This is the best article I’ve read yet on Sinagpore’s metamorphosis from rigid, no-nonsense dictatorship to gay-friendly, gum-chewing (with a doctor’s prescription), bar-dancing oasis of liberal pleasures.

I didn’t know, for example, that the recent decision by the government to hire gays came about “after officials discovered a study showing that America’s most gay-friendly cities were also the most creative and affluent.” (Are you listening, Republicans?)

This is at the heart of Singapore’s radical new course:

“If we want our people to make more decisions for themselves, and if we are to encourage a derring-do society, we must allow risk taking, and a little excitement,” [PM] Goh has said. His remarks and the relaxation of petty rules were, however, born not of generosity but necessity. Singapore is in trouble and in need of re-invention.

The article drives home the point that many don’t want to acknowledge — Singapore is in deep, deep trouble and the government has to do everything it can to get out of the iceberg’s way.

Easier said than done. Singaporeans are still too scared to get up on the bar and dance, the reporters says, so the new freedoms probably won’t change things very much, at least in the short-term.

After 40 years of being firmly guided in what education and career to follow, and even whom to marry, Singaporeans are being told to alter their character radically.

The government is now encouraging everyone to be a “bold thinker” and entrepreneur. It’s too bad they waited until now to see the light, when it really may be too late.

[Edited at 17.00, Sept. 13]

There’s a brief but interesting article on a new book by a photographer who managed to photograph some of the Cultural Revolution’s most terrible scenes, especially in the countryside.

Mr Li’s black and white pictures show mass rallies, ritual humiliations, beatings, executions and passionate revolutionary enthusiasm….

“It’s not only you who are shocked by the pictures. I hope if the book is published in China, my compatriots will be shocked too. I want to tell the true story of the Cultural Revolution, to serve a purpose.”

I’m not sure how easy it will be to get a book like this published in China; it would sure be a wonderful thing.

Intelligent analysis of the Pico Iyer article I discussed yesterday over at Big Hominid.

I tried to be “balanced” in my own initial analysis, mainly because I hold the author in such high esteem and couldn’t imagine he would write anything blatantly stupid. (After I discovered his article on the Tiananmen tank man back in May I must have gone back 20 times to re-read it.) As Hominid says, I was “too kind,” and he gets right to the point:

I fucking hate the relentless attempt to paint America as irrevocably juvenile. Yeah, there’s plenty that’s juvenile about American culture, but we’ve gone places other countries can’t go because we’re not quite so shackled to the goddamn past, where tradition leads to inertia. I don’t see how a modern Europe that allows the ethnic cleansing of moderate Muslims (anybody remembering this?) and appeases its burgeoning fundie Muslim minority (France, Germany) contains any special wisdom from which we should learn. The same is true of so much Asian “wisdom,” when it comes under scrutiny.

These are valid points. It still leaves me wondering whether there is anything America can do, ever, to shift world opinion of us as an oafish teenager using the world for one giant night on the town.

Now, this perception may be entirely wrong, but the fact that it’s become so ingrained is a problem we cannot simply dismiss with a “Fuck you, world!”, which only makes things worse. In practical terms, it can make cooperation with the rest of the world a nightmare and it’s simply unhealthy. The unhealthiness may be on their side, but it can mean serious probelms over on our side.

Big Hominid is an interesting site, by the way, with a focus on Korea. I’m adding it to my prestigious Pearls of Asia list now.

I was away in Hong Kong when the attackers struck. I just spent the past few minutes feeling as if I had been right there. Please be sure, whatever you do, to go to this site and watch what must be one of the most moving, heart-rending, beautiful and glorious tributes to the death of the victims of September 11th ever created. I feel overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was about to see and hear, and will be in awe for the rest of the night. It takes a few minutes to load. It is well worth the wait.

I almost never go to the site where I got this link, and maybe it was fate that caused me on a whim to drop by there tonight so I could click on that wonderful link. For that, InstaPundit, I have to say “Thank you.”

I knew she was vile and stupid. but not retarded. Her latest insanity is forcing me to reconsider:

In the wake of Dean’s success, the entire Democratic Dream Team is beginning to sound like Dr. Demento. On the basis of their recent pronouncements, the position of the Democratic Party seems to be that Saddam Hussein did not hit us on 9-11, but Halliburton did.

Hmmm. Were all those reports of Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda masterminding 911 a big mistake? Where is this harpie coming from? Let’s hope it’s a joke. She can’t be serious. Right?

She also refers to the members of the United Nations as “swine” and totally bastardizes post-WWII history in an amazingly audacious and idiotic attempt at revisionism. It’s incredible. It’s shameless. It’s unprecedented.

[Link via Eschaton.]

