Is Singapore the most boring place to travel in Southeast Asia?

Scores of angry Singaporeans posting this on FB and rebutting the writer's comments about how Singapore is the most boring country to travel to. The comments page at the article itself is also full of incensed Singaporeans calling out the writer for her biasedness and over-generalisation.
http://voices.yahoo.com/five-reasons-not-travel-singapore-south-6691622.html?com=3&cat=16

What intrigues me was that the plus points of Singapore, which many Singaporeans hastened to enumerate in their defense of their beloved homeland, might be applicable if I were living in Singapore, but mean very little to me if I was a tourist. Cleanliness, safety, law and order, yes yes, but the chances of me being mugged or robbed or infected with a deadly virus is low when I am just visiting a city for a couple of days. And honestly, the sense of superiority (which I'm the first to admit that I used to have) that Singapore is better than Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta or Bangkok which most Singaporeans seem to have rears its ugly head. There is nothing wrong with feeling proud about the city which you live in, but to continue to think that these other cities are capitals of strife and pestilence is sheer ignorance.

The most common rebuttal I have seen is that the writer came to her conclusion after only spending two days in Singapore. I don't think that is a convincing rebuttal - there are many cities which I will dismiss entirely just by reading a tourist guidebook or spending half a day in. Come on, I am most likely to spend my first half of the day at the most important you-cannot-miss-this attraction, and if the best that the place can offer fails to satisfy me, what hope is there that I will change my mind after staying there for a longer period of time? And if I were to imagine that I am a tourist visiting Singapore, the country would fall exactly into this category. Casino? Theme Park? Sentosa? Zoo? Night Safari? (and I LOVE zoos). We are constantly fed with propaganda about how good our zoo and night safari are (and I think there are good grounds for these claims), but honestly I have been more impressed with some other zoos or aquariums which I have been to. While the landscape and the facilities might not be that impressive, at least the animals, which is the main highlight when you are visiting a zoo I think, look more alive. The animals in our zoo look kind of sad - grouchy and lethargic, not unlike Singaporeans ourselves!

This hardware vs software observation can be seen everywhere. Heavily plastered and manicured Chinatown, totally deprived of any sign of cultural vitality - in short, a tourist trap. Fictitious, exaggerated, over-dramatized stories of the Merlion - itself a fabrication of the Singapore Tourism Promotion Board (come to think of it the Merlion is the perfect embodiment of tourism in Singapore - pretentious and unauthentic). Yes, I am aware that tourism boards all over the world need to create some kind of narrative (often warping historical reality to tinge the imagination), but Singapore is overdoing it. You feel like a child tearing open the exciting packaging, only to be ultimately disappointed at what lies inside.

I am also amused when people suggest that tourists should visit the heartlands which will show them what real Singapore is about. What exactly do these people have in mind when they say this? Go to a HDB estate and see aunties fighting one another for taxis? Schoolchildren dragging their tired bodies to tuition classes? Be amazed at the sheltered walkways and upgraded lifts which the government has built to entice the voters?

Of course I don't agree with everything the writer has said. We are not devoid of an arts scene, although our arts scene is not exactly thriving (even among Singaporeans) and seem too entwined with commercialization. Much of this arts scene is contemporary, and while I am personally engaged with contemporary art, this also means that you can find similar kinds of art all over the world, since contemporary art tends to focus on universal themes which are not unique to a country, unlike the more traditional art forms which had time to entrench themselves in a geographical location. Our museums, both historical and art, are extremely boring. I do blame the government because of its policies towards the arts - the obsession with big names and blockbusters instead of grooming home-grown talents, and the single-minded obsession with maths and science in the education system.

Neither do I deny that the writer is writing from the stereotypical perspective that "An Asian country should be cheap, quaint and culturally different". But then, this is clearly what ang moh tourists are looking for - why would they come to Singapore if it is expensive and unable to offer an experience which is different from what they would have back home? To ogle at our tight kebaya-clad stewardesses and enjoy the in-game entertainment when they are onboard a 12-hour SIA flight?

I think she has a valid point - articulating what most tourists want and not get when they are in Singapore, and it will be good if we learn from what she has to say. We don't have to agree wholeheartedly or demean ourselves to patronize the tourists, but to dismiss her article entirely because of nationalistic pride is foolish, and making us just as biased and uncritical as what many Singaporeans claimed the writer to be.

Nothing gets more SOAS than this

No, this is not a picture from my private collection. This was a picture which was part of the exhibition that is currently in display in the SOAS library.

And in true SOAS fashion: someone posted this picture on the SOAS FB group, saying that if these have been white children it would have been a case of child pornography, but because they are black it is somehow permissible. And predictably people started adding their views - how this is an epitome of Orientalism - White people selectively portraying non-White people as savage, raw, sexual, the "other" etc - and SOAS grads with rose-tinted glasses bemoaning how the standards of SOAS have fallen and how current students are apathetic to something like this which would have caused an uproar back when SOAS was a reputable institution, etc etc.

