A Day of Contrasts

Jan 24

John is having all the fun and as usual I am left to stay in the room and only have the cleaning staff to admire me.

It was another incredible day. John had the morning to himself and so he spent it uploading videos for his faithful readers. Yes, that's you!

He was ready at 1:30 to go on a tour of the Heartlands and Changi Village. With the complete unconsciousness of the totally pro-government guide, John found out about the nasty underbelly of Singapore. The bus first stopped at Changi Prison Museum. It is adjacent to the present day Changi prison. On the way, the guide said all the wonderful ways the government has organized everyone's life here. As we passed by the biggest prison grounds John has ever seen, he told the story of the man who is to be executed on Thursday. A poor Bangla Deshi man here on a work permit was found guilty of murder. The guide said this meant that there were no special favours to anyone even if you come from a foreign country. Of course, it did not apply to the Romanian diplomat who, on Jan 7 this year, killed three people on two different sidewalks when he was driving drunk and went back to his own country.

Anyway, they entered the museum and it was horrific. It was the story of the Japanese invasion and occupation of Singapore from 1941 to 1945. All the Japanese atrocities were documented, some with actual torture pictures. John found it hard to hold the tears back. There is no doubt that serious war crimes were committed against all the people, White, Malay, Indian and Chinese. The Australian troops figured greatly in the suffering. John could not get over the irony that the descendants of those who suffered are committing their own cruel crime by executing someone just minutes away from this site.

The tour continued and the guide extolled life in Singapore. If you earn around what John makes you are forced by economics to buy your apartment from the government. And you are only allowed to buy one. If you can afford luxury then you can have pretty well have whatever you want and there are houses as well as luxury condos. The government housing all looks pretty well the same, much as one would have expected to see in Communist Russia. Not only that, but each building has a quota of Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Eurasians according to the racial profile of the overall population. That was good said the guide because it prevemnted people from making their own ethnic areas.

The guide then stopped the bus and took the group into a housing development. They saw the food courts that the regular people use and it isn't the downtown cafe scene. It was one in which John would have felt unconfortable eating anything. Because of the racial mix there has to be a restaurant for each of the four recognized races. Every restaurant has to display the mark they get from the government inspectors. A is the best and you can get by with a B. But after two C's you automatically get a D and have to close for two weeks.

Next, it was out to the common area in the middle of about five large apartment blocks, where there was a playground for the kids, a wet market with fruits and vegetables, as well as indestructible open air exercise machines. There is a subway station nearby with feeder bus routes, and a sports area. The guide said how good this was.

John noted that no one had air conditioning, the washing was hanging on poles sticking out from the windows, and that few people looked as happy as the guide. In fact, the guide pointed out an indoor supermarket on site with A/C and said this was for the pampered people. He also told the group that there is NO social support. If you don't work... you die... in prison. And people are required by law to support their parents after they have retired. They also have to contribute 20% of their salary to a savings scheme that they can draw money from, when they turn 55. "So", John said to himself, "now we know who pays for Singapore's prosperity and how they do it." This was definitely a side to Singapore that most tourists and perhaps many expats never even know about.

John decided he would call this way of life Communistic Capitalism.



The next stop was at the main mosque for Singapore and as they arrived they could hear the call to prayers. The guide explained how Muslims have to clean themselves before entering the mosque and how men and women are separated for prayers. Then they had some time to explore the traditional (though no longer)Muslim area. A guy selling Sony cameras decided John should buy a lense filter for his camera. John declined and the guy did what he could to sell John something else and when that didn't work he tried to scare him into buying the filter, saying that in the heat mould would grow on the lense. John laughed at that one. When was the last time you saw moud growing on glass? The guy wouldn't even go away when John said he couldn't take it back because of government regulations (not true of course) but faced with John's total implacability (polite "No thank you" to every suggestion) to his pressure he gave up in disgust.



They got back about 5:30 and John was scheduled to go on the night tour at 6:30. He walked around looking for a snack. He found a nice patio area in back of a swanky mall after a 15 minute walk. There were many restaurants and John looked at their menus and decided on a beer place and a dessert place. He looked at his watch and noted that he had to be finished by 6:15 to get back at 6:30. So, he bought a Tiger beer, the local beer. Since he was the only one in the bar at that hour, the waitress talked to him the whole time. It was very pleasant. She said to go to Bangkok rather than shop in Singapore. Just don't eat the food she said. Then John went back to the other place and ordered choclate cake a la mode. It was 5:55. At 6:10 it hadn't arrived. The waitress said that it had to be cooked and it would only take another three minutes. When it had not come in that time, John got up and left. Even if it had come, he would have had two minutes to eat it.

The night tour was great. It included dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the Marina Quay. It is a place with hundreds of restaurants lining the river walls (all rivers are contained by walls). John was seated with a stunningly beautiful, cultured young couple from Mozambique and three irrepressible guys from Iraq who could barely speak English. There was also a family from Russia at another table with the parents and three grown children. John said they were the UN. But the Iraqis said there wasn't anyone from South America. God, they were hilarious.

They wanted to know what everyone did and when John said he was a professor they were truly impressed and HAD to have their photos taken with him - about 60 times! It must have been their first time out of Iraq and they were happy. The guide, an attractive young Chinese woman, was always losing them because they were in front of this fountain or beside that plant, taking each other's pictures and calling for John to go over and get his photo taken with them.

The meal was a traditional Chinese one and John enjoyed it. But the Iraqi guys said they would have liked more meat.

The woman from Mozambique was an economist. Her husband looked chiselled. The Iraqi guys kept asking him if he was an athlete. After being pressed, he said he had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The Iraqi guys said they were athletes and their game was chess.

Next, it was onto a bum boat for a night cruise down the river. It was so beautiful. The air was like silk on John's skin. The Iraqi guys started to sing and clap. The Russian women laughed and clapped along too but the husband just glowered. He was no fun at all.

Next, they went to the Bugis (BOO -GISS) village, a night mall place that is like Chinatown overflowing with people. John bought himself a passion fruit juice and drank it down. The guide said to watch your wallet.

Their last stop was the famous Raffles Hotel, where they first created the famed Singapore Sling drink. The hotel is named after Singapore's founder Sir Somethingorother Raffles and is over a hundred odd years old. They went around the hotel's open areas and saw the famed Long Bar where you can eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor - the only place in Singapore where you can litter. It is a really ritzy place. The presidential suite goes for $7,000 a night. Michael Jackson always stayed there when he was in Singapore.

As the tour was ending, John said goodbye to the group. He shook hands with the couple and the Iraqi guys. The Russian guy said Welcome to Russia. John said Welcome to Canada. And he left the group and went up to the bar and ordered a Singapore Sling for $28.25!

It was too sweet and so, after finishing every precious drop, John ordered a rye and coke and guess what they had it. Canadian Club rye. He drank it, knowing this was a real drink.

After eating his share of peanuts and gazing at the painting of the Shanghai Lady behind the bar, John left, hailed a taxi and went back to the hotel. It was past 10:30 and John has to be up sharp in the morning as he is off to the city of Malacca in Malaysia.

TRB