Before I became a world traveler my Dad introduced me to maps and stamps to get me interested in travel and geography.  We would soak stamps we got from letters and packages, mostly I think from his work, and arrange them in albums.  Naturally, I loved categorizing the flowers all together and animals or collecting the last in the comic book series. It tapped into my  need to organize things.  And, collecting those stamps got me curious about where they come from.

Stamps originated as a receipt of taxes paid on packages being shipped by the UK.  Because stamps originated in the UK they are the only country in the world who doesn’t to put their country name on the stamp. It just has the queens silhouette and you know where it’s from. I think of it as akin to the internet being invented by America and so we only put .com instead of .com.us. Pretty neat right?

For the past few years I haven’t been soaking stamps on a regular basis. But I was hoarding them in little boxes and tins with my stationery.  So last weekend I soaked them and had a wonderful time sorting my US stamps from the Singapore stamps.  I even found one from France!  It was a great time and a neat reminder of my travels.

Singapore has a great Philatelic Museum with some awesome examples of early colonial UK stamps and beautiful contemporary stamps from around the region.  Definitely worth a visit if you are even remotely interested in stamps.

 

 

 

C and I finally mailed our taxes today. It took us 6 months of extensions and a full day of high tension form filling but we have determined our tax burden to the US government. It feels especially good with all of the conversations in Washington about the deficit to do this small part. It also feels like a real connection to America.  Yes, we have family in the states and we carry our passport wherever we go but taxes seem more like communication with Uncle Sam.

I know, whenever I talk about taxes C just kind of nods his head and says ‘Yes, I know you feel this way.’ Not ‘Yes, i feel this way too. Filing taxes is a real important part of being in a democracy and I am so happy to get to do it this year.’ That’s the reaction I am looking for. I like to look at it as a puzzle that needs solving. Maybe when we are older or live in America and have to pay more in taxes it will be less fun, but I don’t think so.

The zoo is one of the headline attractions in Singapore. I have visited it several times before but generally avoided it after our Christmas trip when the park was so crowded you could feel even the animals were exhausted. As another round of guests arrived we got another request to visit the zoo but this time they wanted to go for the orang utan breakfast. I remember reading about it and probably thinking it was hokey but we said yes.

My cousins were only in Singapore for one weekend on their 10 day trip so I snagged reservations for Saturday morning. The website advises to get there at 8:30 which was a smart move. The elephant bathing and feeding was at 9:15 so we had just enough time to find the restaurant, observe that we had prime seating and get some of the fabulous buffet in us. Two Indian elephants were bathing. They splashed the small audience crowded around as they rolled over in the water. Elephants are just so awesome!

So after we were sufficiently wet and the elephants all squeaky clean we got to feed them. At first we thought we could get away with just two baskets of fruit between the four of us but by the end we fed them six baskets. It was too much fun to resist and all the money goes to conservation efforts. One elephant took a banana, curled it under its trunk and then presented her trunk for another piece of fruit. She did this 4 times, one price of fruit from each of us, until she had gathered enough and stuffed the bundle into her mouth.

After that thrilling encounter we went back to have our real breakfast. It was a classic buffet split: some Asian food like congee and some English breakfast like beans. I got two plates in. Just five feet or so from our table was a platform where the orang utans got to have their breakfast. Of course there was a picture queue for those eager to document the experience. We waiting to eat and then got in line. The picture is neat but it was cooler just to stand so close to them. I think the mamma orang utan touched my hair. The baby of course was adorable which is why there was a zookeeper talking the whole time about how endangered they are and how it’s terrible to have one for a pet. The best we could do was a stuffed animal version.

The zoo does an excellent job of reinforcing conservation messages all over the park. I am always impressed by how much friendly information they give you. Also, the enclosures for each animal are built so that there is a minimal physical barrier between you and the wild things. Monkeys are seriously eating right above your head. Giant birds kind of wander around. But its all safe and all fun.

Later on that day we also fed giraffes, witnessed the Jaguar feeding, and almost got to feed the rhinos. It was a full day of wild animals and food and really the best kind of fun for all ages.

After years of searching I stumbled upon the avantgarde art scene in Singapore.  It lives at the Substation and my first introduction was Fireball.  This was a multi-part installation art and dance performance very reminiscent of some of the weird stuff we saw in the East Village.  Please interpret that as a compliment.  This was real, in your face art. At one point during a performance one of the dancers came to sit next to me and leaned on my shoulder while hiding from her colleague. It was neat to be involved in the art.  I admit some of it was strange. Did the swam woman need to flit back and forth across the gallery those last 10 times? Probably not but that tension also is testing the audience and stretching our imaginations.  The choreographer will be putting on another show later this year and I am so excited.

