General facts

Country: Republic of Singapore

Population: 3.5 million

Area: 620 sq km (239 sq mi)

People: 76% Chinese, 15% Malay, 6% Indian

Language: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil

Singapore is a country with many languages and people, but it's the Chinese who ultimately predominate. When their forebears came from China they brought with them a number of Chinese languages and dialects, including Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, Cantonese and Mandarin. So dissimilar are these dialects that they might as well be separate languages.

The British temporarily solved the problem by making English the lingua franca (common language) of its tropical colony, and to a large degree that still remains the case today.

Kampong Life

A kampong is a traditional Malay-style village, with wooden huts on stilts. In the best instances the huts are surrounded by greenery, amid which the villagers live out unhurried lives, with children running wild and languid dogs lazing in the shade.

This all might sound a little idealised, but it's an ideal upon which the Singaporeans are fixated. The word 'kampong' has become synonymous with a slow, relaxed lifestyle which, while still existing in rural Malaysia, has almost completely vanished from rapidly urbanizing Singapore.

Singapore has a number of frowned-upon activities, and the sometimes Draconian methods of dealing with minor offences has caused both mirth and dread among visitors.
The famous anti-long-hair campaign is a thing of the past, but it is only recently that long-haired men were turned away on arrival, or given a short-back-and-sides on the spot.

The Automated City

If you think that automation and computerisation have crept too far into your daily life, then you had better take a long hard look at Singapore. Here computers, cameras, scanners and bank accounts are all linked in order to keep track of the city-state's three million citizens. Admittedly, it does all make life a little easier for them, too.

Singapore installed a S$197 million electronic road pricing (ERP) system in 1999. Cars must be fitted with sensors that hold charged smartcards. Overhead gantries in the CBD and on expressways automatically deduct the requisite toll.

Motorists who don't have a sensor or whose cards don't have sufficient funds have their number plates photographed. A fine duly turns up in the mail.