Singapore: A Manmade Marvel

December, 2024

Ni hao, from Singapore!

We said goodbye to the hustle, bustle and sacred cows of India and hello to the city lights and brights of SINGAPORE. Sing, you sparkling city of order, we have arrived.

I am a planner by nature but for some reason I didn’t research much or hold many expectations for our visit to Singapore. I knew a few basics; that Singapore is an advanced law abiding country, it is incredibly clean and organized, “Crazy Rich Asians” is based on the Singaporean wealthy (and they sure do live the high-lifeeee) and you should never spit gum on the street unless you want to see the inside of a prison cell. Frankly, all of this was true, but Singapore was a whole lot more and arriving without any expectations honestly made the experience all the more sweet!

Singapore is a really fascinating country with a very impressive history of development. My book of choice for the trip was "From Third World to First", by Lee Kuan Yew the first Prime Minister of Singapore, detailing the incredible leaps and bounds that this small country has taken to become the developed hub in South East Asia that it is today. Once part of Malaysia, Singapore separated in 1965 due to political and economic differences, racial tensions, and a power struggle between the two countries. And while Singapore is an incredibly small country (30x smaller than Israel!), they have managed to move from a third world country to a first world country in only 53 years, experiencing remarkable economic growth! Since the divide from Malaysia, Singapore has far surpassed its neighboring country by choosing to open themselves up to the global world and you can feel this growth all around you.

It was interesting to learn that the racial make-up of Singapore is 10% foreigner, 10% Malay, 10% Indian and 70% Chinese. Quite a melting pot and the government strives to maintain a multi-cultural identity.

Singapore surprised me in many ways and here are some that I found most fascinating:

1. Creating new land: Singapore has artificially expanded the size of the country by 25% through manmade reclamation projects. Being a small land scarce country with a growing population, they have managed to innovate using earth from their hills, the seabed and neighboring countries to extend their land into the sea. Since the 1960s, the land area has grown from 581.5 square kilometers to around 734.3 with future plans to extend further, even considering creating artificial islands! As the saying goes, a little bit goes a long way. For such a small country, they have done a tremendous amount with very little!

   
   
   

   
   
   

2. GREEN city alert 🍃! Blending the city architecture with green spaces, lush tropical parks, botanical gardens and buildings literally covered in plants, the city is one of the greenest I have ever encountered. Plants growing in and around the infrastructure was really impressive.

And Singapore being Singapore had to take it to the next level again by constructing manmade gardens in the sky. Two beautiful attractions, the SuperTree and Cloud Forest, are both amazing displays of nature suspended from above. We only had the opportunity to visit the SuperTree and took an elevator 50 meters into the sky to reach the looming manmade trees. Once our feet were firmly planted on "solid" sky-high ground, we walked across aerial bridges among the looming SuperTrees viewing the entire city lit up in gorgeous soft lights. Though the structures of the trees are manmade, the plants and flowers growing 50 meters up and around the the trees are real; bright, beautiful, fragrant and vibrant, it was just remarkable.

3. Hawker central: Singapore is a very expensive country but there are still hacks to getting the best food in town for an amazing price. This hack is none other than the Hawker food markets. I'm getting excited again just thinking about them...!

Wow, did we fall in love with the hawkers. Imagine, real authentic, ma and pa home cooked food sprawled in hundreds of little stalls spanning entire markets, it was my asian smorgasbord dream come true.

In addition to the pure deliciousness, I found the hawker history incredibly interesting. Singapore's hawker food history began in the 1800s when migrant workers with little opportunities started selling food on the streets. These hawkers adapted their home country's dishes from China, India, Malaysia and Indonesia to local ingredients and cooking techniques, creating a unique Singaporean flavor. Street hawking was a very popular way for immigrants to earn a living and slowly mobile kitchens were created to serve hot meals on the go.

After World War II the number of street hawkers increased rapidly as unemployment rates turned many people to hawking in the streets. Still, hawking was a major taboo, deemed unhygienic and a source of public disorder....but in 1965 the hawkers luck finally changed when the government allowed them to receive licenses and sell their food in designated market centers providing a safe and clean place for customers to watch their food being prepared. Today, Hawker Centers are established community dining halls where people from different background can come together and share an affordable meals from hundreds of different stalls.

What I love most about this story is that in 2020 hawker culture actually became a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage due to the culinary traditions that have been part of the city's history for centuries. For Singaporeans, hawking is a way of life, a sacred part of their history, bringing people together over delicious steaming pots of soup, dumplings, spring rolls and local delicacies! Sharing a community style mean in a hawker center brings people together and we loved having the opportunity to get a mouthwatering taste of this history in action.

Hawkers for the win!

4. Shopping, shopping and more SHOPPING!: I’m not much of a mall lover but Singaporeans sure do love to shop till they drop. Naturally, in Singapore the malls were (of course) a next level production (you're starting to get the theme here). One of the malls we visited even had a floor artificially made into a flowing river where you could rent a gondola to float you around the mall. Singapore meets Venice…always keeping it classy, Sing.

   
   
   
   
   

   In the same artificial vein, the Christmas markets had specific time-slots for the “snow show” where artificial snow would blow from the sky at the perfect time. Being an incredibly hot and humid country all year round, releasing artificial snow into the damp night air was something else. Sing, you’ve done it again.

5. The law is LAW: an interesting reputation to hold, but Singapore is known as "The Fine City" for its many fines set for various offenses. And unlike other South East Asian countries....these fines are not cheap my friends. A thousand dollars here, to ten thousand dollars there, you do not want to be found breaking the law or you will quite literally, break the bank. Littering, jaywalking, selling gum, chewing gum and spitting is all illegal, get your wallets out, you're up for a fine! And some of my all time favorites, using someone else's wifi constitutes for a $10,000 fine, feeding pigeons is a no-go at $500 smackaroos, failing to flush a public toilet is fine time, you CANNOT bring durian fruit on public transport and frankly you cannot EAT any food on public transport. And last but not least, walking around your house naked can result in a $1,000 fine and possible charges of pornography. So, get your bathrobes ready, no"ugly naked man" allowed in Singapore.

6. 

   Finally, it is always wonderful to be met with warm and friendly people. We definitely felt that in Singapore, from the hawker vendors to people that we simply met on the street or in line for our next activity, the people were friendly and always willing to have a chat!

From third world to first world in just 53 years, I am excited to see what’s next for Singapore in the coming decade. And hey, for a country that has already constructed gardens in the sky, perhaps the old saying "the sky is the limit" simply doesn't apply to a place like Singapore....

I guess we will have to wait and see 😉