I have been asked several times, why I chose to remain in Singapore. I was away for several years have travelled extensively. Many of my friends have decided to leave to settle elsewhere.
When asked, my answer has always been that I believe Singapore is the future. Everywhere else that people seem to migrate to, whether Canada, the Uk or the US, have had their heydays and in all probability (Much more so now) have crested the peak and have started a long slow slide downwards.
I also believe that Singapore however, is on the up and up and on the way to a new age of prominence in this digital age.
I will explain.
Back in the school days, we all went through ‘Social Studies’ where we learned about Singapore and learnt new words that we would never again use but have never forgotten.
One such word for me was, Entrepôt, as in Entrepôt trade.
We learned then that the British set up in Singapore because it had all sorts of advantages, it was strategically located geographically, had a safe harbour, Singapore was set up as an Entrepôt, a free port, so to speak and our success began there.
When Singapore gained independence in 1965, one MAJOR coup was to slowly adopt English as the primary medium of communication in the education system. I believe MM Lee had a part to pay and I believe that history will point to that as one of The most important factors that lead to the success of Singapore. One of the many many reasons I salute him. But I get ahead of myself.
Fast forward to the year 2011.
Things have not changed much.
We still have our natural advantages.
- We are Strategically located culturally, at the confluence of the East West Divide.
- Being small allows amazing connectivity across our small island, allowing us to get connected at an amazing rate. Our Island wide Fiber network is in process and should be running soon.
- Our taxes and security makes it a place where many western MNCs have decided to plant their regional presence, sometimes their headquarters.
- We welcome immigrants, and have a constant in/out of people from many different places allowing us to meet and interact.
- We have good relations with many of the Western nations and have high level agreements in place making travel and collaborations easy.
Due to the amazing foresight of said leader 3 generations in, Singapore is single most bilingual nation in the world for English and Mandarin.
The next big market to that everyone is eyeing, is…. China.
Not only are we Bi-lingual, Singaporeans are also Bi-cultural. We are 3 generations into the Mcdonalds, MTV culture, and yet we are only 2 generations out of China for the most part. This means that many of us have grandparents and relatives who were actually from China. This means that we naturally understand the cultural nuances of Chinese culture AND have the capacity, and network to pick up what we need to.
We are also firmly entrenched in the World Wide Web. We understand how it works, and are predominently early adopters of social media.
More importantly, because we are a young country, without much cultural baggage, we have not attempted to enculturalize our social media experience. In some other Asian countries, largely due to the language, social media engagement has morphed into a sub-set of the established cultural norms developing into something different. (eg Japan, Korea)
In Singapore, we speak English, and we do not have the sheer critical mass of numbers to develop our own distinct online sub-culture. Instead, we borrow and steal, and learn to adapt within the existing systems.
True global online citizens.
The future is going to be quite interesting.