore is 75% Chinese, with the rest being Indians (Tamils) and Malays. Deciding that they needed a common language, the PAP decided to force everyone to speak English, thus preventing a fractious ethnic debate while assuring the city an advantage in the global economy. The subtle problem? The British all left upon independence. And so the non English-speaking population had to teach each other English. Imagine if I told you all to turn to the person on your left and teach them to speak Portuguese. And then that guy tried to teach his children Portuguese. Imagine how strange that would become after two 'broken telephone'-like generations. Now remove the letter "R" from everything and you're pretty close to how things sound here.

The result was an intriguing mix of English, Malay, Hokkien, and Tamil. An entire two generations have grown up with ESL as a first language. This can be a bit jarring. Even simple phrases can become very intriguing.

Singapore English (Singlish): "Makan, issit? Two can-a-not? thee also can. You eat orredy? Tomorrow, lah!"

Canadian English; "Do you wish to eat? Would you be free at 2pm? 3pm would also work. Ah, you have already eaten? I would be happy if we could eat together tomorrow.

Many Singaporeans are very proud of this distinctive way of speaking. It is very expressive and, as shown above, often much more efficient than Standard English. The government, however, is not pleased. It isn't clear what would please them- with the exception of an efficiently regulated derivatives market or the natural death of both members of the opposition; but an unregulated and particularistic language certainly doesn't. They have therefore launched the intriguingly named "Speak Good English" movement to encourage Singaporeans to sound more like the BBC. And so a country in which the average person is only a few steps away from speaking Hokkien has a Prime Minister who makes announcements in an accent that could match the Queen's.

Not only has the government tried to manage how people talk in bars, they've also made valiant effort to control what might happen afterward. Singapore has no desire to follow North America's - I am actually quoting here - "Wild West" view of sexual morality.

The PAP has declared that homosexuality is immoral and cannot be allowed. For a bit of context, the government also banned consensual oral sex between heterosexuals until 2007. My understanding is that this law wasn't really enforced, but it speaks to a certain view of the world.

In another exciting twist, the recent liberalization only allows acts which are used as a precursor to "normal" sex. It isn't clear to me how this is determined in the unlikely event that the police were to arrive; presumably through the most awkward police interview imaginable. I'd like to take this opportunity to explain that my understanding of this law is purely academic, and ask my girlfriend to stop googling ways to have me murdered. Not that any of them would work, Singapore hasn't had a violent crime since 1987.

Of course there are a few parts of the city that have escaped the notice of the state. One of them is little India, one of the only parts of the city that gives you the impressing that you might be in Asia. Leaving the arctic freeze of the Little India subway station suddenly deposits you in the middle of a crowded maze of low-rise sari shops and roti houses looming over thin roads crowded with thousands of bustling Bangladeshi migrant labourers. Hindu temples and pushy gold merchants replace the city's ubiquitous McCafes and international banks. Restaurants serve curried fish head on a banana leaf, store-vendors haggle over half a Singapore dollar, and women leave clothing stores wearing Saris that look like they were spun out an alchemous mix of gold and cotton candy. Many Chinese Singaporeans refuse to visit, afraid that there might be dirt. They are correct, but also so very very wrong.

The bustling life of Little India is starkly contrasted by the paragon of Singaporean planning; Sentosa island. Singapore has long fought against its tropical identity. Glacial air-conditioning, the strict use of English and a concrete-centred urban planning model that wouldn't be caught dead in 'festive colours' work hard to make it clear that Singapore is a serious city. The tropics, you see, are not where Singapore wants to be.

Singapore is efficient, there is a stock exchange and clean streets. Millions have been spent uprooting palm trees and building a vast concrete totem to industrial modernism. This is how investors would be sought, and progress would be made. This absolute faith in the modernist dream was greatly tested when foreigners arriving in Singapore started asking for beaches and drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Though closer to the equator than Trinity is to the source all evil, Singapore has based its success on hiding its tropical identity, and the city was surprised when foreigners began asking for the signs of this embarrassingly bucolic naturalism. In typically Singaporean style, the answer was a massive engineering project, and sand was imported to allow for the creation of a pleasure island to fulfil all Western stereotypes of the tropics.

The result was Sentosa, a hermetically sealed section of the tropics which has been allowed to exist in Singapore. The island is covered with sandy beaches, fake Cuban music, and extravagantly priced drinks (well, the little umbrellas included free). The feeling that you might be in Cancun is only thrown off by the fact that 25% of the world's container ships are, at any moment, docked at the Pasir Panjang trans-shippment port. So every view of white sand beaches includes ships carrying 100 metric tonnes of Chinese-manufactured crap. That pen you didn't use to take notes today, I saw that leave Asia.

The quietly humming efficiency of Singaporean society is also disturbed by a more glaring disturbance; white people. Specifically, drunken British people. Depressed that the loss of the Empire has removed their ability to tour the world on elephant-back, the English have had to find a new activity to fill the time between football riots. They seem to have decided that stumbling drunkenly around foreign cities asking non-anglophones for the directions to "That club. The one Paul went to t'other night." is the next best thing.

This plague of 'Ang Moh' (Singlish for 'white person') is greatly annoying to the locals. Clever Singaporeans have centralized all of their dance clubs and expensive bars in two areas, thus allowing them to continue to study accounting and be ridiculously polite long into the night, free from the noise and bother brought by drunken white people.

