But Disneyland wasn't built atop an equally peculiar 19th-century theme
park - something constructed to meet both the romantic longings and purely
mercantile needs of the British Empire. Modern Singapore was - bits of the
Victorian construct, dressed in spanking-fresh paint, protrude at quaint
angles from the white-flanked glitter of the neo-Gernsbackian metropolis.
These few very deliberate fragments of historical texture serve as a
reminder of just how deliciously odd an entrepot Singapore once was - a
product of Empire kinkier even than Hong Kong.

The sensation of trying to connect psychically with the old Singapore is
rather painful, as though Disneyland's New Orleans Square had been erected
on the site of the actual French Quarter, obliterating it in the process
but leaving in its place a glassy simulacrum. The facades of the remaining
Victorian shop-houses recall Covent Garden on some impossibly bright
London day. I took several solitary, jet-lagged walks at dawn, when a
city's ghosts tend to be most visible, but there was very little to be
seen of previous realities: Joss stick smouldering in an old brass holder
on the white-painted column of a shop-house; a mirror positioned above the
door of a supplier of electrical goods, set to snare and deflect the evil
that travels in a straight line; a rusty trishaw, chained to a freshly
painted iron railing. The physical past, here, has almost entirely
vanished.

"You come for golf?"

"No."

"Business?"

"Pleasure."

He sucked his teeth. He had his doubts about that one.


Singapore is a relentlessly G-rated experience, micromanaged by a state
that has the look and feel of a very large corporation. If IBM had ever
bothered to actually possess a physical country, that country might have
had a lot in common with Singapore. There's a certain white-shirted
constraint, an absolute humorlessness in the way Singapore Ltd. operates;
conformity here is the prime directive, and the fuzzier brands of
creativity are in extremely short supply.

There is no slack in Singapore. Imagine an Asian version of Zurich
operating as an offshore capsule at the foot of Malaysia; an affluent
microcosm whose citizens inhabit something that feels like, well,
Disneyland. Disneyland with the death penalty.

"It's like an entire country run by Jeffrey Katzenberg," the producer had
said, "under the motto 'Be happy or I'll kill you.'" We were sitting in an
office a block from Rodeo Drive, on large black furniture leased with
Japanese venture capital.

Now that I'm actually here, the Disneyland metaphor is proving impossible
to shake. For that matter, Rodeo Drive comes frequently to mind, though
the local equivalent feels more like 30 or 40 Beverly Centers put end to
end.


Was it Laurie Anderson who said that VR would never look real until they
learned how to put some dirt in it? Singapore's airport, the Changi
Airtropolis, seemed to possess no more resolution than some early VPL
world. There was no dirt whatsoever; no muss, no furred fractal edge to
things. Outside, the organic, florid as ever in the tropics, had been
gardened into brilliant green, and all-too-perfect examples of itself.
Only the clouds were feathered with chaos - weird columnar structures
towering above the Strait of China.

The cab driver warned me about littering. He asked where I was from.

He asked if it was clean there. "Singapore very clean city." One of those
annoying Japanese-style mechanical bells cut in as he exceeded the speed
limit, just to remind us both that he was doing it. There seemed to be
golf courses on either side of the freeway. . . .

Zákaznická podpora

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