At the Writers' Festival, an American woman said to me, "I've been living in Australia for 28 years. I rarely go home. Americans don't know how far they've fallen behind."
On my last evening, I went to the supermarket at Raffles City to get rid of my few remaining Singaporean Dollars. There, I saw a young man doing something quite disgusting. He was opening one sushi tray after another to more closely examine its contents. He even used his fingers to pluck out a piece here and there. Neatly dressed in off white and plugged to earbuds, he had a smooth, marmoreal and expressionless face. Though he was obviously Chinese, I had no idea if he was PRC or a local lout. Finally, he switched a few sushi rolls from one tray to another. Happy with the saving, he ambled to the cashier.
On the ride to the airport, I told the Chinese cabbie that I had gone over to Batam and Johor Bahru to find a "funkier Asia," only to discover that those nearby cities had razed entire neighborhoods to build huge and ugly modern buildings, "Johor Bahru wasn't too bad, but Batam was awful. I think they're both trying to become Singapore."
"But you can't just build. You must have a plan!"
"Many of the new buildings in Batam are already empty and falling apart, and there was no life on the streets. It was sad."
"Many people are trying to be like us, but they don't look, think, see or even smell like us. They will never be Singapore!"
I laughed. The cabbie reflected, "We're lucky to be living here, now. We're allowed to make money. Nobody bothers us."
"But where will Singapore be in five, ten years?"
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