The traffic situation on my block finally pushed me to write an email to the Land Transportation Authority. I’m not one to write to government about petty things.  When I was in high school I interned at the State Senators office and had to frequently field calls inquiring as to why the freeway-side plantings in Eagle Rock were better watered than those in Pasadena.  Seriously, I am not yet an octogenarian starved for political relevance so I don’t need to bother poor senate interns.  I do however need to cross my intersection twice a day. Last month I also witnessed an accident on the block which prompted me to finally take action.

I drafted a polite letter about our intersection noting that it Ts into a busy street and there is no stop light or cross walk.  Additionally, there much bus traffic due to an adjacent hotel.

Three weeks later they sent their reply:

Dear Ms. Kathryn Bache,

Additional cross walk needed

FEEDBACK NUMBER: 20110629-0772

We refer to your email of 29 June 2011.

We note your feedback on the traffic situation at Horne Road/Jellicoe Road junction. We wish to inform you that the new V-Hotel development has constructed a centre divider along Horne Road. The centre divider along Horne Road allows pedestrians to cross the road in 2 stages by looking out for traffic gaps and taking refuge at the centre divider. Ground observations show that pedestrians are able to cross the road. Hence, a pedestrian crossing at this intersection is not necessary at this point.

With regards to the coaches parking indiscriminately along Horne Road, we agree with you that these buses are causing obstruction to sight visibility of pedestrians. We have informed our enforcement unit to take action against any illegal parking activity along this road. At the same time, we will also inform the hotel development that coaches to the hotel should make use of the internal driveway for any pickup/drop-off activities.

Nevertheless, we will continue to monitor the traffic situation in the area and propose any improvement measures should the traffic conditions deteriorate.

We seek your understanding and thank you for writing in.

 

Yours sincerely

FARHAN BIN MOHAMED TAMIM

ENGINEER, TRAFFIC SCHEMES

For DEPUTY DIRECTOR

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

 

What I cannot fathom is how crossing a street in two stages, totally unprotected by a cross walk, stop sign or a stop light makes it safer.  They did foresee the problem and by their estimates they had fixed it.  Maybe my expectation are too high but I am not comfortable with this arrangement.   However, it is in keeping with their kind of half measures in transportation.  Flatbed trucks here are allowed to carry a certain number of passengers in the back without any kind of seat belts of restraints.  How is that safe?

Walking home the evening after I got the letter, using the center divider, a truck honked at me. It was everything I could do not to hit the hood and scream at the man that this is the way his government wanted me to cross the road.  I have since calmed down.

Singapore is getting more expensive according to the Mercer Worldwide Cost of Living Survey released this week. And for the first time, we beat Hong Kong. Between the Singapore Dollars rise against the greenback and Hong Kong trying to cool off their property market this seems expected.  We are still neck and neck: Singapore in 8th place and Hong Kong in 9th.

Is it wrong that these lists kind of make me want to move back to New York, the baseline for all comparison, or to Tokyo, second most expensive?  Why are I chasing these places? Luanda in Angola sit at number one and I’m okay to skip living there.

More interestingly, Singapore is now the home to the highest proportion of millionaire households at 15.5% of the population. I might even know some of them.  However, this is a negative for many people in Singapore.  A cabbie gave me a piece of his mind about the Singapore economy recently.  He argued  that if more rich people live in Singapore, local or ex-pat, the cost of living will increase drastically [as it already has]. But as a consequence the  lower third of the population will eventually be unable to afford to live here.  This is compounded by the  fact that Singapore is a small island nation. Where do they go? C let me in on a rumor that they are building a MRT stop in Malaysia. I’m not sure how many people would want to pass through customs everyday to get to work.

For now, I’m just happy that Singapore is in the top 10. It reflects well on the economic advancement made in the last 10 years. Without the kind of land valve New York or Hong Kong have for their poor Singapore might just be able to come up with a creative solution for creating communities of the mega rich along side those of the lower and middle class.

This is in the top 10 most delicious desserts I’ve eaten. Don’t let the charred texture fool you. That’s chocolate covered with chocolate ‘soil’ and it tastes amazing. So amazing I might have to go have it again next week.

