I’ve now spent several days ‘living’ in Singapore. What a delightful country! Is there a price to pay for the virtually zero crime rate, abundant wealth and ease of living? Of course! But I don’t want to talk of that here.
What I enjoy in this ‘traveller’ mode is observing the details of difference and the the commonality of humans. It seems to me that Singapore has the best of the West without the unbelievable disfunction and corruption. Public transport is cheap as chips and a marvel, food is varied and a cause for social celebration, the sun shines constantly and the people are gracious and polite (but not too much).

Yesterday, my friend Jeff and I went to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve in the far north-east of the island. Here we wandered through mangrove swamps and saw kingfishers, terrapins, lizards, butterflies and innumerable birds all accompanied by a constant deafening squarking, buzzing, chiruping din the likes of which I have never experienced before. I made some excellent binaural recordings with my trusty Olympus LS-10 and took lots of photographs.
The rest of my time has been spent mainly eating and socialising, which are one and the same here.

I did however go to the Singapore Art Museum which had much to challenge, with FX Harsono, an Indonesian contemporary artist challenging the most. His large installation exhibition seemed to reflect so much of the last four decades of violence and personal tragedies of the Indonesian people.
Tomorrow I am giving a lecture at LaSalle College of Arts.

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