Flying from Singapore to Jakarta

As the small cartoon of our airplane crossed the equator on the Lufthansa screen, I found myself thinking more about where we'd left than where we were going. Our tiny plane was navigating the crosswinds between the island-city of Singapore and the vast number of islands making up Indonesia. We'd left the Singaporean beaches which existed only thanks to tons of imported sand, and we were headed for the nation that was once a major source of that sand before banning the practice in 2007.

Whether beaches or buildings, Singapore had astounded me. I often stood on the street and simply started up at the long lines of modern skyscrapers reaching into the rainclouds. These buildings remain standing through careful construction and their composition from many materials - steel, concrete, glass, and more. A single material would never suffice to make a building like these. Like the Biblical story of the man who built his house on sand, unless a person chooses the foundation wisely, storms will wreck the house.

I'd like to build on this idea to say that a strong foundation today means having the strength of many. A house must be built of bricks that stay strong against wind, of steel that can bend, of wood that can insulate. Having the strength of many is to synergize from a plethora of sources to achieve a hybrid power. Just as Singapore has chosen to import foreign sand for its beaches, the nation has imported foreign ideas and talent from all over the world to form its economy.

These buildings revealed the transformation of Singapore since Lee Kuan Yew's televised tears marked its expulsion from Malaysia in 1965. Other markers of the change are its per capita GDP's growth by nearly 64 times what it was in 1965 and a general standard of living that increased about 10 times (Yah 4).

Will Singapore continue its meteoric rise like the skyscrapers, tall and stable? Or will it rise and then fall with the tide, its skyscrapers suddenly only sandcastles?

After experiencing the nation's openness to ideas and its proactive search for the best talent and materials this planet has to offer, I believe Singapore will continue to rise. The nation continues to build its metaphoric house on a variety of materials. Singapore chooses not only sand, but top-quality materials such as global talent and MNCs from all over the world. In this way, Singapore will withstand the inevitable storms to come as it relies on the strength of many.