Singapore Style
Ray McVinnie
To many, Singapore is merely another example of a global commonplace, the ubiquitous modern city. However, if you know anything of its bittersweet colonial history and you have an obsession with food, you can easily look past the unremarkable façade.
On the drive from Changi airport to the city, I am always staggered to think that allied POWs walked all that way in the heat, on their way to Changi prison after the fall of Singapore in 1941. And I am fascinated that much of this highway can be cleared of trees and traffic islands and be converted almost instantly into a runway for fighter jets. Most of all, I love being immersed in a unique and enthusiastic food culture.
Style is the manner in which things are done or how they appear. It is a measure of coolness. Style in Singapore, as in any great city, is distinctive.
And the fusion of imperial English and Asian influences still underlies the look of the place. At just over 200 years old, Singapore is a relatively new construct, created by the commercial interests of the English and sustained by the hard work of various Asian communities.
Though the charmed English colonial life of parties and servants, made famous in the stories of Somerset Maugham, was brought to an abrupt and traumatic end by the Japanese occupation, Singapore’s reputation for sophistication lives on in the grand receptions one always seems to stumble across at hotels, with their bejewelled women in evening gowns and their ministerial limousines. Such scenes, with minor changes to the costumes, could be straight out of the 1930s.
The kopitiams, traditional Singapore coffee houses which look rather like cosy English tearooms designed by a chic 1920s Chinese interior decorator, and which serve traditional dishes like kaya toast (made from white bread with butter and coconut jam), not to mention very good coffee, are another example.
The transformation recently of the grimly majestic chief post office building into the gorgeous Fullerton Hotel is a successful contemporary exercise in bonding old and new. The haunting effect of a string quartet playing The Way You Look Tonight high on a balcony in the atrium as I walk into the foyer on a warm evening is style indeed.
Even from the window of a taxi, I am constantly surprised at how groomed the city appears. The old buildings are well kept and frequently beautiful, and the gardens are absolutely magnificent. That such a place could be so attractive is all the more astounding because this is an island only the size of Lake Taupo, on to which is crammed a population the size of New Zealand’s.
Interspersed among the high-rises, at a more human level, is old Singapore – pastel-coloured shuttered shop-houses, craftsmen’s shops, temples, mosques and markets where the life of Singapore has always gone on. It is in these areas, away from glitzy Orchard Road, that one can find the richness of Singapore’s day-to-day life.
Clustered in the central city area is the Arab/Malay district of Kampong Glam. Around the Sultan Mosque there is Chinatown, which begins as you cross the river from Boat Quay. Little India runs the length of Serangoon Road – you can have a South Indian breakfast at the Ananda Bhavan Restaurant, then stroll over the road to Tekka Market to see how Singaporean cooks do their shopping. I like browsing the meat, fish and produce, as well as the antiques and clothes upstairs.
Then there is the colonial area with its riverfront and dominating neoclassical colonial government buildings, cool and austerely elegant but with the imposing power of old Empire. My favourite is the domed and colonnaded Supreme Court and City Hall complex, gazing imperiously out across the Padang, the huge open grassy park where cricket is still played.
It is in these different areas that each community’s culture, food and products are to be found. And it is to these areas that I make a pilgrimage each time I come to Singapore, to remind myself 
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