view of singapore harbour

Enemy of the State

This is my "Culture Shock Number 1" in Singapore if the truth be told.

I couldn't understand why a small MRT station would need 40 cameras monitoring people. What has come up to my head is not just about resouces wasting, but more about censorship, and right of privacy.

We can't deny that Singapore is a very well-organized city/country. It's under a very dymanic and strict management from the government. People obey the rules as everything you don't follow will result in a fine ticket. From my have been told and observing, the city has become lacking strong objections, creativity, and vitality as time goes by. I'm coming from Taiwan, where people can voice out whatever they want, no matter in economics, politics, show buisness, etc. There is no limitation and promising future, so people are more than try everything they can. That might make things messy or chaotic once in a while, however, you defintly can feel the energy and heart-beating from the whole island every single day.

This poster reminds me of my favorite movie "Enemy of the State" by Will Smith. The story is about a successful lawyer finds himself the target of a treacherous NSA(National Security Agency) official and his goons after receiving evidence to a politically motivated murder. In that show, easily you can see that NOTHING can be hided because EVERYONE is being watched / listened by the government for NEEDED SECURITY REASON. If that really is the case, WHO is going to judge under WHAT reason that WHICH person should totally lose their privacy and right to speak? And the enemy of the country is those who hold different reason from the government? or those who are watching what the whole country is doing? If I don't feel safe at all by being monitored for someone else's safety, then whom should be sacrafied? If me, then why? If not me, then who?

Interestingly, the poster is written in 4 languages, Mandarin, Hindi, Malay and English. So at least you can still see "multi-nationality" in this "FINE CITY".

Bush fires in Singapore?

Never would i have expected this to happen in Singapore....very 1st time in my 24 years of existence that I come to know that we have natural disasters too. But bush fires??? Isnt that supposed to happen in countries with dry weather like Down under?Amazing...and I used to boast that Singapore is one of the safest country in the world, from natural disasters.

Excerpt from Straits Times today:

"The Singapore Civil Defence Force has had to deal with 254 bush fires in the first 15 days of this month, or 17 a day on average.

Since the start of the year, 358 bush fires have been recorded, more than six times the same period last year.

The spike is largely caused by the lack of cloud cover.

Last fortnight was the hottest first two weeks of February in the last five years, with an average daily temperature of 28.2 deg C, said the National Environment Agency."

A different Singapore!

Hola hola,



Some time ago Gitti, our official traveller in our group of friends, had this idea of visiting an island close to Singapore. You go on a boat and you have high tea on the deck of the boat. A smaller island?. Smaller than Singapore?. GEEZ! However we all said YES, we enjoy these sort of original ideas plus it gives you the opportunity to spend some time with your friends.

Today we went on a boat ride around Singapore and visited KUSU ISLAND. A small island close to Singapore. From 3 to 5.3o PM. We had high tea on the boat (not impressed by the sausage mini hot dogs and the soggy cream puffs, but at least it was something different than what we are doing on Sundays lately: absolutely freaking nothing)

This is one of the coolest pictures I have taken in this year. (Thanks Devrim for the camera)

For more pictures from this afternoon click here