Singapore: The Crazy Rich Asian City

March 25-26, 2018

If you’ve seen or read about the summer’s hot rom com, Crazy Rich Asians, you have some idea of the wealth and modernity and sophistication of the ‘sovereign city-state’ of Singapore. In the 53 years since its total independence from Britain, it has become what one Sun lecturer called ‘Asia’s most successful nation.’ Someone else called it ‘the world’s only shopping mall with a seat in the U.N.’ At $56,000, its per capita annual income is higher than ours.

Because I had seen many of the main sights on a prior trip, I spent Day 1 traveling around the city by public transportation: on a bus (twice), a river boat, a subway and trishaw. My driver was a weaver, continually overtaking others in the caravan of 20 trishaws.

First stop: the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. The eponymous tooth was off limits, up on the fourth floor. Or so we were told.

The walls are covered with mini shrines. You can adopt one, but it stays at the temple.

Outside a Hindu temple, where a very noisy wedding was going on.

Outside a Taoist temple... ready for a big crowd.

And inside... though it’s Taoist, a Laughing Buddha welcomes you.

Like Hong Kong, which mainland China would like to assimilate, Singapore is being pressured by China, since 75% of its citizens are of Chinese origin. You can read more about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/world/asia/singapore-china.html

When he founded it in 1819 as a British East India Company trading post, Sir Stamford Raffles wanted Singapura to be multi-ethnic, with room for — and tolerance of — people from many countries. Today there are large neighborhoods of Indians and Malays along with the Chinese.

View from the river boat, with Singapore’s symbol, the spewing Merlion statue. Singaporean architecture is over the top. Bar none. The prickly building below is the Esplanade performing arts center, where I performed the Mozart Requiem with Yale two years ago.

The Marina Bay Sands hotel is pictured at the top of this post. Here’s the ceiling of its lobby.

And here’s its rooftop infinity pool, as seen in Crazy Rich Asians.

Day 2 was spent on a walking tour of the Paranakan part of the city. The word, dating from the 15th century, originally meant descendants of Chinese immigrants who married Malay women. (Singapore is at the bottom tip of the Malay peninsula.) Many today use it to describe anyone of mixed heritage.

This excursion was one of my favorites of my whole trip. I love the ‘shop houses’ ... they are the architectural equivalent of those fabulous marzipan confections you see in European bakery windows. We visited upstairs in one of the houses, where the young Parankan man who grew up in it explained their heritage and culture, which is beginning to disappear, though attempts are being made to keep it alive.

Singapore has a law: for every square meter of space you devote to a new building, you must devote an equal amount of space to greenery. So there are many parks and trees and shrubs, rooftop gardens — and buildings festooned with potted plants! #