Singapore – Favorite City

My wife and I went on a trip of Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore and I wanted to write about Singapore. I was delighted to be in that city as it is an archetype of my concept of “Modern Asia”. This was more evident specially after spending 1 week in Thailand which is very underdeveloped.

Before speaking of how nice the city is, let me tell you that I was surprise to know how it came to be. In all my years at school I always learned of countries being either independent or becoming independent but never being “expelled”. And this is what happen to Singapore, as it was part of Malaysia but since the number of citizens of Chinese origin was more than the citizens of Malaysian origin, the Malaysian government decided that they didn’t wanted the province to be part of Malaysia and “cut” it of the country.

Well, the first thing you notice is all the signs about what is forbidden, when we got into a bus shuttle to go into the airport the first first thing was a big sing asking you to use your belt or getting a 500$ fine! But you are inside a bus! I have never ever seen this before. Then after spending some time there you see how these kind of signs speaking about fines are EVERYWHERE and this has an impact on culture, for example there is a “Chinatown” in Singapore (which is more like an old town) happens to be the most clean china town I ever been, literally spotless.

The second thing you will notice, is that the city is in reality 3 parallel universes coexisting, the first is modern Singapore, the second is the Indian community and the third the traditional Chinese. Everyone is well educated and bilingual and you can’t stop to feel you are in an artsy American film of someone going to Asia and everyone speaking English with a different accent. For all of the above, I recommend going to Singapore. Don’t forget to book your hotel accommodation online on sites like Expedia, to get the best deals.

This is an entry for January’s Your Favorite City – Blog Contest.