It is this wonton desire to take a BS1232 "Operations Management" assignment, rip off its cover sheet and make passionate, passionate revision to it long into the night that truly captures the Singapore spirit. This should preferably be done while eating shrimp chips and huddling under a jacket in a library that is cleverly kept at 17K.

And so all libraries at the National University of Singapore (my U of T for the next 6 months) are constantly filled with students violently thrusting more and more knowledge into their oddly formatted ring binders. (Ring binders have 2 holes here, how weird is that?) At first this was a somewhat terrifying thought.

My first visit to the library (on 2pm on a Tuesday in August) revealed a semi apocalyptic scene reminiscent of Robarts at 2am the day before an engineering exam. Some students had started to isolate themselves behind walls of books while their more precocious colleagues were already napping splayed out on a bed of photocopies. This image brings us to another aspect of Singaporean studying; it is highly inefficient. They start out the evening preparing to spend the night at it, but end up just napping and cuddling up against a tragically unfulfilled stack of notes. So they all budget about 8 hours a day for work, when they only really ever go at it for more than 40 minutes at a time.

What is it like to have classes with these would-be study gods? That's an interesting question. Lectures are very intimidating.

The entire class has printed out the lecture notes, the lecture slides, the readings, and a private investigator's report on the professor's private life - and are frantically taking notes on all of these. The lecture speaks to a room full of eager eyes and hysterically scribbling pens. Standing out as the only person not to have brought 87 photocopies to class is made easier by there never more than 30 students in a lecture, and easier still by being the only Ang Moh in the room.

Tutorials, however, are much less intimidating. While the Singaporean education system has provided its graduates with enviable cramming skills, a world-beating ability to take notes in their third language, and an impressive willingness to sacrifice any shadow of a personal life in the pursuit of academic success; it has left them entirely unwilling to voice opinions.

This makes politics tutorials somewhat surreal. If the professor were to ask a technical question, like "what is Tarling's thesis" or "on what page does the author use the most vowels", a dozen hands will shoot up. If, however, the professor asks something like "What do you think about the thesis" or "In your mind, was the Japanese war-time occupation a bad thing", he will be met with blank stares. Eventually, someone will make a valiant effort, coming up with something like, "well, I think that in the footnotes to page 26 the author mentions that he thinks it is a bad thing", but getting true opinions is like pulling teeth. Desperate professors eventually turn to the one or two exchange students (usually Swedes or Germans, their 6' blonde heads towering like golden totem poles above the me-sized Asian crowd) in the hope of eliciting a response. And so we minorities often get a say. Affirmative action, lah.

There is, however, a class in which the awkwardly sunburned white students make less of a contribution. Welcome to Mandarin level one. Now it isn't clear to me why I thought that I had a chance at learning Chinese. Maybe I just assumed that, having failed to learn French, German, and Spanish, that I was due for a lucky break. Maybe I thought that pictures are just inherently more fun than letters, and maybe I was tweaked up on meth when I filled in my course selection form. Certain discloser clauses in the Youth Criminal Justice Act mean that you'll never be able to prove anything, but it is safe to say that I was fairly wildly optimistic.

The fun part of this class (well, besides 'counting words', which are fraking awesome?!?!) is that the professor is wildly racist. Our first sign might have been when she unilaterally renamed all of the students in the class with Chinese names that bore no resemblance to their actual names, and then became angry when we didn't know which of us she was yelling at.

A student named 'Mohamed' has been (I feel 'rechristened is the wrong word..) "Shamu". My name became "Yuehan", without my being informed. My failure to respond to this new name was then seen as insubordination. She then proceeded to ask questions to different sections of the class based upon her perception of their race's ability to function in Chinese. Ethnically Chinese (but theoretically non-Mandarin speaking) students are only asked simple questions, as they will learn it anyway. Malay, Viet, and Korean students are quizzed more harshly, as they live on the peripheries of the middle kingdom. White students, however, are doomed to failure.

Phrases such as "big eyes, is hard for you" and "Now we hear from high-nose student" are not uncommon, and go unquestioned by the Asian students. Imagine how a class here would react to a Victoria Literature professor asking to hear from the "thin-eyed foreign students", and you understand the look of surprised horror on the faces of Europeans and North Americans in the room. Ironically this widens our eyes and makes us look confused, which only encourages her.

And so what is it like living in this strange place? It's hard to say. Sometimes it's very much like home and sometimes it is very far away. I lived in an officially Anglophone city with a lot of ethnically Chinese people for 19 years, and now I live in another one. Tower blocks are tower blocks, and the noodles taste the same. But it isn't quiet home.

That's something very interesting about coming from Canada. Wherever you go, something will always remind you of home. Food in Vietnam reminds me of Pho Hung on Bloor, overhearing French exchange students makes me think of Montreal, and one of the foods I really miss from Toronto is cheap Sushi. But home isn't a food, a language, or even a place. Home is where you feel at ease, it's where there are people you love, and it is where you don't have to think about where you are. I enjoy being in Singapore, but in Toronto I just am. You might be proud of the food in your home town, you can love the home team, or might brag about the bands that play there; but you love it because of the people. So I recommend that you visit Singapore, and I'd love to show you around if you do, but whether we next meet at New Gen on Bloor or Komala Vilas on Serangoon Rd; I'll be looking forward to seeing you at home.

Alexander MacColl,
Singapore