Stopover City by the Sea

By Neil Matthews

t’s always a possibility that you don’t give a stopover location the same chance to impress you as the main destination.  But Singapore is determined to grab your attention.

Let’s start where most visitors do, at Changi airport, an extraordinary for one simple reason: everything happens on time and everything works. Your flight arrives on time, which is a relief after twelve hours or so.  When you check in for a connecting flight, there is no queue. The airport resembles nothing so much as a giant shopping centre... except for the butterfly garden, eerie by night.  Readers of Wanderlust magazine have voted Changi as their favourite airport in the world and it’s easy to see why. While waiting for our final flight home, we sat in easy chairs with hot drinks watching a re-run of Germany’s 7-1 demolition of Brazil in the football World Cup semi-final.  A little like the German players’ reactions after the later goals, it all seemed so matter-of-fact.

On the way out of Changi after our first flight there, a sign on lane 1 of the highway said it was ‘closed for pruning’.  The city itself has little room for weeds as it squeezes impossibly into a small geographical space, but packs a big punch as the world’s fourth financial centre after New York, London and Hong Kong.  The financial districts recall London’s Canary Wharf cathedrals of money.  The confines of the physical space available mean that Singapore has had to build high - for offices and for housing, most of it government apartments which newlyweds can buy with a government loan.  They are much cheaper than private apartments, but buyers can keep any increase in value when they sell. When they get old they can release funds via a ‘reverse mortgage’.

When residents aren’t high above the ground, they may be beneath it, in one of the endless shopping malls in which you can sample every major brand of which you’ve ever heard.  If you visit the eponymous Shoppes (one of a few examples of cod-English humour), you can even try out their skating rink.  You might not have much company, though: while the surrounding shops and cafes were well-peopled when we were there, a slightly-too-fat-for comfort Chinese boy was the sole skater.  He spent much of the time falling over, looking up to see if anybody sympathised with his plight, finding that nobody did and eventually getting to his feet, in the manner of modern Oscar nominated footballers.  The Shoppes also has its own mini-boating lake, but we preferred to watch while sampling a ‘Weekend in Moscow’ tea from a cafe offering dozens of tea varieties from round the world.

Singapore’s most famous drink is not tea, but the ‘Singapore Sling’ on offer at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel.  The non-alcoholic version we sampled was perfectly agreeable and harmless without being what the late Michael Winner used to call ‘historic’.  The alcoholic version is an effective cure for insomnia, which is more than can be said for the local musicians who did grievous bodily harm to various 1980s pop hits. I can’t recall if they were hired especially for us; if so, thanks but no thanks.

John Keeble’s article on the Peranakan culture (VISA 114) showed that, for a relatively modern city, Singapore has much to offer in terms of its history.  We enjoyed the inventive and poignant presentation of the history of Chinese migrants to the city which the China Heritage Centre offers.  Video screens placed in woks and even in a fishing basket helped to keep a large group of local schoolchildren thoroughly interested. Chinatown itself is atmospheric, but Little India seemed to have nothing you wouldn’t see, hear or smell on an average trip through Southall.

Looking upwards, much of the architecture tries its hardest to impress you, like a small bird or insect puffing itself up to attract suitors or repel predators.  The ArtScience Museum sits by the river, snug and secure, in the shape of a lotus flower.  Inside at the time of our visit were two exhibitions, one on dinosaurs and the other on photographer Annie Liebowitz (if I were her agent, I’d expect the sack for that particular juxtaposition).  The Helix Bridge across the Singapore River copies the shape of DNA strands, twisting and turning like, er, a twisty turny thing.  Singapore’s inclusion in the Formula 1 calendar is completely unsurprising to anyone who’s been there, with night lighting lending the streets around Marina Bay an extra level of drama.

Lory Loft, Jurong Bird Park

There is more to Singapore for tourists – and for its residents, for that matter – than city life.  The Jurong Bird Park, a 50 acre spectacle on the western slope of Jurong Hill, provides plenty of entertainment of the avian kind.  (Top tip if you fly with Singapore Airlines: keep your boarding passes, to get discounts to this and other Singapore attractions.)  It’s slick, colourful and, of course, packed with parrots, pelicans and much else.  We enjoyed feeding the lories by hand in the Lory Loft, but passed on lunch with parrots, having experienced a macaw’s lunch at close quarters in Venezuela a few years ago.  There was, however, a show featuring free flying parrots, hornbills and other birds which was educational and entertaining not always true of these types of production.

The other great green space is the area known as the Botanic Gardens which, in their earliest form, were set up in 1822 by Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore.  The Gardens’ main attraction is probably its collection of more than 1,000 species and 2,000 hybrids of orchids. In our age of celebrity, the naming of some species or hybrids after famous people – such as Dendrobium Margaret Thatcher – is not, perhaps, the accolade it once was.  It’s certainly some way removed from Carl Linnaeus’ idea that botanical naming in Latin would enable the sharing of knowledge among ‘educated’ men across Europe.  In addition to the orchids, the Botanical Gardens boasts a tropical rainforest covering six hectares; an evolution garden telling the story of the evolution of plant life on Earth; a ginger garden; and a children’s garden, with play areas attached.  We had time for a glimpse of it all, as well as a newer development, the Gardens by the Bay with its intriguing ‘Cloud Forest’.

Botanic Garden

We spent most time in the centre, taking advantage of the efficiency of the city.  The rail system, known as the MRT, whisks you along with ease; the flashing lights used in-train to denote specific stations are an excellent idea.  I don’t usually risk foreign cash machines, but the one I tried here dispensed 200 Singapore dollars. The screen even told me that ‘One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards’.  You don’t expect ATMs to quote Oscar Wilde at you.

As it happens, that particular aphorism could serve as a Freudian admission of the less
attractive side of Singapore.  A guide around Chinatown told us with pride: ‘You can’t see any police, can you? No! And we have very little crime. Are you wondering why that is? Well, it’s because we have so many cameras everywhere.  We don’t need many police...’
This is not quite the great endorsement for the city that the guide seemed to think it was.  If you’re standing at a green light, and yet there is no traffic in view, you ought to be able to use commonsense and cross the road without wondering whether you’re being filmed or whether you might be cautioned later. Singapore is a parliamentary democracy, albeit with a President rather than a monarch as head of state, but various international watchdogs have judged it to be less than wholly ‘free’. Members of the opposition parties often suffer ‘misfortunes’ such as arrest, bankruptcy especially in defamatory lawsuits, or imprisonment, and there are concerns as to the true level of secrecy of secret ballots.  The People’s Action Party has been in power continuously since 1959, not a healthy indicator for those who believe that one measure of democracy is the facility for power to change hands.  Certainly the personal tax rates are low, the local lingo is English – or Singlish to be precise, a variation on the home tongue – and many religions cram into the city with little obvious conflict.  The city is a safe place to walk at night.  This all comes at a cost, as high living generally does.  You don’t have to have a messianic belief that all nations should copy the Western liberal ideal to feel uncomfortable about aspects of the Singaporean model.
While the city goes steadily about its business, and is an efficient host to tourists, this did lurk uneasily at the back of my mind during our stay in Singapore.  Along with the oppressive high humidity, which made extended walks a considerable effort, it held me back from loving the place.  Nonetheless, Singapore is a convenient stopover for long-haul flights and there is much to admire.


First published in VISA 119 (Feb 2015)