Entrance to China Town, Singapore:
However, not all the things about Singapore worth remarking on can be seen in photographs, so are a few more literary snapshots from our holiday:
1) Singapore is an island on the Straits of Malacca, right? These straits are meant to be the busiest shipping route on earth, right? I always knew that but just assumed that meant a ship came along every half an hour or so.
Not so. From the plane window you can see ships travelling eight to twelve abreast and stern-to-bow in a continual line that stretches back and forwards for hundreds and hundreds of miles, all coming into Singapore and going out again. It's like looking down on a massive busy freeway - only with very slow moving cars. I never knew so many ships actually existed on this planet.
After seeing this, I came away with so much respect for Sir Stamford Raffles who took one look at a map of SE Asia, pointed to a tiny island on the end of Malaysia and said "Own that island and you control trade for the entire Asian region". No one believed him so he got hold of that island and set up the whole thing all by himself.
And was he right or what? Pity he died of cancer before he had a chance to enjoy it!
2) Just like in HK, Chinese in their 70s have osteoporosis while Chinese in their 80s don't. I didn't look into this but I'm willing to bet good money that the Japanese did serious atrocities in Singapore as well as HK, including starving the population. Obviously there are certain times in a person's life, like early childhood, when they shouldn't be starved. Gosh, I bet all those kiddies who do crash diets early in life are going to regret it in later years.
3) Early morning and the streets echo from one end to the other - from one side the mullah cries "Allah Ak Bar" and from the other congregations sing "Amazing Grace" and from another the thunderous sound of hundreds of Buddhists rattling thousands of fortune sticks at "Kwan Im - Our Lady of Mercy - Temple" in China Town.
4) Buddhists leaving "Kwan Im - Our Lady of Mercy - Temple" each morning stick incense into tins outside their temple, but save a couple to use for puja in the tins outside the Sri Krishnarama Hindu Temple next door, and a couple for the Catholic Church down the road. I asked a Chinese taxi driver about this practise and he said "Yes. Yes. We all do it. Just in case, you know. Just in case."
5) Churches everywhere and of every denomination and religion on earth. There mustn't be a god or goddess or saint or prophet anywhere in the cosmology that isn't honoured with a temple, cathedral, church, mosque, synagogue someplace in Singapore. Cathedrals on every corner and at least one of some other somewhere on each block. Religious tolerance like you wouldn't believe.
And in this religiously-abundant and tolerant place, guess who has crash-barriers and armed guards and thick iron gates and muzzled dobermans and massive walls built around their places of worship?
How about a picture saving me a thousand words:
6) At the airport, the wonderful sight of five Muslim fundamentalists, each from a different country and ethnic group and thus with a different way of dressing to signify their fundamentalism, standing side-by-side at the luggage carousel waiting for their bags, and all secretly checking out the others' dress styles.
It was soooo cute but Keith wouldn't let me take a photo because you aren't allowed. Spoilsport!
7) OK, to get this one you have to know the difference between Straits Chinese and the regular Singapore Chinese.
Singapore Chinese are the descendants of the five different groups, each from a different region of China, who came in answer to Sir Stamford Raffle's call for people willing to build his city from scratch. (Very heroic, on reflection! Pity the groups were forever trying to kill each other!)
But the Straits Chinese? Completely different! As recorded by the famous Han dynasty (approx 1000BC) philosopher/travel writer Fu Chian, who visited the Hindu City of Singapura in about 400BC as part of his travels (Singapura was destroyed by Bugis pirates in about 1000AD), Chinese traders lived in this city in great luxury and had done so since the city's inception 400 or so years earlier. Straits Chinese are thus the Chinese families who have lived continuously in the Singapore/Malay/Java region for over two thousand years, and very possible much longer.
And the main difference in appearance between Straits Chinese and regular Singapore Chinese? Regular Chinese look like regular Chinese but Straits Chinese are fleshier and the women have actual figures - like big boobs, small waists and Jo-Lo bums - but there's a more obvious difference too.
It's that a great number of the Straits have ... wait for it???? ... have ... have ... have .. NEEDLE NOSES!!!!! Like, you know, Pinocchio! And just like the Maccanese of Macau too! You get what this means, don't you? It means, I think, that when the Portuguese passed through the region they did more than just PASS THROUGH the region, if you get what I mean? Nudge, nudge! Wink, wink!!!
That's all I can think of for now, unless I go into the story about the young Chinese guy with the stall in Chinatown who'd just come up with a remedy for piles and was demonstrating its effectiveness by showing lots of before and after photographs to the hushed crowd. But that one's a little too gross, so I'll skip it!
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