Landing in Singapore felt like being wrapped up in a warm, humid blanket. Ahhh...the tropics.
The first thing you notice upon leaving the airport is how clean everything is. When I say clean, I mean clean. Sanitary, polished, almost sterile...a complete 180 from the desert town we were just in. I felt my shoulders relax into place, my brain stop swimming with concern. We made it out of India, and we can touch, eat, drink, lick, and sit on any surface...without wiping it down first! It felt like a reprieve...you can relax now, Oliver will be just fine here.
We stayed with our friends Mark and Sashka in their fabulous rented condominium. Mark and Andy met in college and we met Sashka two years ago on a trip to NYC when I was about six weeks pregnant. Mark is on a two year contract to help establish the Singapore office of his multi-media advertising company. Sashka, like me, is a trailing spouse. We talked at length about what it is like to follow your partner around the world and not have a professional life for yourself. Sashka and I had "therapy" sessions everyday in the workout room. We got it all out. All of it. We were both struggling with being so far from home, not having a professional life, dealing with our husband's successes while we had no external reward for moving...it was fantastic to be able to have this time with someone who really gets what I am saying, and understands through her own experience, the struggle. It was heaven. After three weeks with three Cooper boys, I really needed some girl time. We all went out to eat, shopping, touring, walking, drinking. It was so great to be with people who knew us before we came to India. We could speak short-hand and they understood. Seeing people from home was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Singapore is a police state, but you don't ever see officers. I asked our friends about this and they explained that the officers are in plain clothes; all the better to arrest you for spitting in. You feel the pressure to stay within the lines every time you walk outside. It's different from Japan, the country I previously had associated with following the rules so well. In Singapore you feel scared to step out of bounds because someone might pounce on you. In Japan, it was societal pressure that kept people in line: Don't litter because we want clean streets! Don't listen to loud music so we all can enjoy the train! Don't smoke unless you are near a designated trash can because others may not want to breathe in your exhaust! But in Singapore it's more scary: even consider stepping out of the rule zone and you will be Punished! Severely! Painfully! You get the sense that everyone is aware of this at all times and they walk around the city with an undercurrent of fear pulsing through them. It was bizarre, eery, especially coming from a country where you never see officers either but that is because they just can't be bothered to enforce any rules.
Singapore has many nicknames: Asia-light (More like Diet-Asia to me), Disneyworld with the death penalty. It was hard to get a sense of the culture, even though we were there for an entire week. I kept wondering, What do people do? What do they like to eat? With what traditions do they raise their kids? What is important to them? I couldn't get a read on it. Singapore is a new country, self-governing since 1959 and independent since 1965 and you feel that newness still. All the buildings are new (we saw a building getting demolished that was built in 1987! Our friends said it "looked too old") the cars on the road can only date back ten years and then must be replaced, the newest buildings look like they are from the future...nothing said "restored" or " traditional" in the least. New new new. There is cultural influence from Malaysia, of course, but also China, Japan, India and America. There were so many American expats in Singapore to nobody bothered to even glance at us, let alone ask for our picture (which was fantastic!). People from all over the world move there for work since Singapore is the the second freest economy in the world (behind Hong Kong). There is a huge blending of cultures in demographics; but it feels as if none of it is cohesive. It feels quite separate; as if people save their traditions for home at out on the streets everything is a very homogenous....diet Asia.
Capitalism is alive and well in Singapore and I have to admit, though I am embarrassed to, I missed it. , Just a little. What I really miss is the resources, abundant and right at my finger tips. You could buy anything you want or need in Singapore, for a price. Since everything gets imported, you notice just how much taxes, levies and logistics factor into pricing. Vitamins were $85.00! (A Singapore dollar is about 1.25 for every American dollar) One morning Andy had some stomach issues so I went to the pharmacy. After seeing that the remedy was $45.00, I told him he needed to ride it out. Once Sashka and I walked for two blocks and in those two blocks I passed by two Chanel's. Because it is so hard to walk to the Chanel two blocks back? Crazy. Yes, I shopped and was happy to do so. I only bought a couple of things but since western clothes are not available/not attractive in India, I wanted something new that I could wear in my own style. People seemed happy to shop, happy to pay what was asked. If there is a culture in Singapore, it's a mall culture; the common thread can be found at the malls.
I had told my friend that one of the first things I had to do in Singapore was get my haircut. I needed a change and I needed someone who knew how to cut curly hair. When I arrived at the salon my very sweet, young, flaming stylist took one look at my hair and gasped, "What have you DONE?" I meekly replied something about how hard the water in India is...how much I am trying with my limited product availability to keep moisture in my hair. He shook his head and said that I MUST get the $325 deep conditioning treatment. "Nope, I just want to cut it off." We agreed on three inches. He was adamant about not going shorter (a commandment for those of us with tight ringlets, 'thou shall not have hair above your shoulders!'). One he had done the trimming and blew out my hair into a nice, straight look I said, "Go shorter." He shook his head no. "Yes, please, you don't understand how badly I need a change!" He said he couldn't possibly. So I very kindly, but very directly said that if he didn't take two more inches off I wasn't going to pay the full price and I wasn't going to come back (he didn't need to know that I wouldn't come back anyway). He very nervously went after those two inches. His brow was sweating but his hands were steady. In the end, even with five inches gone, my hair rested comfortably below my shoulders but I felt like a completely new person.
By far the hardest thing for me to get my head around in Singapore was that there was never anyone swimming in the ocean. There are so many merchant tankers in the surrounding water, waiting to get into port that they leak oil into the water so there is oil at the beach. I just don't understand how you can live on an island and never be able to swim in the water around it. Isn't there a solution? The tankers wait further from shore? Cleaner tankers? There must be a way to still get the goods in (there goes that capitalism, ruining the oceans...I told you I was embarrassed for missing it!) yet keep the ocean's clean. I just don't know the answer.
After a week we were off to Thailand, where I could have stayed, happily, in the ocean all day.
The first thing you notice upon leaving the airport is how clean everything is. When I say clean, I mean clean. Sanitary, polished, almost sterile...a complete 180 from the desert town we were just in. I felt my shoulders relax into place, my brain stop swimming with concern. We made it out of India, and we can touch, eat, drink, lick, and sit on any surface...without wiping it down first! It felt like a reprieve...you can relax now, Oliver will be just fine here.
We stayed with our friends Mark and Sashka in their fabulous rented condominium. Mark and Andy met in college and we met Sashka two years ago on a trip to NYC when I was about six weeks pregnant. Mark is on a two year contract to help establish the Singapore office of his multi-media advertising company. Sashka, like me, is a trailing spouse. We talked at length about what it is like to follow your partner around the world and not have a professional life for yourself. Sashka and I had "therapy" sessions everyday in the workout room. We got it all out. All of it. We were both struggling with being so far from home, not having a professional life, dealing with our husband's successes while we had no external reward for moving...it was fantastic to be able to have this time with someone who really gets what I am saying, and understands through her own experience, the struggle. It was heaven. After three weeks with three Cooper boys, I really needed some girl time. We all went out to eat, shopping, touring, walking, drinking. It was so great to be with people who knew us before we came to India. We could speak short-hand and they understood. Seeing people from home was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Singapore is a police state, but you don't ever see officers. I asked our friends about this and they explained that the officers are in plain clothes; all the better to arrest you for spitting in. You feel the pressure to stay within the lines every time you walk outside. It's different from Japan, the country I previously had associated with following the rules so well. In Singapore you feel scared to step out of bounds because someone might pounce on you. In Japan, it was societal pressure that kept people in line: Don't litter because we want clean streets! Don't listen to loud music so we all can enjoy the train! Don't smoke unless you are near a designated trash can because others may not want to breathe in your exhaust! But in Singapore it's more scary: even consider stepping out of the rule zone and you will be Punished! Severely! Painfully! You get the sense that everyone is aware of this at all times and they walk around the city with an undercurrent of fear pulsing through them. It was bizarre, eery, especially coming from a country where you never see officers either but that is because they just can't be bothered to enforce any rules.
