Spotted recently at a 7-Eleven here in the city-state: bananas, in individual plastic bags, bearing the words “single and available.”
The sunglasses.
The plastic bag, despite — as a colleague pointed out on Twitter — the fact that bananas are naturally individually wrapped.
The “tip” at the bottom about when best to consume bananas according to ripeness.
It’s all too much.
I spotted this clever feature in a taxi cab here in Singapore recently. Had never seen anything like it.
As you can see in the image above, the car had a mirror affixed to the outside of the rear seat passenger side door. When passengers get out, they can use it to check for oncoming cars or motorbikes.
Simple and clever.
I shared the photo on Twitter, and users pointed out such gadgets would be useful in far flung places like India, the U.K. and Uganda.
So there you go: Safety innovation, straight out of tiny Singapore!
This week’s Economist has a special report on Singapore.
From the intro, called “The Singapore exception”:
Singapore is, to use a word its leaders favour, an “exceptional” place: the world’s only fully functioning city-state; a truly global hub for commerce, finance, shipping and travel; and the only one among the world’s richest countries never to have changed its ruling party. At a May Day rally this year, its prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, asserted that “to survive you have to be exceptional.” This special report will examine different aspects of Singaporean exceptionalism and ask whether its survival really is under threat. It will argue that Singapore is well placed to thrive, but that in its second half-century it will face threats very different from those it confronted at its unplanned, accidental birth 50 years ago. They will require very different responses. The biggest danger Singapore faces may be complacency—the belief that policies that have proved so successful for so long can help it negotiate a new world.
There are also pieces on “land and people,” politics, the social contract, the economy, inequality, business and finance, and Singapore’s “foreign policy and national identity.”
I was traveling when Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father, died Monday, and haven’t had a chance to blog about his passing until now. (Pictured above: a recent sampling of Singaporean newspapers’ front pages.)
Here are some links I suggest checking out.
The WSJ obituary:
Lee Kuan Yew, who dominated Singapore politics for more than half a century and transformed the former British outpost into a global trade and finance powerhouse, setting a template for emerging markets around the world, died Monday. He was 91 years old.
And here’s the NYT obit, as well.
My colleague Shibani Mahtani, a Singaporean who lives abroad, at WSJ Expat on the significance of Lee’s death for her countrymen:
Singaporeans are a lucky breed—we do not have memories of coups or mass protests or riots or severe terrorist attacks in recent years, unlike most of our neighbors. In many ways, the passing of Mr. Lee is the deepest loss that the country has felt, together, in a generation. It is also a reminder of the fragility of the nation, and how its history could have gone in a completely different direction if not for Mr. Lee’s vision.
Elsewhere, The Economist charts the remarkable rise in Singapore’s per capita GDP — and low fertility rates:
What comes next for Singapore? Here’s our story:
Mr. Lee, who died at 91 on Monday, has been widely credited for turning what had been a malaria-ridden British trading post into a gleaming economic success story. Singaporeans now enjoy a standard of living comparable with Japan and advanced European and North American economies, albeit without a pluralistic political system, a free press or strong dissenting voices.
But what comes next? In many ways, Singaporeans have been quietly preparing for a future without the steadying influence of the republic’s founding father.
The past four years were the first for independent Singapore without Mr. Lee in government. He stepped down from his advisory role of “minister mentor” in the cabinet in 2011, just a week after the ruling People’s Action Party recorded its worst electoral showing in five decades—a result government officials and political observers have attributed to festering socioeconomic tensions in recent years.
And here’s our look at Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — Lee Kuan Yew’s son:
He has been prime minister of Singapore since 2004, but Lee Hsien Loong was inevitably overshadowed by his celebrated father, Lee Kuan Yew, who died this week.
The younger Mr. Lee faces the task of carrying forward his father’s legacy in his own style at a time when Singapore confronts social and economic challenges that have seen support for the governing People’s Action Party erode more than at any time since it came to power in 1959.
Politically, Ernest Bower at the Center for Strategic and International Studies says:
Some of PAP’s leaders may pine for the old days, but hopefully they won’t pursue the path of their counterparts in Malaysia, where the ruling United Malays National Organization party seems to be trying to turn the clock back, betting on an ultra conservative approach.
