A tourist's impression of Singapore might be the Marina Bay Sands, Sentosa, or Merlion Park. For a time, this was how I viewed Singapore. When I first visited Singapore, the most impressive parts of it were those that made the country feel like a wealthy, new city. I was always attracted to the tall buildings and clean, organized areas towards the center of the city. Even after my family moved to Singapore, a lot of this remained the same. On weekends, I spent lots of time in Orchard, Singapore’s most popular retail district. In this, I wasn’t alone. Singapore American School, the school I attended in Singapore, had kids from some of the wealthiest families in Asia. They, too, preferred to spend their free time in the wealthier districts, so the majority of the student population would congregate (unintentionally) in areas like Orchard or Marina Bay to the point we’d bump into people we knew every time. Our residences were the same. The majority of the students I knew were living in single-family homes in wealthy areas. If not in townhouses, they were in high rises in the heart of the city. Some even lived on the island resort Sentosa.
This was exactly the issue I had with Singapore. I often got tired of the daily routine: going to school on a private bus that picks me up at my door, spending the entire day on campus, then coming home on a private bus that drops me right at my door. Even on weekends, I spent so much time in Orchard and Marina Bay that I had the impression I had explored all there was to see there. To many of us, Singapore was only this. A wealthy island consisting of school, home, and malls. Soon, I also came to think I had explored all there was to see in Singapore. It was easy to believe this. To drive from one end of Singapore to the other, it would take you a maximum of 40 minutes. In my daily life, I rarely had to travel for more than 20 minutes to get to all of the places I needed to be, except for the school bus.
It wasn’t until I met my clarinet teacher, Mr. Noah Raihamanteen, that I visited Singapore for the first time, a second time. To my surprise, I ended up becoming really good friends with this teacher, often going out to eat together and getting rides home. He often took me on detours that I never would have experienced on the school buses. He took me to eat at hawker centers all the time, these open-air food courts with tons of individual food vendors. To this day, the best foods I’ve had in Singapore are not those expensive dining experiences from the Michelin guide (there are so many), but rather those that you only find through the people who have lived Singapore in its entirety. It was thanks to him that I saw the other lives that existed in Singapore up close. It was from him I got to see the inside of Singaporean HDBs (Singapore’s mass public housing system). He was the one who showed me the plethora of social interactions that he has just on his commute to and from work. In retrospect, these social interactions I witnessed were exactly the kind of urban environment current urban planners hold so highly.
Singapore's HDB Flats
Hawker Center
Today, looking back at this second time I visited Singapore for the first time, I notice that the lives of Mr. Noah and many other native Singaporeans are incredibly similar to the initial positive impressions residents of Pruitt-Igoe had in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m amazed at how Singapore was able to create a public housing environment like this that has lasted this long. Now, each time I visit Singapore, I feel as though I’m exploring an edgeless city, to the point it’s laughable how I used to get bored of Singapore. As the time I get to spend in Singapore is gradually decreasing, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say that I know Singapore, even though I’ve already lived there for 10 years.
Me and Mr. Noah
Comments