The big thing I took away from Singapore is there's a lot of variety in Asian megacities. I realize that should have been obvious at the outset but, you know, you don't think about what you have and haven't thought about until you do. More specifically, I assumed Singapore would be tightly packed with little-to-no open spaces, like Tokyo. I thought that in part because that's what I'd read. Just a month or so before we left on this trip Spectra showed me an article about how there so little space in Singapore that they're starting to build underground. I'm not saying they aren't cramped but it's nothing like Tokyo. Singapore reminded me more of Los Angeles compared to Tokyo's San Francisco. That isn't too say I didn't like it. Just that it was different than I thought it would be.
Having said that Singapore freaked me out a little. To quote Spectra, "This is the wrong kind of megacity for the Bean, it's too epic." And she was right. REALLY tall buildings make me uncomfortable and crazy tall buildings standing by themselves without a bunch of other tall buildings around them to form a normalizing perceptual nest make me nauseous. Literally. As in I can't look up at them because if I do I'll faint and then most likely throw up. I spent a lot of time looking at my feet in Singapore.
On the flip side of that was I spent a lot of time looking at peoples' faces because Singapore is a mad pastiche of olive complected Asia people. On several occasions I saw a person that I couldn't have even made a wild assed guess about their ethnicity. Unlike Tokyo it's normal for people to smile and nod at you so I had tons of small interactions with people, which might be the life blood of my existence. So Singapore was brilliant and needed in that respect after LA and Tokyo.
For instance, Spectra and I were at a Starbucks, which I should explain. We were both stunned by how many shopping malls there are in Singapore. Like full blown shopping malls with Gap and Uniqlo and Muji and food courts. There are so many malls they have themed malls by store type. We found ourselves in a sports themed mall before crossing the street to pass through a "children's learning" themed mall. That's how many malls there are. They're unavoidable.
So Spectra and I emerged from the metro station to find ourselves in a mall. We found the exit but there encountered monsoon rain for the first time so we turned around to find a place to let it pass and that's when we found ourselves at a Starbucks.
I ordered an ice tea that they had to make so five minutes later a young lady with green hair and one bejeweled tooth brought the tea out to or table. Her ethnicity? Um, olive complected Asian of some sort; tall and thin if that helps narrow it down for the experts out there. As usual No Face was standing on the table visiting with us. She handed me my tea and then pointed down and said, "No Face! I love that guy. What's he doing here?" We explained, she loved it, that started a brief conversation that ended with her asking if she could follow us on Instagram. Of course, so she received on or our travel cards, the first stone cold stranger to do so. Her name is Raquel. And all by herself she made Singapore worth visiting.
The last night in Singapore we visited Sosuke, Hang-Aie (that's almost how you spell her name, I think), and their 2.5-year-old. Their was a baby sleeping somewhere but we didn't see him. We hadn't seen Sosuke and Hang-Aie since we stayed with them in Japan back in 2006. So we got caught up and blah, blah, blah but the most interesting bit came when Hang-Aie lamented how big and crowded Singapore has gotten. She's from there, born and raised, and the population had doubled in her lifetime and — barring disaster — will double again.
Can you imagine that? The population of your nation doubling in your lifetime? And they all live in the same town? Then on top of that have your nation is a place like Singapore that went from being a "developing nation" into being a futuristic megacity at the same time. What does that do to your sense of constitutes normal? Or does it, like most change over decades, happen so gradually that you only notice in retrospect?
I have no idea, of course, but I can tell you this. When the idea of them moving to the States someday came up Hang-Air was emphatic, "No way. I want to know that my children will make it safely home from school everyday." So whatever the impact of being born and raised in Singapore is part of it appears to be having your priorities in line.
Up next: One Night In Maleka.
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