My ceramics class was inspirational this weekend. I had been feeling a little down about it because of the gaps between lessons and not really sure of my progress.  The wheel is more about technique than hand building and since I go to class so sporadically, I am often re-learning a skill instead of building on it. Were I to continue, I think I would need to find a class closer to home so as to guarantee regular attendance on a week night. But until the end of my 10 lessons [should be soon], I’m comfortable to carry on with the Sam Mui Kuang pottery studio.

small decorative bowls made June 2011

I carried this drab outlook with up all the way to the threshold this weekend but then remembered I had finished ceramics to pick up. I immediately spotted by coral-red lantern shaped bowl sitting atop the green speckled larger bowl.  They are beautiful, if I do say so myself. I was so pleased by the  depth of color and texture of the glazes. I realized with these two that I was going for a decorative piece and not something super functional. Both fit the bill because they are sturdy, a little heavier than you would want a bowl to be for eating, and so bright. Plus, I have been working on making nice feet on the pieces I throw and these are really neat.

After taking in my finished pieces I dedicated the lesson to trimming my three dried pots. One was asymmetrical and I got one of the instructors to help me. The other two were much easier to trim than pervious works. Maybe I am learning something after all.  This might not sounds like a lot of work but the next time I looked up my lesson was 5/6 over so I had just enough time to make one of the sponge jars N has commissioned.  I hope I can throw one identically sized next week.

Complaining about the MRT is a common past time among expats in Singapore. Everyone here that came from another metropolis can say that their passengers behaved better.

“People on the Tube are more courteous. And we don’t have air-con!”

“New Yorkers made room on the subway.”

“I miss the BART”

My friends who came from Houston seemingly refuse to even ride on mass transit.

I have taken to being a one woman public announcement, kindly asking people to move into the middle of the car while I push in purse first. I often chalk up the Singaporean’s behavior to the fact that the MRT is younger than I am and people need maybe a generation to get used to the idea.

There is one thing that has gotten me excited about the MRT though.  Someday, when the construction along Bukit Timah is over, I will be able to take the MRT directly to Holland Village, or the Botanic Gardens. It’s not that I don’t like busses but they are subject to traffic jams and are often crowded.

When I first moved here I naturally knew very little about the neighborhood I would want to hang out in or where my friends lived. I went with my gut and based the vast majority of the decision on C’s commute. By now I have my routes down. I have identified the ‘magic bus’ [as M puts it] that gets us between my work, our house, church, and then another friends place. I know my lines on the MRT almost as well as the subway routes of lower Manhattan [the subway it etched in my brain and sometimes the colors here confuse me and I wish I was on the NRQW instead of the circle line]. But I know, that when the Downtown Line opens and the Circle line is complete, that I’ll use it a ton, visit my friends, and maybe explore some new places. And it’s that exploring part. The idea that was still is something new on the island that I haven’t figured out that is exciting.

Last month I had the pleasure of listening to a great BBC program about innovation in Asia.  You can listen to it here.  The panelists tackled issues and raised questions that I have been exploring while living in Singapore. Such as, we know China can make widgets but when will we get to see a ‘Created in China’ label?  The program opened with the moderator asking each of the three panelists what the greatest innovation in Asia has been. The first said airline service. I can get behind that. Singapore Airways is a breath of fresh air after domestic flights in the US. I would almost choose my 18 hour flight on SQ over a cross-country flight on American. But the next two answers were just plain missing the point: acupuncture and chop sticks. Aren’t both of those old, ancient? When I think about innovation I think about my iPhone, solar panels, the large Hadron Collider. I don’t think about the wheel or the printing press.  Let’s embrace the 21^st century here.

And aren’t those both Chinese, not pan-Asian?  When people talk about Asia it always gets segmented into Japan, China, and the rest of it: South East Asia, where I live.  Japan seems to be excluded because they are just so far ahead of the rest of the region.  ‘We should applaud them but not use them as a measuring stick’ everyone seems to be saying. China of course is a huge success story but we are constantly reminded of the migrant workers and backwards peasants who haven’t’ gotten in on it. South East Asia is having its turn in the economic spotlight but its slower.  The subcontinent is cut out entirely unless people are discussing the race between India and China and then India gets dragged in again.

Mulling over this innovation program last week with some new friends it came up that maybe the reason we don’t see innovation in Asia is the education system. The same system that teaches children to memorize mathematical tables and chemistry equations beats out the creative spark needed to design a new building or a dress. I have seen encouraging things in the higher education system here such as Yale and NUS teaming up to teach the humanities. If Singapore recognizes its education system as a stumbling block towards further success they do have the power to change it. I’m not sure this explains away the issue.

Innovation will happen when people are supported to create products and services specifically for their own people. Asia shouldn’t be chasing the dream of the west. It is possible to modernize and not westernize, just look at Japan. But maybe that’s why they don’t examine Japan too much. Singapore unlike any other place I’ve visited seems to be so wrapped up in the luxury brands of Europe and America. It’s stuck thinking about the western ideal with all its flash and consumerism. The greatest innovation for Asia would be a better squatty potty; then I’ll know they’ve got it.