The NY Times has a great (and very long) article on Singapore’s perpetual foodfest. Must reading for any who have felt awe at how one little dot of a country can harbor so many food courts, hawker stands, outdoor eateries and streets that seemed lined with restaurant after restaurant, as far as the eye can see.

The Singapore Manpower Ministry came out with some truly grim news today. t makes me feel like I am back in Hong Kong 18 months ago when the economy was in a freefall.

The ministry said the total number of available jobs contracted by 25,963 compared to the previous quarter — the ‘steepest decline on record since the mid-80s recession.’

It said the job market is not expected to improve this year as the amount of new job openings will not be enough to absorb the number of people entering the work force.

I am seeing red flags all over the place and I’m not happy about it. I am hoping that much of the new bad news is due to SARS and therefore temporary. But there’s no denying that anxieties over the country’s economic future are very high indeed.

Thanks to IdleDays who, in a comment, referred me to a most thought-provoking article by Pico Iyer on how America would be well-served to learn from its friends in Asia to get over its self-defeating grief over September 11th and move on.

I’m not endorsing this necessarily, but his argument is interesting. (Iyer is one of my very favorite journalists; he wrote the article about the Tiananman Square tank man that may just be the most moving thing I’ve ever read. If you have never read it, go read it now.)

He contrasts the tendency of Americans to dwell on their grief with the old Asian tradition of acknowledging a tragedy, learning from it and moving on:

Whether out of pragmatism or real moral clarity, the old cultures of Asia, famous for their worship of ancestors, have often shown themselves ready to learn from their descendants.

To many on this side of the world, therefore, America’s dwelling—and dwelling—on its losses of two years ago appears unseemly. The firemen who gave their lives in the World Trade Center are heroes to inspire the world. And most Muslims regard the assault of a few fanatics as a blot on their religion, not a triumph. Yet America, determined not to look up from the event and to keep brandishing its wounds before the world, looks at times like an angry child who lacks the perspective of his elders. When a troublemaker tries to provoke you, even schoolboys know that you get the best of him by turning away and going about your business. Each time the U.S. revisits its sorrow, it provides Osama bin Laden with another victory and lives down to the terrorists’ caricatures of it.

This is a controversial viewpoint of course, as in very, very controversial. But as I’ve said before, I wish Americans had a better knowledge of how the world perceives it, and whether I agree with Iyer or not, I know that everyone here does.

He points out the hardships that have been put up with here, from Pol Pot’s murder of millions and millions, to the 120,000 Bangladeshis who drowned in a flood in 1991, and America’s relative lack of awareness, let alone concern.

I am not sure if the comparison is a fair one. It would be wonderful if grief were always distributed evenly to everyone who suffers. But it is only natural for America to be more affected by the death of its own than for those far away, who seem to at least some extent an abstraction. I, for one, feel that grief over 911 is valid; the wound is still fresh. I get very upset thinking of Chinese students locked up for writing essays, but my upset over 911 is more intense and more personal. It happened where I grew up and lived. It could have been me or my friends.

And there seems to be a contradiction, or at least a complication, in Iyer’s argument. While he begins by saying it is time we “get over it,” he then indicates that maybe it really isn’t that time yet, but Asia is impatient with our grief now because the US post-911 has been such an asshole:

Everyone who suffers a terrible loss grieves over it and remembers its anniversary; not to do so would seem scarcely human. And in the case of America, which has been shielded for so long from terrorism at home, the 9/11 attacks possessed a force that more weathered cultures have forgotten. But the older cultures, having extended a hand toward America at its time of need, can reasonably feel now that the U.S., in its rage, has swatted them away. And the imbalance of the world—whereby so much power and money lie with one of its youngest nations—is compounded by that deeper imbalance whereby almost every nation knows more about America than America knows about every other nation.

So is this really about learning from our enlightened Asian friends, or is it just another example of the ressentiment against America that’s so fashionable nowadays? No, I believe Iyer is too intelligent for that. I think he’s trying to underscore the phenomenon of America’s ignorance of how “older and wiser” nations perceive us, but I think his argument is fragile. If it’s this way five years from now, I’ll be more inclined to agree.

Lots of outrage is merited over new revelations of how involved Saudi Arabia, at the highest levels, was/is with al Qaeda and the 911 attacks.

So why does Bush always point the outrage toward Iraq while bending over backwards for our Saudi “friends”? (Could it be the “o” word?) What will it take to wake America up as to where this outrage should really be channeled. After reading the new piece in Slate, I can only wonder why we aren’t all up in arms.

Links via Brainysmurf and Mark Kleiman.

An unusually personal and touching post on September 11 and its aftermath from my favorite online journalist, who lets it all hang out in the last paragraph. What would we do without him?

They’re reading the 3,000 names now. It’s almost impossible not to get sentimental, even from Singapore, where everyone is out tonight eating mooncake and celebrating the Mid-autumn Festival.