I have long had a soft spot for Singapore. This is strictly classified information, since it is considered a seriously uncool position for a foreign journalist to take. But I have an unusual point of view, since I first arrived in the Lion City in 1960 as a two-year-old refugee.
It is certainly possible to find bad things to say about the place, but then that is true of every country.
The good news is that Singaporeans are developing a sense of humour, and have become more self-critical recently, with the resurgence of debates about kiatsu , or 'ugly Singaporean syndrome', referring to selfish behaviour.
Most of the city-state's problems - the ones that get discussed - are not big ones, such as the ones faced by Hong Kong or Taiwan. 'After littering, inconsiderate car parking and other anti-social behaviour had been elevated to a national level, we had the 'mad free textbook rush',' the Straits Times said. Shocking stuff.
This refers to a school book give-away for poor children at which adults were seen heaping text books into the backs of their Mercedes Benzes.
Or consider this. 'Some Singaporeans still behave as if they were in the Stone Age,' Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said. 'They litter the common areas or park motor vehicles indiscriminately. And they vandalise library books.' I'm not sure which Stone Age he is talking about. In the one in my history book, primitive hominids hunted sabre-tooth tigers, and there was relatively little in the way of car parking and library offences. But the fact is, most countries would love to have Singapore's problems, because most are so trivial.
And the place is changing. There are still older people who are hostile to outside influences. But the younger people have the same liberal, freedom-loving characteristics as their counterparts everywhere.