It is more likely that over time, PAP’s well-educated and globally focused leaders will find there is new room to breathe and innovate in the new political space of the post-Lee Kuan Yew era.
Meanwhile, we also ran a long, very interesting Orville Schell essay about the “Singapore model” and the future Asia. It concludes:
Lee Kuan Yew not only made Singaporeans proud; he also made Chinese and other Asians proud. He was a master builder, a sophisticated Asian nationalist dedicated not only to the success of his own small nation but to bequeathing the world a new model of governance. Instead of trying to impose Western political models on Asian realities, he sought to make autocracy respectable by leavening it with meritocracy, the rule of law and a strict intolerance for corruption to make it deliver growth.
Though his country was minuscule, Lee was a larger-than-life figure with a grandness of vision. He saw “Asian values” as a source of legitimacy for the idea that authoritarian leadership, constrained by certain Western legal and administrative checks, offered an effective “Asian” alternative to the messiness of liberal democracy. Because his thinking proved so agreeable to the Chinese Communist Party, he became the darling of Beijing. And because China has now become the political keystone of the modern Asian arch, Beijing’s imprimatur helped him and his ideas to gain a pan-Asian stature that Singapore alone could not have provided.
As countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and even China continue to search for new models of development and governance that do not bear the stigma of their former Western colonizers, Lee Kuan Yew’s example is a tempting option. Even though he is now gone, the Venice-like republic he founded will continue to be extolled as a hopeful experiment, and the man himself, the progenitor of what has come to be known as the “Singapore model,” will doubtless remain an influential political evangelist.
Read the whole thing.
And finally:
Embedded above and on YouTube here: Lee Kuan Yew on “Meet the Press” in 1967. He discusses the Vietnam war and Southeast Asia. An interesting slice of history.
In my post a couple of weeks ago about Art Stage Singapore, the annual Asia-focused exhibition held here, I promised to post some more photos.
Here goes.
I really, really enjoyed walking around the space and taking in all the varied works. These iPhone snapshots are meant to show a sampling of what was on display.
For a bit of context, here’s a WSJ story (not by me) providing an overview of this year’s exhibition. And here’s one from last year.
There’s also a story about Art Stage Singapore from ArtNews and a post with a bunch of images Hanoi Grapevine.
I was most struck by the works shown here at the top. They were highly realistic, incredibly detailed, and oddly futuristic.
I didn’t note the artist’s name at the time, but learned later — thanks to Instagram user Harsha — that they were done by Chinese artist Yang Yongliang.
Of course, I should have known — I tweeted about and linked to some of his artwork in this link round-up in early 2013.
I loved seeing the pieces in person. Here’s a video with more about him.
The rest of the photos show other artwork that caught my eye.
Yesterday A and I attended the final day of Art Stage Singapore, held at the Marina Bay Sands exhibition center.
It’s an art fair where galleries from all over the world display various works, with a focus on Asian contemporary art.
Here are a few of my Tweets from yesterday about pieces with technological* themes.
This just scratches the surface of some of the remarkable artwork we saw.
I’ll post more here, on my Instagram account, or on my Flickr photostream soon…
1. Spotted today at Art Stage Singapore (@artstagesg). One of many techno-themed works. #artstagesingapore pic.twitter.com/dicjzwpcRd
— Newley Purnell (@newley) January 25, 2015
2. More techno-fun from #artstagesingapore today. pic.twitter.com/xOa3S9Xwkv
— Newley Purnell (@newley) January 25, 2015
3. There was also a pretty badass steampunk submarine. #artstagesingapore pic.twitter.com/DtxDzBGd6I
— Newley Purnell (@newley) January 25, 2015
4. Another steampunk-ish #artstagesingapore work: mechanical flowers. https://t.co/FzHz3zPwdX
— Newley Purnell (@newley) January 25, 2015
*Here’s more on steampunk.
August marked five years since we adopted Ashely, our beloved shelter dog. Here’s a pic from the day we took her home in Bangkok in 2009. She’s six years old now, as she was a year old when we got her.
As you can see — and as I’ve noted in previous posts — she was was suffering from various medical ailments when some kind people rescued her from the mean streets of Bangkok.
