by Eric Feigenbaum There are few acts that express a belief in globalism like phasing out agriculture. From the city-state’s independence in1965 until 1990, Singapore reduced its agricultural land from 13,160 (roughly 22% of the island’s then-size) to 1,500 hectares (roughly 1% of Singapore’s area) of which only 600 were used by the year 2000.…

by Eric Feigenbaum In a sense, you could say Sir Stamford Raffles not only came up with the idea for Singapore, but also for Hong Kong. In the early 19th Century, Raffles – the imperial strategist tasked with safeguarding British passage to and from China – realized the best way to fulfill his responsibilities was…

by Eric Feigenbaum You can’t be the leader of a small island nation in Southeast Asia without a sharp focus on China. While Singapore as we know it was founded by the British and the modern Republic of Singapore by and large adopted British institutions – it no longer relies on its colonial parent for…

by Eric Feigenbaum How do you square the following the statements? I will be very unhappy if I went around Singapore and in spite of our prosperity, I saw a few hundred people living on the streets, begging, playing a violin, or pretending to play a violin to collect money. That means something has gone…

by Eric Feigenbaum When I lived in Singapore during the mid-aughts, it seemed like the only thing you needed to do Hot Yoga was to turn off the air conditioning or go outside. In recent years, I have made hot yoga a part of my daily routine and am used to doing a variation of…

by Eric Feigenbaum In a city-state that fines spitting in public, requires stores to check identification and log purchasers of chewing gum, heavily taxes alcohol and tobacco and bans durian from public transportation, one could easily think there’s little tolerance for vice. In many ways, there’s not. Illegal gambling rings have been busted and faces…

by Eric Feigenbaum On Christmas Eve 1965 – roughly five-and-a-half months after the nascent Singapore’s independence – “The Mexicans” arrived. Their job: to help build and train a Singaporean military. At the time, the British remained nominally committed to protecting Singapore as part of a planned military phase-out, but Singapore needed its own defensive capabilities.…

by Eric Feigenbaum “This hospital makes mine look filthy,” the nurse manager from Sacramento said to me as we walked the halls of Tan Tock Seng Hospital. This wasn’t a surprising first reaction to a Singaporean hospital. What Nancy said later surprised me more. “I’m not sure about whether these nurses can handle working in…

by Eric Feigenbaum The assertion that religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organizing large-scale cooperation may vex many people for whom it represents first and foremost a spiritual path. However, just as the gap between religion and science is smaller than we commonly think, so the gap between religion and spirituality…

by Eric Feigenbaum Singapore’s domestic debate is a matter for Singaporeans. We allow American journalists in Singapore in order to report Singapore to their fellow countrymen. We allow their papers to sell in Singapore so that we can know what foreigners are reading about us. But we cannot allow them to assume a role in…

by Eric Feigenbaum From a corner room in Singapore’s Peninsula hotel, I spent many nights staring out the windows, watch sparks fly silently from the nearby construction sites. Up on the 18th or 14th or 20th floors, Singapore looked still and calm at midnight or 1am. Unlike many big metropolitans, Singapore streets – even in…

by Eric Feigenbaum “We have to develop Singapore’s only available natural resource, its people,” Lee Kuan Yew often said in one variation or another. Lee, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, held the role for 31 years before his “emeritus jobs” of Senior Minister and later Minister Mentor – staying active in Singaporean government until his death…

by Eric Feigenbaum In 2016, my then-wife and I took our one and three-year-old children from Los Angeles to Bali, Indonesia. It took 21 hours of flight time with one stop in Tokyo to refuel and another in Singapore to change planes – making for a roughly 26-hour journey with two kids in diapers. It…

by Eric Feigenbaum Among the many things America is wrestling with right now is what constitutes a level playing field? What are the elements of a society where everyone has opportunity? There are certainly multiple competing answers to these questions. Like America, Singapore is multicultural and, in their view, multi-racial – although I would call…

by Eric Feigenbaum “Peaches are $8.99 a pound!” my friend texted me yesterday. “This is the valuable package,” a very nice man named TJ who works at Trader Joe’s but disavows any personal connection said to me as he packed my grocery bag, “It has the eggs!”  $5.49 a dozen for jumbo organic free-range eggs…

by Eric Feigenbaum At about 6:30 am, we pulled up to the Labor Ready office in the Central District. My friend – who for the sake of this column will be called Rick – and I were responding to a trespassing call: a woman who was asked to leave the day-labor agency office was refusing.…

by Eric Feigenbaum When I tell someone I lived in Singapore, the most common response is some variation of, “Singapore – isn’t that where it’s illegal to chew gum?” I know a Greek couple who refuses to visit Singapore because they feel the rules are too strict and inhumane.  I don’t think they know what…

by Eric Feigenbaum The smell of Thai Boat Noodles always reaches to the parking lot. As you walk further into the Weekend Food Market at the Wat Thai of Los Angeles, whiffs of fish sauce, shrimp paste, garlic, frying rice noodles and more start to chime in. But always the Boat Noodles. “This smells like…

by Eric Feigenbaum In 1965, Singapore’s Founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew corrected an Australian news reporter: “I am not in fact Chinese. I am Malaysian. I am by race Chinese. I am no more Chinese than you are an Englishman.” He refined the example on other occasions, eventually saying he was “no more Chinese…

by Eric Feigenbaum When I first traveled to Thailand at age 23, friends warned me that should I ever encounter the police – for any reason, whether I was right or wrong – to quickly offer them 100 baht. One friend I made during my backpacking period got in trouble for smoking a joint on…