{"id":14545,"date":"2022-08-22T07:59:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T07:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/?p=14545"},"modified":"2025-01-17T07:59:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T07:59:39","slug":"sg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2022\/08\/22\/sg\/","title":{"rendered":"sg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Singapore<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I definitely want to write ~some~ post about Singapore sometime. But who is it for? Singaporeans? Americans? Everyone else? Maybe I could write to a friend, like say Malcolm, who is Canadian<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sg100<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

a bunch of thoughts collided for me earlier<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one of the reasons I’m optimistic about singapore’s long term future is that we are a small enough country that a few dozen highly motivated, strategic players can influence the culture for the better<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the reason this is possible is because we are small<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the reason we are able to stay small and sovereign is that we have mandatory conscription<\/p>\n\n\n\n

singapore’s NSFs provide the support to preserve its city-state integrity, which will in the long run allow it to be more nimble and strategic than bigger nation-states<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hormat, NSFs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thank you all for your service<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hdb <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes we\u2019ve joked that it was a \u201cmarriage of convenience\u201d (which is a phrase with a specific meaning in legal terms in Singapore \u2013 it\u2019s when people enter a sham marriage with a foreigner with the intent of helping them gain citizenship. The whole thing is fascinating to investigate, but that\u2019s not what I want to get into here.) We were dating since we were teenagers and we\u2019ll be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in December. Anyway. So if you\u2019re buying public housing in Singapore \u2013 we call them HDB flats (HDB meaning \u2018Housing & Development Board\u2019, the local authority on the matter) \u2013 most people pick from one of two main options. Either you apply for a BTO (\u201cBuild to order\u201d) flat, where you wait a few years\u2026 nobody cares about any of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2731<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the view from singapore<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pictures to represent\/explain singapore: people tend to think of MBS, gardens by the bay, changi jewel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 no playing in playground<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the view from the crossroads<\/p>\n\n\n\n

some quick sketch details: i was born in singapore in 1990. i\u2019m ethnically tamil. Singapore has been along a global shipping route for hundreds of years. One of my talking points is that global shipping and trade networks were always a sort of porto-internet. think about how ideas, religions, etc spread<\/p>\n\n\n\n

singapore is sometimes described as sterile. there is some truth to this. it\u2019s not a fun truth. the thing that often annoys\/upsets me about<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in between east and west<\/p>\n\n\n\n

there are a few different angles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when i first started writing i used to write a lot of local content. my first 300 or so twitter followers were all basically local friends, so i would tweet in singlish (the local slang \u2013 I have a whole separate essay about how it\u2019s been commodified). wrote about local politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

recently singapore death penalty for drugs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it makes me sad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but i don\u2019t want this essay to be about the death penalty<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SG: write about how the PAP stifles singapore \u2013 this was because it felt like foreign people don\u2019t get a good sense of what Singapore is really like…?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are competing perspectives on what Singapore is like. On one hand, people describe us as sterile, boring, too-safe, too-clean, no personality. You can see how, even if there\u2019s a grain of truth in here somewhere, it\u2019s kind of rude. Like, I\u2019m sorry my people aren\u2019t sufficiently exciting and entertaining for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, we get described as some sort of really efficient, wonderous place that the world can and should learn from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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> the People\u2019s Action Party, has amassed so much talent, and is such a vehicle for career advancement, that potential competitors find it hard to mount serious challenges

this is an inadequate description of the situation, though probably the best that an outsider can do<\/p>— Visakan Veerasamy (@visakanv) June 13, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote>