My daily commute is eight stops on the Singapore MRT, changing at City Hall, during which I don’t feel at all tempted to grope my fellow passengers. Just as well, since molestation is a serious crime and any offenders will be handed to the police, according to the public service message broadcasting on station platforms.
Looking around the carriage, it’s hard to imagine any of these law-abiding citizens copping a quick feel on their way into work. All of them are wearing facemasks, in accordance with the last remaining Covid-19 restriction which still requires them on public transport. Other MRT rules include a permanent ban on eating and drinking, meaning that the trains are consequently spotless, unlike the mobile litter bins that speed beneath the London streets, discarded freesheets flapping around inside like injured seagulls.
Invariably, I am the only one reading a book, although I don’t believe that is actually banned. Along with the black James Smith and Sons umbrella hooked over my arm, a plain blue shirt, dark trousers and tan brogues, I probably look like an empire-era plantation holder. It didn’t help that the book I’ve recently been reading is Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (Plot summary: slavery is evil, but white people and their God can save the day. It’s … problematic.)
Everyone else is tapping at their phones (uninterrupted 5G coverage is a basic human right in Singapore), often with music blaring out – an intrusion which would be unforgiveable in Britain but seems entirely acceptable here. People of all ages play music wherever they go, either holding their phone by their side or by strapping Bluetooth speakers to whatever accompanies them – bikes, shopping bags, dogs, baby strollers, dogs in baby strollers.
Singapore trains still have handles hanging from the ceiling, so my old-fashioned look isn’t entirely anachronistic. The handles are stirrup-shaped, made of hardened grey plastic, and ideally placed to donk my head daily, usually while distancing myself from aforementioned blaring devices. An ignominious thwack to the forehead swiftly undermines any silent censure I had been attempting to confer.
Back on the platform, the public service message is delivered in a gee-whizz American accent that commands the same gravitas as ‘Tasty home-cooked meals made easy with Toast Box’s Ready-To-Cook Asian Delight Paste! Whip up a fuss-free scrumptious meal for your loved ones with our paste packs’ but I suppose it must work. Generally speaking, we do what we are told in Singapore.
On arrival at Orchard MRT station, I walk underground through two interconnected malls called ION and Wheelock Place, past the inevitable queue at the Toast Box outlet before weaving through the Shaw Centre food court, en route to the lift lobby. I walk past an arcade game cabinet that is free to play.
In the 1990s, I spent much of my teenage years watching other kids playing Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting and similar titles. The cabinets were usually at swimming pools cafés or cinema lobbies. I only had the coins and the aptitude to last a few minutes when actually playing, but I could happily watch others for hours.
Today, I could play for as long as I like, for free. My teenage self gawps in disbelief as I keep walking.
But I can at least use the anecdote for this, the first in a series of monthly dispatches from a Brit abroad. That’s what I think to myself as the train pulls into my home station that evening: I will be a dignified man of letters, offering wry insights into the – donk.