An Expat in Singapore

I departed Manila and arrived in Singapore under the cover of night, slept like the dead and awoke around 10AM the next morning, just in time to catch breakfast before they stopped serving it.

The hostel is the sort of professionally run place that you occasionally see in Europe, all Ikea decorating sensibility and Austrian scheduling, though the desk staff are a mix of cool twentysomething Malaysians, a race I can only recognize by the fact that they seem like a cross between Indonesians, Thai, and Cantonese.

I had been recommended the Night Zoo, but I decided to skip it, due to the combination of expense and inconvenience (it's on the other side of the island and would have involved both MRT and Bus rides). Plus at the end of the day, it's a zoo. We have zoos in America.

What we don't have in America is a downtown district shaped by 130 years of British rule, endcapped by a short period of Japanese Occupation preceding another 10 years while the world figured out it wouldn't stand for colonialism anymore (except in places like Hong Kong).

So I got on the MRT to downtown (and no-one searched my bag! Weird!) and wormed my way out through a sprawling underground mall into a park that runs along the waterfront.

There I found a fountain (victorian era, it's sat in the same place in this park since the mid 1800s) two memorials (one for the Indian Army men that fought and died in the first and second World Wars, one for a particularly passionate (and conveniently dead) Malaysian guerilla fighter that the British raised up as a hero after the War--you'll note a trend among local heros raised up by occupying forces: The never have a heartbeat. Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines, was chosen in part by the US for similar pulse-related reasons. And finally, one memorial to a memorial.

What is a memorial to a memorial, you ask?


Well, the Japanese may have been brutal and heartless sons-of-bitches hell-bent on Asian domination, but they weren't idiots.

So when you occupy a place like Singapore, that is chock full of Indians who have lived under British rule their whole lives, and many of whome are trained military men, what do you do?

The answer is, you don't leave them sitting around, getting bored and waging a guerilla war against your occupying force--you arm them, train them, equip them, then send them home to liberate India from the British.

Let's be clear, the Japanese had no interest (that I know of) in liberating India, but they had plenty of interest in keeping the Brits busy in between India and SE Asia so they could more effectively set up shop in the rest of Asia.

So they created the Indian National Army, and sent it to fight the British in southeast Asia. As a moral booster, they erected a monument in Singapore to the unknown soldier of that fighting force. The monument was finished just months before the British reclaimed Singapore. When they were back in power, of course, the British promptly tore it down.

In 1995 a set of 11 sites in Singapore were chosen as historic sites to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, and one of them was the site of the former memorial, where a small plaque was placed. The plaque was hardly worth photographing, though, so all you get is this story. Sorry.

I wandered through downtown Singapore for most of mid-day, taking pictures and watching tourists, avoiding Indian Fortune tellers and Bicycle rickshaw tourguides.

Judging by the ongoing construction in the harbour area, I'd say Singapore's reaction to the current Economic adventure is "Recession? What recession?" and it doesn't seem to be doing them any harm at present.

The architecture is some of the most delectable I've seen in ages, Victorian-era hotels and government buildings smashed up against glistening modern skyscrapers. It has that absurd look and feel of a city build during the height of British Imperialism, and it's incredible. I wandered for a couple of hours and eventually found myself at the waterfront, where I chose a place almost at random to have a couple of overpriced beers and read Kipling for about two hours while the temperature slowly lowered.

When the sun had settled lower in the sky and my beers (and a couple of short stories) were finished, I made my way back to the subway station and from there back to my Hostel, where I dropped off my day bag and wandered Little India for a while.

Little India is a magical place. Since the East India Trading Company was so heavily involved in Singapore's growth, India has always had a connection here, and many Indians have moved here to work in Singapore and throughout the Subcontinent. Every construction worker I saw throughout my walks in Singapore had clearly Indian features. Little India is the logical starting point for the dreams of many an Indian trying to make a name and a life for himself and his family outside of India, and it retains the same "Tourists are not unwelcome but are irrelevant" feeling that you get still in certain alleys and restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown--this is truely a tiny snapshot of a nation, existing withing a completely foreign city, and it's quite remarkable.

There are occasional souvenir shops, certainly, but they seem an afterthought crammed between secondhand stores, sweetshops, gold sellers crammed with Indian men debating over the latest jewelry, and small spice shops with so much incense burning that it looks like there has been a fire inside. The occasional tourist, Malay and Chinese seem to be an oddity to be glanced at and then left alone while the daily business of keeping a tiny lump of city prepared to support the half-million expatriate Indians who live and work throughout the surrounding region and who rely on this place to import the majority of their food and clothing and everything else.

They say that the place is a madhouse on Sundays, when those half-million come home to this tiny stretch of Singapore to relax on their one day off each week, but unfortunately I won't be here to see it.

I wandered through the streets just as they were coming alive around 7, everyone just getting off work and making their way home or out to shop. I finally found a little restaurant with plastic chairs and tables on the sidewalk and crummy lighting, and more Indians than anyone else eating at the tables. The place screamed "CORNER DINER" at me and I walked up, grabbed a menu and told the first person who asked me what I wanted that I'd have butter Chicken, Egg Curry and Rice.

I should have picked just one, but the dishes were cheap, and they both sounded great.

Of course that was with good reason--they both were great, but it was a lot of food for one man to finish, even one who had only had one real meal so far that day.

Unfortunately for my health and safety, I'd seen a shop a few blocks down when I was wandering earlier that said "Savories and Sweets" and so after my incredibly good dinner I threw myself on the tender mercies of that shop, buying 5 of their most popular treats and wandering home, stuffed but still eating.

It was in this bloated, happy fashion that I discovered that the Indians make a dessert that appears to be literally sugar, a little milk, and pure butter, crystalized into a sort of bar. There don't appear to be any other ingredients, and I'd estimate that judging by the flavour, they've got at least four or five pounds of Sugar and Butter crammed into each two ounce creation. It actually glistens when you bite into it, and your heart beats an extra measure in a combination of sheer fear and gleeful anticipation. It took me over an hour to eat the thing, as I actually had to take a break and write this entire post and check my mail in between times to give myself the strength to finish it. It. was. delicious.