On Singapore

Always looking for context for why new places are they way they are, I offer you these brief early impressions. I would go into greater detail, but I need to rush out to meet a friend at a nearby mall *.




Singapore is a world financial capital, like New York and London. Out in the developing world, there are a few of these places like Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore that exist because of their central geographic role in world trade and relaxed tax and regulation policies.

It's a melting pot of ethnic Chinese, Malays and Indians plus a good number of American/European Expatriates. As a result, they've got a distinct melting-pot of food, delivered in unconventional settings.

It's clean and modern, and there are malls and skyscrapers everywhere. In talking to people, particularly westerners, you get the sense that this is a good place to raise a family but not particularly culturally interesting for young single people to live.


For the rest, let's go to wikipedia:

Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator. Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast Asia. It is substantially larger than Monaco and Vatican City, the only other present-day sovereign city-states.

Singapore is an alpha World City. Singapore is unique as it is the only country in Asia which has English as its first language. Singapore also has one of the highest percentage of foreigners in the world. 36% of the population in Singapore are foreigners and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector in Singapore.[9]

Even before independence in 1965, Singapore was already one of the richest states in East Asia due to its strategic location as a trading port. Its GDP per capita then was $511, roughly the same as Portugal. In comparison, both South Korea and China had a GDP per capita of $105 and $90 respectively in 1965.[10] After independence, Foreign direct investment into Singapore and a state-led drive to industrialization based on plans drawn up by Goh Keng Swee and Albert Winsemius have created a modern economy focused on industry, education and urban planning.[11] Singapore is the 5th wealthiest country in the world in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita[12] and 23rd wealthiest in terms of GDP (nominal) per capita. As of January 2009, Singapore's official foreign reserves stand at US$170.3 billion (9th in the world). The city state is also the second most crowded country in the world after Monaco.[13]

The population of Singapore including non-residents is approximately 4.99 million.[17] Singapore is highly cosmopolitan and diverse with Chinese people forming an ethnic majority with large populations of Malay, Indian and other people. English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese are the official languages.[18]

Singapore is a parliamentary republic, and the Constitution of Singapore establishes representative democracy as the nation's political system.[19] The People's Action Party (PAP) dominates the political process and has won control of Parliament in every election since self-government in 1959.[20] Freedom House ranks Singapore as "partly free" in its "Freedom in the World report" [21] and The Economist ranks Singapore as a "hybrid regime" in its "Democracy Index". [22]

* - not really, but this is the only major thing that people seem to do in this town.