[nireyal]

There’s much to love about Singapore if you understand, or are willing to learn, Asian culture. It’s more collectivist than individualistic and while that certainly comes with trade offs, it has many benefits. I’ve lived here for almost 3 years and it feels like living in the future. No where is perfect but the quality of life here is amazing. The people I know who don’t like it are almost always white folks who don’t interact with locals and don’t want to understand Asian norms.

[pydry]

3 years was about how long it took me to really loathe the place.

There was an excessive deference towards authority (derived from confucianism, i think) that rubbed me up the wrong way and a definite streak of selfishness/uncaringness that permeated the culture. Also that shallow vapid wealth-worshipping thing that "crazy rich asians" captured so accurately.

I remember the way foreign workers were treated was just brutal, too. I was there for the bus driver strikes and the little india riot and i was appalled by how thuggish the authorities acted in both cases while everyone else just shrugged.

Plenty of casual racism lurking under the surface too, although white people are probably more of a beneficiary of that than a victim. This is perhaps partly why so many love the place.

[ncmncm]

Little America.

[s1artibartfast]

I think it really depends on what you like in a location. Like Gibson stated:

>Singapore's destiny will be to become nothing more than a smug, neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity, amid a sea of unthinkable ... weirdness.

There is a lot to like in a "neo-Swiss enclave of order and prosperity".

[mbg721]

"Switzerland - it's like Singapore, but with mountains, guns, and lots and lots of cheese!"

[standardUser]

Is the large South Asia underclass part of that "collectivist" nature? It's an awesome country (I visited for several weeks in the 90's) but I always cringe when people start talking positively about collectivism in highly stratified societies.

[nireyal]

Also, it’s a great place to do business, education is top notch, virtually no crime, very ethnically diverse, amazing food, and a few hours flight to anywhere from Bali to Bombay.

[robhunter]

Can you give some examples of Asian norms?

[notahacker]

Family-oriented social conservatism, instinctive obedience to authority and disinterest in political debate mostly. A lot of it actually bottom up rather than top down.

Obviously this clashes quite hard with cyberpunk using the aesthetic of Asia for characters who epitomise American ideas of rebellion, competition and countercultural coolness...

[falcolas]

I'm not sure if this is one the parent was thinking of - but there's generally a huge culture of "don't inconvenience others." This can have a lot of knock on effects, like leaving early (really, leaving before others) from work is inconveniencing your peers and your boss.

Also, "filial duty" is pretty strong across a number of Asian cultures. i.e. you should be thinking of your family (parents, grandparents) before yourself.

[AlexandrB]

> This can have a lot of knock on effects, like leaving early (really, leaving before others) from work is inconveniencing your peers and your boss.

Does this go the other way too? Is the boss staying late (with the expectation that others do so as well) considered rude because it inconveniences his workers?

Because if not, this has nothing to do with being polite and everything to do with power and deference to power.

[falcolas]

To the best of my understanding, bosses do generally stick around as well. I believe their leaving signals that it's OK to depart.

That doesn't dismiss the concerns about deference to power though.

[12many]

Think conservative values on a social scale minus the personal property part(don't know if the personal property is a general consensus or just authoritarian laws.) Drugs are forbidden, fathers rule the household, children are disciplined when they don't meet satisfaction, you're expected to work hard. You know all the things the conservatives get a bad rap for in the US but everyone thinks that way there and uses it in collectivism

[mcguire]

No chewing gum in public among other things.

[2-718-281-828]

that is NOT an asian norm ...

Google "chinese spitting" [1] and then extrapolate form there.

[1] f.x.: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-22184499

[mcguire]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_sales_ban_in_Singa...