I do love SOAS and the intellectual discussions, but sometimes I am tired of how extreme some of these views are and how everything has to be seen through  the post colonial lens of Orientalism and regarded as exploitation by the white people. I know I'll be publicly lynched for this - and this blog post will serve as evidence that I am no better than the white people imposing their ideologies on the world.

"Oh, Southeast Asian Studies - Vietnamese to be exact."

Back in those days where FASS students chose 3 subjects in our first year and then later major in 2 out of these 3, it is customary when you meet a fellow FASS student for the first time to inquire about what his subjects are. And when it is obvious that the two of you share one of these majors (let's say you are in the same lecture or tutorial for an advanced class which only majors of that subject take), the inquiry process becomes easier because you only have to ask what is the other subject that he is majoring in.

When my potential project mate (when you sit next to someone for the first tutorial of the term, there is a good chance that you will end up doing a project with him. The amount of strategy involved in getting into a good project group deserves a dedicated separate post) said the above to me, I could barely contain my horror. (I have become far better at containing my horror after teaching for six years) Southeast Asian Studies? Yes I know this department existed - I saw it in the faculty handbook - but you mean there are actually people who major in it? They are like, only marginally better than the South Asian Studies (a new department set up when I was in first year - and after four years I don't think I met anyone who was from South Asian studies)?

I am rather ashamed that I used to have such a patronizing view towards Southeast Asia. I suspect many Singaporeans share this mentality. From young, we have all heard relatives or friends telling us horror stories of the level of civility and the state of hygiene in our neighbouring countries. And finally when your parents bring you there for the first time you get to experience it for yourself. Interesting countries and cultures, for sure, for undeniably DIFFERENT from Singapore. And by different, we usually mean INFERIOR.

I started backpacking in 2005 - and it should come as no surprise to anyone who knew me that my first destination was Japan. Followed by China, UK(London, Stonehenge, Cambridge, Bath), France (more or less just Paris), more of Japan, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, more of Japan, Turkey, and then some more of Japan. The distance between your backpacking destination and your home is directly proportional to the amount of bragging rights and street cred that you get. My first (only?) backpacking buddy whom I charged headlong into Japan with was hopelessly obsessed with Southeast Asia - having done a number of YEP (Has this term been made totally oblivious by the term OCIP?) - having visited Myanmar and Laos (of course, Thailand and Vietnam too, without saying, but there is a significant difference in exotic level). I might have made some dismissive comments back then, something along the lines of - "Southeast Asia? Sure, when I am old and cannot tahan long plane rides anymore I will go travelling in Southeast Asia."

For some reason I cannot remember, I went to Cambodia with him in Dec 2009. The fact that the Angkor Wat, a UNESCO site,  is found within its confines, makes this a country deserving of consideration, even if I still wasn't particularly inclined towards Southeast Asia. I won't say that the Cambodia trip drastically transformed my view of Southeast Asia, but it certainly planted a seed in me, especially the fact that I knew next to nothing about how the Khmer Rouge (of course I have HEARD about it, I am a GP CHER you know. But it felt like something as mythical and enigmatic as the Southeast Asian Department in FASS in the year 2001) came about despite Cambodia being barely two hours away from Singapore.

And then I began to encounter more and more Southeast Asian Scholars. Of course 07S02 had many Malaysian and Indonesian scholars and it has never escaped me that they were relatively more well-informed than the Singaporean students. The influx of ASEAN scholars with the announcement of the new SAJC Hall, together with SSP/HSP classes and the greater number of 4H2 students, suddenly made the ASEAN students even more prominent. Then I taught 11S18, 11S17 and 12S18, and began to come into much closer contact with them, especially my 34th AHOF and the other Thai scholars. The seed planted in me during the Cambodian trip began to grow. And finally I made my way to Bangkok and Ayutthaya in Thailand, and then Hanoi, Halong and Sapa in Northern Vietnam.

Although I would love to proclaim that I am not as pragmatic-minded as my fellow countrymen, I have to admit that my choice of course for my Masters program was one which was underlined by such worldly concerns. I want to do something I am interested in (languages and cultures) but yet provides me with a decent opportunity to line my bank account. Hey, I was about to leave a stable well-paying job into an unknown universe fraught with uncertainty, don't judge me! On hindsight, I will definitely have taken a MA degree in Southeast Asian studies instead of Translation Studies (even though I do not regret doing this - it has been an eye-opening course which broadened my perspectives significantly too), but thankfully the fact that I am in an institution like SOAS allowed me to pursue my new found interest.

I audited classes in Southeast Asian Literature and Cultural Sociology. I got my hands on the reading list for the Postcolonial Southeast Asian Film classes which clashed with my compulsory Translation classes. I took Vietnamese at the Language Centre (Oh yes - there were enough students for the second part of the course to continue thankfully - starting next week!), continued my skype Thai lessons, and borrowed all kinds of books about Southeast Asia from the amazing library that SOAS has. And next week onwards I will have a real Cikgu teaching me Malay, and learning Chinese from me in return, both of which I am very excited about.

So what is it about Southeast Asia that has captured my undivided attention? That will be in another post, and hopefully this time it will not stay as a draft for more than a week. =p