Singapore, an Acquired Taste

How can you have a garden with no bugs?

Go to Singapore.

Under the domes of Singapore’s lush and life-enhancing “Gardens by the Bay” there are no bugs. 

The “Cloud Conservatory”, a domed web-like steel and glass installation, enclosing 2.5 acres, showcases plants that have been installed to recreate the experience of a more temperate zone. The place is climate-controlled and smells fresh. Plants and trees climb a man-made mountain in terraces surrounding a five-story high waterfall. You shake off the sweat of Southeast Asia for the cooling atmosphere of a boreal forest. There are no pollinating insects, no birds. The plantings are hybridized in a separate nursery. It’s outstandingly beautiful. Ambitiously sustainable. Curiously sterile.

It’s Singapore.

Besides being a garden city, or “city within a garden” according to the latest government speak, it’s also a city of rules and signs. Yet my husband has noticed something interesting. We’ve not seen a single police car the entire week. Don’t they need to enforce the rules?

 It would appear not. People seem to conform. The best image of this is how people file onto the escalator. They stand left, let pass right. The consistency is astounding and makes me think that the Toronto I know and love is home to a rebellious and slovenly lot. (Apologies to my Toronto friends. Admittedly there’s lots of good things there…just not in the subway).

But this is a CCTV state. You don’t need police on the street. They monitor everything in an Orwellian way. There are cameras everywhere suggesting that privacy is so yesterday. Enforcement does indeed occur, as our waiter explained. Surprisingly forthcoming about his experience, he told us that shortly after he posted a critical (he’s claims “sarcastic”) message about the Prime Minister in Facebook, two policemen came to his workplace requesting he take down the post.

There’s a ‘Black Mirror’ element to Singapore. Gardens with no bugs; conformity with no police.

Yet I still love the city, though there’s a context for my feelings. I’ve lost count, but somewhere around eight times, we have spent time here, before, after and in-between visits to other countries in Southeast Asia, countries where you feel attacked by the noisy, choking, filthy, urban chaos. Singapore administers to wounds inflicted elsewhere.

Of course, just like a wound, you bind it with something sterile.

This time in Singapore, we’ve covered a lot of the city center by foot and underground (called MRT here) in search of a particular product called Japanese Magic. This is a fabric stain remover in bar form that’s purportedly excellent. My friend wants a couple. Finding it became my mission. It took four days of hunting since the building where it was last found ten years ago had been demolished. I Google mapped myself to three local Japanese stores. Nothing. I went to Chinatown. Nothing. I covered blocks of stalls in Little India. Nothing. Finally, getting out of the core, I left Dan at home nursing his cold and travelled north to a mall serving the Malay community. Magic! There it was!

During my search, ironically for soap, I was charmed by the cleanliness of the subways. You could eat off the floors, that is, if it were permitted to eat in the subway, which it isn’t, hence the cleanliness. Back to that CCTV camera….

While I love the architectural splendor of this city, and the green, green landscaping throughout, I know I couldn’t live here. I do not look for condo rentals here for those months when we need to escape winter. The fact is that my physical body doesn’t like Southeast Asia. Singapore is a wet whisper north of the equator. The humidity drags me down. I peel off the sodden shirt and unstick my capris upon returning to the hotel for one of my three daily showers. Beads of sweat dribble down my neck and I’m simply standing, inert, at a bus stop. The climate really crimps my active life-style.

Cost is another reason why we wouldn’t spend a lot of time here. Our Singapore-based friend spends about $1500 a month on his car. Half of it goes to the monthly tax on car ownership. The balance is the sum of road tolls, parking lot fees, park entrances, all collected automatically by his transponder.

But let’s be real. A simple Chardonnay is 75% - 100% more expensive than in Canada. I’m outta of here!

Which reminds me about food.

Another mission was to track down a specific hawker stall by way of tribute to Anthony Bourdain. I had my notes assembled based on an article from CNN that listed out where and what my hero ate in Singapore. It took a few days because who knew that some hawker stalls close at 2pm after a shirt-soaking one-kilometer walk at 5pm? Back to my research.

So today, my last full day in Singapore, I finally made it to Sabar Menanti II in the Arab quarter.

“I would like to have ‘mee Siam (Siam noodles and chili paste, prawn and bean sprouts) please.”

“No more. Finished for day.”

Gasp!

I look at my notes.  “Can I have “Lontong rice cakes”?

The owner suddenly went all giggly and shouted at me. “Anthony Bourdain! You want Anthony Bourdain!”

Well, I wouldn’t have said it that way (then again...), but yes, I wanted to eat what he ate.

“Lady. Where you sitting? I find some mee Siam for you. And Lontong. Wait, la.”

And that’s what happened. She conjured up both dishes in the time it took my husband to be solicited by an elderly missionary at the next table (Dan, an atheist, always attracts people who want to convert him to their religion).

So that’s my list on Singapore. The city is eye candy. The food is flavourful. The humidity is oppressive. There’s something scary under the surface.

Nevertheless, I’ve acquired a taste for it…in small servings. I suspect that despite how delicious it all is, something might disagree with me tomorrow.