Singapore: Where East meets West in trading

SINGAPORE: Thursday, April 15, 2010

We know that all of you are breathing a sigh of relief because you have filed your taxes. We filed for an extension before we departed on the cruise and will need to file when we return. Spending the day traveling around Singapore was much nicer than waiting in line at the post office to file our federal income taxed.

Our overall impressions of this small city/country are very pretty, very lush and green, beautifully maintained parks, a good highway system and an impressive downtown area with British Colonial buildings next to modern high-rise buildings with an ultra-futuristic building resembling a space ship ready to take off in the background. Prior to visiting Singapore, our main impression of it came from the news story about the American college student who was to be caned for what many Americans thought was a minor offense, how the parents asked the US President to intervene, and how Singapore would not back down from the sentence but reduced the number of strokes. Caning is a horrible punishment with one stroke removing the skin from a person's behind. The Singapore government also believes in the mandatory death penalty of hanging for crimes such as using firearms, kidnapping, murder and possessing 15 grams of heroin. In the last 20 years, the government has hung 400 people. While it seems to be a great place to live if one likes one, long hot summer all year round, its citizens need to not mind minding their Ps and Qs.

On our tour, we learned that the government is very pragmatic and carefully plans how to provide its citizens with incentives to keep Singapore the beautiful city that it is. Our tour guide also was extremely good at providing the connections between history and society and how each impacts the other. He will remain nameless in this entry because he told Sara that she made him nervous because she took notes. He asked her to please not quote him because he liked his job. At first, Sara thought he was nervous because she always seemed to be the last person back on the van because she was so fascinated with the sights that she stayed until the exact time that we needed to return to the van.

While the social aspects of our guide's commentary were fascinating, we will devote this blog to the information about the Battlefields of Singapore, and maybe do a separate entry later about life in Singapore today. This tour could be part of our sub-theme for the cruise of visiting as many World War II battle sites as we could. Our first stop was the The Battle Box at Fort Canning. This bunker, with 26 rooms, was built between 1936 and 1939 to serve as the headquarters of the Malaysian command. On December 8, 1941, one hour before the bombing of Pearl Harbor but one day later because of the date change at the International Date Line, the Japanese invaded Singapore. General Percival, who had been sent by the British to Singapore to develop a defense plan, had 130,000 troops while the "Tiger of Malaya," Yamashita had maybe 30,000. Yamashita later said that the attack was a bluff that worked. Percival, a brilliant staff officer, had accurately predicted that the Japanese would attack from the north and recommended that the British should develop serious defenses at the river that separated Singapore from Malaysia. His superiors replied that would alarm the people. The Battle is enhanced with specially crafted wax figures that bring visitors back to the meeting on February 15, 1942, where Percival reached the fateful decision to surrender Singapore to the invading Japanese. The officers wrote terms for the surrender but Yamashita said he would accept nothing but an unconditional surrender and would not even allow Percival to scrutinize the terms of surrender. Poor Singapore! The true-to-life figures and skillful lighting created an atmosphere of watching a one-act play that the audience wanted to continue for additional acts.

We asked our guide why the Japanese were so brutal. He answered that was part of their nature and culture. They had been building up their war force and waiting a long time to use it so they were seasoned veterans. Many of the British and Australians were new recruits, ages 18 or 19, with little training. The British had few aircraft and no tanks.

To learn just how brutal the Japanese were during their occupation, we next toured the Changi Museum, which is dedicated to all the soldiers and civilians who suffered and died during the dark years of WWII. Changi Prison was designed to house 600 civilian prisoners. The Japanese imprisoned between 3,000 and 4,000 in it with an total of 85,000 in brutal captivity. Many other soldiers were sent off to other places as free labor. Through letters, photographs, drawings and personal artifacts, the museum chronicled the compelling story of the POWs and civilian prisoners for three and one half years. If the overcrowding, brutal treatment and lack of food did not kill or weaken them, the dysentery, malaria or cholera did.

The original Changi Chapel in the courtyard was built by the Australian POWs and is now in Canberra, Australia. The replica included the five murals painted by Bombader Stanley Warren, who had been a patient in the hospital. He started painted the murals while still ill. Then his health miraculously improved and he completed all five murals by May 1943. The Japanese converted the chapel into a store and painted over them. In 1958, a RAF national serviceman detected traced of color under the paint. The British located Stanley in January 1959 but he was reluctant to return and restore the murals because he had too many traumatic memories. However, he did return in the 1960s and again in the 1980s to do additional touch-up work. Seeing the beauty and Bible verses of the murals makes it easy to understand why they were a source of inspiration to the prisoners by giving them an uplift in morale and providing them the will to endure the brutalities of life at the prison. The most touching is Christ on the cross with the verse, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do."

