A city without a soul?

I've heard it said that Singapore is a city without a soul. I disagree. If you take soul to mean the buzz you feel at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or at the Sydney Harbour, or at the San Francisco bridge, then yes, Singapore has no soul. The skyline at Shenton Way, even with the inspiring Esplanade and the majestic Fullerton, still does not give a sense of place and identity. You get the feeling that these are all buildings constructed with new money, merely shells without culture, people, or life. And it will be worse when the casinos come, with its glittery glamour, its transistory players, and the levy only for the Singaporeans. The levy effectively means that the land is no longer ours.

If you really to catch a glimpse of the city's soul, don't go to Shenton Way, go to the heartlands. Go to Geylang where businessmen and teachers sit over opened durians, eating with their fingers. Go to the wet market, where fishmongers smell of fish and wear rubber boots and rubber aprons. Go watch the people in an afternoon downpour -- watch the labourers under the broken umbrellas in the pick-ups, watch those on the pavement when a large bus drives by too fast and too close, watch the egg delivery man with a red plastic bag over his head, or the Indian man shielding himeself with the newspapers. Go to the nursing homes, to the old estates such as Sungei Kadut or Bukit Merah or Chinatown, where you will find the dialect-speaking immigrants who built up Singapore, the 300,000 foreigners who were given citzenship in 1957.

Maybe while watching, you will see what I see.
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