Hardcore culture shock

The contrasts between unspoiled, authentic Myanmar and sterile, artificial Singapore could not be greater.  I’ve come from a country of the past to an ultra-modern metropolis; from horse carts and bamboo-thatched houses to Mercedes and skyscrapers; from dusty, bumpy unpaved roads to 10-lane expressways; from benign Buddhism to a place where you can be fined for throwing gum on the sidewalk.  

While I admit I appreciated the efficiency of Changi airport (got through immigration and customs in less than 10 minutes), the rest of my 48-hour layover is distressingly First-World. 

The taxi queues are marshaled orderly through steel barriers to a white-gloved attendant directing a seamless flow of cabs and customers.  After a short, speedy drive, the über-urban cityscape comes into view and I swear I shudder.  

Not only is the Singapore climate oppressive but also the superficial professionalism (polite yet unengaged) I encounter everywhere somehow leaves me surly.  There are CC cameras all over the place – what is this, a police state? The gardens that have won Singapore its reputation as the greenest city in Asia are too cultivated and orderly, many of the plantings growing unnaturally on vertical frames up apartment buildings.  Nothing is makeshift or improvised or spontaneous or left to chance.  Even the cleanliness par excellence is annoying.

Absolutely most appalling is the rampant consumerism. This is a city with scores of massive shopping malls full of more, more, and more stuff that none of us needs.  Feeling overwhelmed myself, when I imagine the reaction of the lovely ladies at the village thanaka market or the farmer driving the oxcart back in Burma, my discomfort is compounded by shame and disgust. 

I sweat my way around Marina Bay, and the depressingly irrelevant sight of hordes of tourists with their smartphones and selfie sticks stopping every few meters to snap themselves indiscriminately has me asking in dismay: Do we do anything anymore that is not a photo opportunity?