The big-hearted folks at the now-defunct Soi Cats and Dogs (SCAD) Bangkok had Ash fixed up in no time, though:
Fast forward five years, and moving to Singapore earlier this year meant 30 days in quarantine upon arrival, but Ash did just fine.
Here’s a pic from a visit I paid her.
And here’s A and Ash during another visit.
Once she was sprung from solitary, Ashley really took to Singapore — and especially its many green spaces. Here she is during some recent outings.
Overall, Ashley remains somewhat puppy-like, both in appearance — people often ask us how old our “puppy” is — and behavior.
Her likes remain: running (I often take her along on jogs); chasing small animals; and eating any and all foods, especially fish and meats, rice, and coconut milk.
Dislikes: vacuum cleaners; swimming; and knocks at the door.
Oh, and she also hates the rare occasions when her morning walks are delayed. I have more than once woken up to this somewhat unsettling sight:
Here’s to the next five years!
The New York Times‘s Roger Cohen, writing from Singapore, says Asia needs the United States to counter China. And it’s not getting that now.
Further, a new, regionally assertive India under Modi is a long way off:
Outside China, there is a consistent theme in Asia. It is concern that declining American power, credibility and commitment will leave the way open for Beijing to exercise dominance over the region. President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” has been dismissed as hot air. American objectives announced without consequence betray a weak presidency; Asians have drawn their conclusions.
And:
Singapore’s success has depended on its ability to leapfrog geography, but it could only do that because the geography was not hostile. It could depend on the fact that the foreign territorial waters at its door remained open. Japan has been restrained from going nuclear by the assurance of America’s treaty commitment to its defense. From north to south Asia, such assumptions appear a little shakier.
And:
It is all of these things, plus an uneasy general feeling. The “pivot to Asia,” like the Syrian “red line,” like “Assad must go,” betrayed a common theme: words without meaning from an American president, commitments without follow-up, phrases without plans. In Asia as in Europe, these things get noted.
The American idea is still strong in Asia. Look no further than the brave pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. But ideas require commitment to back them.
Read the whole thing.
Cohen’s column also mentions this May piece by Razeen Sally in the Straits Times. It’s about “global cities”:
Today, there appear to be only five global cities. London and New York are at the top, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore, Asia’s two services hubs. Dubai, the Middle East hub, is the newest and smallest kid on the block. Shanghai has global-city aspirations, but it is held back by China’s economic restrictions – the vestiges of an ex-command economy – and its Leninist political system. Tokyo remains too Japan-centric, a far cry from a global city.
The global city has a relentless market logic. It is where Adam Smith, David Hume, Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek would feel most at home. It has to be the most open to trade, foreign capital and migrant workers. It must have among the most business-friendly regulatory environments.
Spotted recently here in the tightly regulated Lion City: a local take on the social networking giant.
From the Jan. 29 NYT: Serious in Singapore. Includes observations on economics, public policy, education, and more:
I am in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School in a middle-class neighborhood of Singapore, and the principal, A. W. Ai Ling, has me visiting a fifth-grade science class. All the 11-year-old boys and girls are wearing junior white lab coats with their names on them. Outside in the hall, yellow police tape has blocked off a “crime scene” and lying on a floor, bloodied, is a fake body that has been murdered. The class is learning about DNA through the use of fingerprints, and their science teacher has turned the students into little C.S.I. detectives. They have to collect fingerprints from the scene and then break them down.
I missed that DNA lesson when I was in fifth grade. When I asked the principal whether this was part of the national curriculum, she said no. She just had a great science teacher, she said, and was aware that Singapore was making a big push to expand its biotech industries and thought it would be good to push her students in the same direction early. A couple of them checked my fingerprints. I was innocent — but impressed.
This was just an average public school, but the principal had made her own connections between “what world am I living in,” “where is my country trying to go in that world” and, therefore, “what should I teach in fifth-grade science.”
I was struck because that kind of linkage is so often missing in U.S. politics today. Republicans favor deep cuts in government spending, while so far exempting Medicare, Social Security and the defense budget. Not only is that not realistic, but it basically says that our nation’s priorities should be to fund retirement homes for older people rather than better schools for younger people and that we should build new schools in Afghanistan before Alabama.
(Image: New York Times.)