Singapore
The cross-point of civilizations forming the entire culture of Southeast Asia is Singapore, „The Lion City”. Following a Malay legend, a prince from Sumatra has met a lion here, which is considered a good sign, and decided to build a city in this place. Today Singapore is an independent state and a business and culture capital for thirty-nine years already.
Singapore has no such beauty of nature to show as the other countries of the region do, just because it only has parks. However, it makes it up with their size and variety of wildlife; they almost look like forests. Singapore is an island city-state in the middle of Malaysian plantations. Its territory consists of a big Singapore Island and sixty-three smaller islands in its territorial waters; 40% of it is covered with greenery, national parks and some of opened military areas. The culture of Singapore is as eclectic as its culture: one can find either Chinatown or Arabic street here, either little India or little Malaysia, to say nothing of the world-known local skyscrapers. Part of the city is located at various levels; mostly filled with malls and entertainment centers. Thus, walking underground, one can lift upstairs every now and then, getting in a different place everytime; it is plenty of walking space here: the area of the city is about 692 square kilometers.
Following different sources, Singaporeans spend more time on the internet than any other nation; they also are the most hardworking people among Asians. Yet, there is the question: what is Singaporean? All the nations inhabiting neighboring countries are dwelling in this city: 77% of Singaporeans are Chinese, 14% are Malay and about 8% are Indians, the rest is made of the other nations mix. The government is even trying to keep this national proportion both at the state board and in dwelling houses. All together, there are about 4 millions of inhabitants, and this year, on the 6th of June this number has increased sharply. Since most of Singaporeans are Chinese, and number six is considered to be especially happy in the Chinese culture, many people tried to naturally or artificially match this triple-six day with the birthday of their kids. In the result, birthrate increased by 70% this day! There are four official languages in Singapore: Chinese (Mandarin), Malay, Tamil and English. Besides, there are two specific forms of English: so called “Singlish”, local colloquial English, and “Manglish”, Malay English. English was introduced here at the times of colonial rule of the Great Britain, which also stabilized the economy of the country. This is when Singapore became the “market place” of Asia: trade goods like caoutchouc and tin from Malaysia, rice from Thailand and different goods from USA, Europe and Japan took their transit traffic through the city. By becoming the central point of transportation network, Singapore began to host more and more immigrants which helped it to prosper with no natural resources. Nowadays, Singapore is one of the highest life standard countries in Asia.
The other typically British feature is to follow the laws, even archaic and ridiculous ones. With the specific cultural background, in Singapore it developed into the tendency to forbid just about everything and to punish a violator irrespective of his citizenship. Drug storage or smuggling is prohibited under the threat of death penalty. Physical punishments are still popular here not only in schools but even for the adults for certain infringements. However, most penalties for smaller crimes are mostly money charges: for feeding the birds, for chewing a gum, for not flushing the toilet, for putting garbage outside of the urn. In the result, Singapore is a very clean city, too. Being as symbolic as famous red phone boxes in London, the prohibition signs have become a popular souvenir print.
Elizabete Neimiseva for enduroadventure.lv