Number Thirteen Singapore Flyer
31 March 2013

I ventured back to the Botanic Gardens with our friends David and Susie, taking the trail through the rain forest area for the first time. This area is one of the few patches of original jungle still left on the island. Some of the trees are so tall that they have lightning rods to protect them. We also visited the Tanglin Shopping Centre nearby, which is full of antique dealers. David got a special lesson on how to tell (by hairstyle, earlobe length, etc.) what countries different Buddha statues come from.

The Buona Vista area is just north of the east edge of the NUS campus, and I've explored there a bit. Rochester Park is a hill of colonial "Black-and-Whites" (2-story bungalows) built for British military officers. A group have been renovated and leased out to restaurants, including a Chinese restaurant with great tea-smoked duck. There is also a newly opened mall nearby, called the Star Vista, with lots of restaurants in it. (We ate in a Vietnamese place where you made your own spring rolls.) The top of the Star Vista is the Star Performing Arts Centre, which is a 5000-seat venue. I was puzzled when I looked it up later to see what events were scheduled there, and only found a couple a month. Someone explained to me that is is the main sanctuary of the New Creation Church. With over 30,000 members, you need to reserve seats if you want to attend at the Star, rather than the simulcasts around the island.

Kaye and I ventured to the National Library (impressive building) to see an exhibit on the letters of Sir Stamford Raffles (founder of Singapore). This collection of letters was on loan from Scotland, and consists of letters sent by Raffles to various people in connection with the founding of Singapore. (There aren't a lot of surviving letters sent to Raffles, as his papers, specimens, drawings, etc. were lost in a shipboard fire on the way back to London.) The exhibit had a lot of information about the personages he was corresponding with in setting up a colony in Singapore, and gave the back story for the letters. Some new things I learned:

- British interests in Southeast Asia were controlled from Calcutta, so correspondence and personal meetings with his superiors took a long time.

- Raffles didn't spend all that much time in Singapore. He was only here three times, totalling less than a year. He was governor of Bencoolen (on Sumatra, a British outpost with little going for it other than the pepper trade) and that was his main duty. He was in Singapore for a bit more than a week in 1819 for its founding, and returned later that year for a month. He returned to Singapore for 8 months in 1822-23.

- Raffles likely overstepped his charge in setting up a colony in Singapore (which instructed him not to upset the Dutch). The British authorities in Penang weren't keen on the competition either, and didn't want to send troops to help protect the colony. Also, it wasn't clear that the person he signed the treaties with was actually the ruler of the area.

- The person on the ground in Singapore was William Farquhar, who had been in Malacca, and persuaded many traders to mover from Singapore from there.

The exhibit also featured a reproduction of a land map of Singapore found in the British Library, dating from 1820. It shows the Malay-Muslim settlement in Kampong Glam where the Sultan of Johor had already built the first version of the Istana (palace) on the same site the later version occupies today.

Another interesting exhibit in the library featured remittance letters from overseas Chinese to relatives back in China. Originally, these letters (with accompanying money or goods) might be entrusted to couriers traveling back to the sender's village. (Sometimes the courier was the person who had recruited the sender to come work in Singapore.) This informal system was subject to obvious abuses, so private post offices sprung up to handle the letters, with Singapore being one of the central forwarding points in Southeast Asia. The funds were often sent to Hong Kong for conversion to Hong Dollars, which were exchanged in China for local currency. There would also be a return receipt, with a note from the recipient, so the sender could be sure the money had arrived. While there was a fee for sending a remittance letter, the private post offices also made money on the currency exchange and trade goods.

We had lunch in the Bugis neighborhood, which is a shopping area with a lot of street-side stalls and malls. The name comes from Bugis (or Buginese) traders that once came to Singapore from South Sulawesi (Celebes). Apparently there was a canal into this area that they would sail into and moor their boats. The area was developed in the 1980s, and a "New Bugis Street" was created that is like a bazaar. (The original Bugis street is between two buildings of the Bugis Junction complex and not that interesting.)

The Singapore government is trying to encourage people to have more kids (in contrast to the "Stop at Two" campaign of the 70s and 80s). The current fertility rate is around 1.2, which is below the replacement rate. One estimate I saw said that the ratio of working-age people to senior citizens will drop from the current 6:1 to 2:1 by 2030. There are a lot of policies and programs to encourage citizens to have kids, such as priority for public-housing flats and both maternity and paternity leave. The most interesting effort to me is the Social Development Network. The agency originally sponsored dating services and singles events itself, but now certifies private dating agencies and co-funds events organized by others, including the local universities. A couple months ago there was a lot of comment when the SDN introduced "Love Gifts", which are cash vouchers you are supposed to buy and give to your single friends to spend on dating services. A lot of speculation on how someone might feel who received a voucher (or many).

There are a lot of research centers funded by the Singapore government, often in collaboration with overseas institutions. I was invited by Marianne Winslett to visit the Advanced Digital Sciences Center, which is led by faculty from the University of Illinois. It gave me a chance to visit Fusionopolis (home to multiple research centers and technology companies), and see many demos from projects being conducted in the center. While there's not a formal connection to the CS department at NUS, I did meet several NUS PhD graduates there.

Businesses seem keen on awards competitions here. I read about several every month. It appears they can be profitable for the award organizers as well. An example: the Singapore Prestige Brands Awards. These awards were covered in a special 28-page newspaper section, which contained lots of ads from the award-winning companies and their business partners. Further, there was a big awards banquet, where each winning company likely purchased a table for their guests and employees. Sometimes there is an awards booklet distributed at the banquet itself, also with room for ads (though I don't know if there was such a booklet for these particular awards).

Interesting foods:

Hairy (or mitten) crabs. These small crabs have a fur-like covering on their claws, and live most of their lives in fresh water, moving downstream to tidal estuaries to mate. While they are an invasive species in Europe and the US, they are a delicacy here, and only harvested for a period of about a month. (The seasons for males and females are offset by a few weeks). Many of the restaurants had special hairy-crab menus, which were quite spendy, running $60SP for a male-female pair. However, one of the profs in my department ordered a shipment of 18, and we were invited to help eat them. (Thanks, Anthony!) He had them delivered to the apartment of some grad students, who were kind enough to cook them for us. You scrub them thoroughly (they burrow in the mud), then steam them with herbs that come in an accompanying packet. I think the herb was perilla, a member of the mint family. You eat them with vinegar and ginger. The direction sheet that came with them said explicitly they must not be eaten with beer. They are considered a "cool" (yin) food, as is beer, and you are not supposed to have too many cool things together. But you can drink baijiu, which is a strong Chinese liquor distilled from sorghum.

Fish-shaped waffles with different fillings, both sweet and savory. I believe these are Japanese item, though they are made fresh here at the stands that sell them.