Singapore has many nicknames: Asia-light (More like Diet-Asia to me), Disneyworld with the death penalty. It was hard to get a sense of the culture, even though we were there for an entire week. I kept wondering, What do people do? What do they like to eat? With what traditions do they raise their kids? What is important to them? I couldn't get a read on it. Singapore is a new country, self-governing since 1959 and independent since 1965 and you feel that newness still. All the buildings are new (we saw a building getting demolished that was built in 1987! Our friends said it "looked too old") the cars on the road can only date back ten years and then must be replaced, the newest buildings look like they are from the future...nothing said "restored" or " traditional" in the least. New new new. There is cultural influence from Malaysia, of course, but also China, Japan, India and America. There were so many American expats in Singapore to nobody bothered to even glance at us, let alone ask for our picture (which was fantastic!). People from all over the world move there for work since Singapore is the the second freest economy in the world (behind Hong Kong). There is a huge blending of cultures in demographics; but it feels as if none of it is cohesive. It feels quite separate; as if people save their traditions for home at out on the streets everything is a very homogenous....diet Asia.
Capitalism is alive and well in Singapore and I have to admit, though I am embarrassed to, I missed it. , Just a little. What I really miss is the resources, abundant and right at my finger tips. You could buy anything you want or need in Singapore, for a price. Since everything gets imported, you notice just how much taxes, levies and logistics factor into pricing. Vitamins were $85.00! (A Singapore dollar is about 1.25 for every American dollar) One morning Andy had some stomach issues so I went to the pharmacy. After seeing that the remedy was $45.00, I told him he needed to ride it out. Once Sashka and I walked for two blocks and in those two blocks I passed by two Chanel's. Because it is so hard to walk to the Chanel two blocks back? Crazy. Yes, I shopped and was happy to do so. I only bought a couple of things but since western clothes are not available/not attractive in India, I wanted something new that I could wear in my own style. People seemed happy to shop, happy to pay what was asked. If there is a culture in Singapore, it's a mall culture; the common thread can be found at the malls.
I had told my friend that one of the first things I had to do in Singapore was get my haircut. I needed a change and I needed someone who knew how to cut curly hair. When I arrived at the salon my very sweet, young, flaming stylist took one look at my hair and gasped, "What have you DONE?" I meekly replied something about how hard the water in India is...how much I am trying with my limited product availability to keep moisture in my hair. He shook his head and said that I MUST get the $325 deep conditioning treatment. "Nope, I just want to cut it off." We agreed on three inches. He was adamant about not going shorter (a commandment for those of us with tight ringlets, 'thou shall not have hair above your shoulders!'). One he had done the trimming and blew out my hair into a nice, straight look I said, "Go shorter." He shook his head no. "Yes, please, you don't understand how badly I need a change!" He said he couldn't possibly. So I very kindly, but very directly said that if he didn't take two more inches off I wasn't going to pay the full price and I wasn't going to come back (he didn't need to know that I wouldn't come back anyway). He very nervously went after those two inches. His brow was sweating but his hands were steady. In the end, even with five inches gone, my hair rested comfortably below my shoulders but I felt like a completely new person.
By far the hardest thing for me to get my head around in Singapore was that there was never anyone swimming in the ocean. There are so many merchant tankers in the surrounding water, waiting to get into port that they leak oil into the water so there is oil at the beach. I just don't understand how you can live on an island and never be able to swim in the water around it. Isn't there a solution? The tankers wait further from shore? Cleaner tankers? There must be a way to still get the goods in (there goes that capitalism, ruining the oceans...I told you I was embarrassed for missing it!) yet keep the ocean's clean. I just don't know the answer.
After a week we were off to Thailand, where I could have stayed, happily, in the ocean all day.