After touring the Battle Box and Changi Museum, Ken said, "There's really no reason to like what the Japanese did during World War II." Sara's retort was, "What took you so long?" (Sometime, I will write about my real feelings when we were in Nagasaki. Ken asked me not to write anything negative but after one of the speakers on the ship said that the Japanese are now trying to blame WWII on the Americans and Ken's change of heart, I may do so.)

Our final stop was the Kranji War Memorial, a cemetery of more than 4,500 graves of soldiers who died between 1939 and 1945, which is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. If we were to visit Normandy, which we would like to do after this cruise but probably will not be allowed to do unless we pay a heavy price (see NOTE at end of this entry), we would probably feel the same--a sense of extreme sadness but overwhelming peace. Our guide told us that the people who created the world cemeteries believed that if the young soldiers did not have peace in their short lives, they would have peace from now on.

The cemetery and the Kranji War Memorial at the top of the hill honor the three branches of the armed forces--the neat rows of graves are in columns to represent the Army, the wings over the walls of the memorial represent the Air Force and the periscope-type column in the center stands for the Navy. Many of the headstones were engraved, "A soldier of the 1939-1945 war is honored here. Known unto God." One headstone for H.M. Campbell of the Gordon Highlanders who died on the 9th April 1943, was engraved with this beautiful, poignant poem:
God took you, Harry, it was his will
Forget you, Harry, no, we never will.
The walls of the memorial are inscribed with the names of the Allied troops who lost their lives during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. The flowers neatly planted in front of the headstones were some of the most beautiful arrangements we have ever seen in a cemetery.

Here's a brief history of Singapore to bring the city to the present. Singapore realized that with no natural resources, its major advantage was it location as a port. It became the center for all Western goods to be redistributed to the East and vice versa. Post-war Singapore progressed from a Crown Colony to self-government in 1955. Lee Kuan Yaw, who came into power in 1959, was preoccupied with Singapore becoming a part of Malaysia because he could not conceptualize Singapore not being joined to the hinterland. In a case of be careful for what one wishes, Singapore became the 14th state of Malaysia on September 16, 1963, but was not prepared to pay the price. Our guide compared it to an ill-fated marriage. Singapore was the most attractive wife but it made the loudest noise and was asked by Malaysia to leave in 1965, when it emerged as an independent republic. Lee invited the United Nations to come to Singapore to advise the government on future development, which included a public transportation system, the new Changi airport and ways to attract and maintain talent, who are concerned with the advancement of the country, including low income taxes and high salaries. Singapore's government is based on pragmatism with most things be managed by the carrot and the stick concept. Dialoging is important with the goal of avoiding hostilities at all costs because people can sit down to talk and work most things out. The proliferation of museums, performing arts centers and, even golf courses, assures the residents of a reasonably comfortable life style. For all our friends in education or have children in the school systems, Singapore's schools still use corporal punishment. (This could be considered either good or bad.) Yes, there are prices to pay for living in this paradise.

To our guide, whose name Sara promised not to mention because we did quote him, but in a most positive manner--your explanations of the ties of history to society were superb. All of us on the tour have a better understanding and appreciation for Singapore's past, present and future. The first thing you told us when we boarded the tour bus was that this was the best tour we could take. You clearly exceeded all of our highest expectations. If you are ever in touch with "your good friend, Martyn," our port talk lecturer, he may direct you to this Website so you can read our praises. Thank you so much for a wonderful day and tour.

NOTE: We have decided that we would like to take a Holland American cruise on the Eurodam, which would sail from Rome to Dover, England, and then fly back to the US from London. The only "fly in the ointment" is that the corporate headquarters of Princess Cruises will not let us out of our airline contract from Rome to the US without a 100 percent penalty. Our last hope is our travel agent's discussion with Delta Airlines our air carrier. Unfortunately, we do not think this will work because of some underhanded dealings in Princess's Corporate Headquarters' contracts to obtain more money from passengers. Please, Delta, we need your help! We will let you know how this matter turns out but, for now, we are assuming that we will return to the US on May 16.