Singapore is AWAKE

I yawned as I woke up, rubbing my eyes. They were tired from watching the screen ten inches from my face. Over the 23 hour flight I had enjoyed selections from a list of eighty movies, Nintendo games and language-learning programs. I could even play the Gameboy versions of Pokemon Gold and Legend of Zelda - the best was playing a game of chess with my seatmate over the flight screens. Haha! I did my best to learn 1-10 in Mandarin and Cantonese, realizing that this snatch of language was only a drop in the vast ocean of communication in Southeast Asia. The only solace for my glacial pace of absorption was a line from “The International Move Challenge,” one of the articles we are expected to read: “Learn the language—it’s not about fluency; it’s about respect.”



Respect indeed. As I came closer and closer to Singapore, my respect grew. I saw the squiggle of rivers with half-finished bridges aerially from the airplane window, the gleam of mammoth hotel skyscrapers from the taxi streetside view, and the sinewy knuckles of our cabbie as he swung our luggage from ground to trunk. Everything in Singapore seemed to move in tightly-wound forward motion.





It was the ride around the Singapore Flyer that shook up my sense of speed in Singapore. From our 541-foot perch atop the tallest Ferris wheel in the world we could see cranes leaning over construction sites, bare swaths of red dirt and building skeletons draped in green fabric. Yellow hard hats scurried quickly around below our feet, preparing for the 2010 Youth Olympics soon to come in August.
A vast array of container ships in all colors and sizes moored just outside the port, waiting their turn to enter the world’s busiest port.



Although the warm sun and jetlag made us sleepy, Singapore is awake. Wide awake, developing the island’s buildings and businesses to compete with its blurry blue neighbors in the distance and those too far away to be seen.


Our taxi cab driver, Hong, informed us that to be Singaporean means to be both hard working and tired of working. He works 14-hour days driving through the island. The government dictates that he accept any passenger that flags him down, and that taxis must taken according to their order in queue. Here they are very very intense about "the queue," or waiting in line. He fussed at us for not taking the taxi in front of him in the queue. I responded that in the U.S., usually you pick the taxis based on perceived expense and availability and they pick customers based on the direction of their destination. He nodded, saying he understood that New York cabbies refused to take passengers to Washington, D.C., simply because it was too far from their territory. Under Singaporean law, however, he had to drive all over Singapore.

We thought his job still sounded great. Meeting so many interesting people! Ferrying those interesting people to interesting places all over Singapore! Although we marveled at the glamour of his work, it was clear he felt little enthusiasm. The stress of the endless scramble for getting ahead was evident in his complaints of fatigue and observations of shopaholic Singaporeans who relieve stress by credit card.

Whatever the underlying feelings of working Singaporeans, the nation is awake and moving fast. It’s going to take a lot more than our sleepy first impressions and counting 1-10 in Mandarin to grasp where it is going. We’re ready to get started.