Singapore reinvents itself as more than just a stopover

By DITA DE BONI

Singapore is a nation that exhibits a veneer of everything Western, invariably masking the best and most fascinating about everything Asian. The island began life as a hideout for pirates and evolved into a trading colony for the British; some might say the two groups barely differed.

While in 1961 the Anglo-Saxon taskmasters relinquished the ethnic flashpoint they had created, their stiff-necked refinement still pervades this culture, leaving a legacy of genteel materialism.

But for the visitor who wants to look, there is a far more complex, vibrant Asian multiculture that characterises Singapore. Orchard Rd houses 1.5km of ultra-modern shopping centres, and yet the city-nation's inhabitants prefer sales of any, or all, descriptions. Nouvelle cuisine has reached the state of high art in its restaurants, but the best food will always be found at street stalls. And the nation's seniors lament the modern calculator, which apparently barely dents the mental dexterity required to use the ages-old abacus.

And so it goes with the arts. Singapore is striving to market itself as an arts mecca, commissioning several large works and attracting some of the world's best shows and exhibitions to try to tease more time and money from visitors who regard it mainly as a stopover between hemispheres and continents.

To wit, the nation's Festival 2001, which will begin late June, features a rich and multi-layered programme including minimalist US composer Philip Glass (A Retrospective), the Moscow Art Theatre performing Chekov's The Seagull and Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancing Dracula..

Fusion - that nebulous term that covers everything from Sukiyaki Mars Bars to Confucius for Dummies - is the catchword this year. The Swiss/German production of Hashirigaki ("scribbling"), described as "an eccentric tale with a kind of meditation and a lot of movement," promises something indescribable; a similar description can be applied to U Theatre - "no characters, no dialogue, no story." Urobos - Project Time mixes the seemingly incongruous cultural sensibilities of Argentina, Australia, Austria and Singapore in musical theatre.

This kind of artistic stir-fry is typical of a country eager to have all cultural and ethnic traditions represented. Canada, another famous melting-pot of even greater proportion, offers a similar big-budget cultural diet. But where the lineup in a Canadian arts extravaganza would likely run the gamut of menstruation, gender politics and gratuitous nudity, in Singapore the fare tends towards the R13 ethereal, with perhaps a smattering of breast and buttock (this year, Belgium's contemporary dance troupe Ultima Vez offer some of both at the Arts Festival).

A legacy of censorship is, of course, why it will take many years to convince the sophisticate that Singapore, with its many official sensibilities that still exist, could ever be a realistic home for modern arts.

Little might they know that in the small theatre houses in the city-nation's Chinatown, the ultra-Singaporean play Shopping and F***ing was the smash hit of a previous season. This edge is where the alternate artistic vision of Singapore thrives, where, more importantly, the Government's carefully managed ethnic harmony leaks. More than one Singaporean suggests it is the portrayal of ethnic disharmony more than that of sexuality that is of concern to authorities.

Which is what makes art and artefacts in Singapore's national museum and art museum so fascinating. The country's national art collection is housed in an old missionary-run school for boys, the bad karma palpable in each square metre of the place. But the art is superb.

Ethnicity, religion and suppression are the central focuses of the display here. Landscapes in Southeast Asian Art features room after room of paintings that decry the Western influence and the destruction of culture through tourism.

An exhibition by self-taught Vietnamese artist Tran Trung Tin, who painted with heavy oils on old discarded newspaper, seems unbelievably vivid and moving (although admittedly it appears the painter ascribed the same heavy-handed emotional treatment to the war with Cambodia and Thailand as he did to the death of his cat Meo, who died after consuming rat poison). In the Singaporean collection, religious icons from Buddhism and Islam are prominent and provide an interesting contrast to the intense commercialism that smacks most tourists in the face from the moment they step foot in Changi airport.

And what is even better about this collection is the wealth of information that accompanies each piece. One note of caution: an extraordinarily good grasp of the English language is required to understand these accompanying explanations - and a degree in metaphysics probably wouldn't go amiss, either.

The same applies over at the Singapore National Museum. The museum provides a detailed narrative of the history of the country which is both chronological and thorough, and also available in 3D for those more comfortable with the visual medium. The question of nationhood is again central to all exhibits, even those that focus on subsets of the population: The History of Chinese Secret Societies in Singapore, for example, is a fascinating look at the country's struggle to eliminate a criminal underclass.

The Nationhood permanent exhibition features a continuous newsreel of the day in the mid-60s when Lee Kwan Yew, founder of modern Singapore, tearfully broadcast to the nation that Malaya, Singapore and Brunei, unshackled from British interference but beset with ethnic rivalries, could not form a long-dreamed-of Malayan Federation.

Perhaps the most moving exhibition is tucked away at the top right-hand corner of the museum. Power and Propaganda: The Pacific War in Retrospect is a chilling account of a tiny, virtually powerless nation surrendered by the British (who initially thought the island impenetrable) and captured by the Japanese. The exhibition displays a wealth of propaganda from both sides of the war effort, with sympathies skewed, understandably, against the Japanese but not necessarily toward the Allies.

A bizarre display of ostensibly Australian propaganda explicitly depicts Yankee soldiers fornicating with both white Australian and aboriginal women, warning Aussies that their women are occupied while they fight the war.

But it was the written testimonies of the Singaporean soldiers of war and posted around the walls which best conveys the horror of the war, detailing with first-hand accounts the brutality that thousands of Singaporeans were subjected to in Japanese prison camps.

Despite the rise of a unique socialist-capitalism that exists in Singapore today, one imagines that it was the tragedy of the Second World War that forged a dual identity encompassing both the Eastern and Western that infuses the tiny city-state today.

* Dita De Boni travelled courtesy of Singapore Airlines.

* The Singapore Arts Festival Fill Your Senses runs from May 31-June 24. Visit the website www.sistic.com.sg

* The Singapore History Museum and Art Museum is open every day except Monday.

Links:

Singapore National Heritage Board