Singapore

Who thinks of Singapore thinks of a combination of Manhattan and Shanghai, a country that was strictly ruled to become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and a city so clean you would not believe it. After World War II the city was in ruins, dominated by looting and rioting it became part of Malaysia until 1965. After its independence, Singapore quickly grew from a fishers town to one of the economic giants of the Asian market. Charlie Munger, attributing this to the government policies, commented on this by saying: “I think Singapore has the single most successful governmental system that exists in the world”.

So how does it feel to live in Singapore? Are all the crazy rumors true, and what are the people like?

I had the opportunity to find it out, because I wanted to follow a yoga program in Singapore. Maybe let's first answer the most obvious question you will have now: Why follow a yoga course in Singapore and not India (and why travel so far to Singapore for this)? When visiting Chennai in India last year our group had the opportunity to visit Sri A.G. Mohan and Indra Mohan. As direct students of the legendary yogi Sri Krishnamacharya, they started the Svastha Yoga & Ayurveda school, where also their daughter (Nitya Mohan) and son (Dr. Ganesh Mohan) teach. They made such an impression on me and gave me a feeling of deep knowledge and trust that I wanted to continue studying with them. Nitya Mohan gives a course in Singapore called: "Yoga for Svastha: Personal Wellbeing & Teacher Training" which covers not only modern yoga topics but also Ayurveda, Vedic chanting, and other traditional practices, all being taught in a traditional way but with translation to modern medicine. As I mentioned in the last article, I knew I wanted to do this and decided to sign up and find out about the options. 

The course is part-time which means that every Wednesday there is a workshop and every other weekend there is a full day of classes and possibly an online session. Knowing this a plan started to form in my head to attend the course and when there would not be weekend classes travel to neighboring countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. 

I signed up for an introductory call with Nitya, which gave me more confidence that this is the program that I wanted to follow and decided to go ahead with my plans. This would mean spending a total of 2,5 months in Singapore while in the meantime traveling to the countries mentioned above for 1 or 2 weeks at a time. And of course, another factor that comes into play is that Singapore is significantly more expensive than all of these other countries you can visit so staying at the nicest hotels would not be an options (or it would be a very short visit :-P). 

Arriving in Singapore on the 15th of February in the evening, and starting yoga classes on the 16th all day, I was ready for my new adventure. While expecting, maybe quite naively, big skyscrapers and perfectly clean streets I entered the area of Geylang where I would stay for the first period. The above picture is of the first street I saw coming off the MRT (the quite extensive metro system in Singapore). In all honesty, I felt a little disappointed and when I arrived in the apartment I found a place that was half the size of my old apartment in Utrecht (which wasn't big) and found out we were living there with 7 people. I was a little bit in shock, how was I going to last here for a month? Thoughts that crossed my mind: "This is not an epic story to have", "Did I expect too much", "Can I do something to change this" and even "Should I just go home". 

I met a lot of young entrepreneurs who are trying to make their mark on life. Singaporeans are hard workers like I have never seen in my life. By Dutch standards, I have been known to work a lot but I think in Singapore I would have been just average. A lot of people are working on multiple projects next to their jobs to see if they can branch out and achieve more in life. There is high pressure on the people working here, but I have never met somebody complaining about it or seeming upset about it. It shows that mindset is everything, you can complain about having to work 40 hours instead of 32 or are positive and energized about working 60 hours to make something happen.

There is also a lot of room for spirituality here. There are many Buddhist centers and Hindu temples and it seems part of everyday life for a lot of people. My personal favorite was the Humanistic Youth Centre (HYC) where there was a combination of a sustainability exhibit, youth programs, and open spaces to study for students.

Living with the lovely family that opened up their home to me and my fellow traveler Philip Lu, was in the end a fantastic experience that made my stay here even more special. It adapted my way of living in quite a few ways. I spend most of my days outdoors, enjoying the beautiful (and sometimes very warm) weather, local coffee shops, and nice parks. Through the cheap MRT system, I could go anywhere in Singapore and visit the areas I wanted to see such as the business area, financial area, the reservoirs, and the bays, and in doing so got a full view of Singapore. I spoke to a lot of people from different walks of life and appreciated the genuine interest, warm welcomes, and interesting conversations we had everywhere. 

There are a lot of sustainability and wildlife preservation initiatives here in Singapore. Due to being dependent on other countries for basic needs such as water and food and being threatened by rising sea levels, the country spends a lot of funds and energy in these projects. The result is botanic and spice gardens, beautiful nature areas, and reusable water sources. 

There are not a lot of people with cars here, they make it expensive on purpose to prevent this. The result is a lot of use of the public transport system (which is funded by the government) and a cleaner city and country. And don't worry, you won't get beaten if you cross a red light, but in general, people keep up nicely with the rules without much checking from local law enforcement. I can leave my laptop open in a tea house while going to a bathroom in a different building and am assured it will still be there when I get back. Yes, there are strict rules, but I cannot imagine so many people living in such a small area (The Netherlands, considered a densely populated country, is 60 times bigger than Singapore with only 3 times as many people). There is a lot of respect for each other's religions, with for example most food places having a separate halal dish disposal system. And there are a lot of healthy food options in all districts. All things combined make Singapore a nice place to live and an interesting country to work I believe. 

The yoga course so far has been more than I expected and I enjoy every moment of it. The deep founding knowledge of Nitya and her family makes the choice worth every bit. The part-time structure also makes it possible to work on every topic by myself, making it easier to integrate into my daily life than if it had been full-time. Changing our habits is one of the most difficult things to do and I will come back to this in a later article. Tomorrow I will leave for Thailand for 2 weeks and after will come back to Singapore. At every step of this journey, I try to take the lessons along with me and keep developing myself, but mostly have fun as much as possible while doing it!

With love and warmth,
Jelmer

Then sitting on my bed, some breathing exercises, and a short meditation later, I decided to think again about what I wanted from this travel. Did I not want to challenge myself out of my comfort zone? Did I not want to experience genuine life in areas like this rather than live the tourist life? The life you search for rarely comes in the shape or form you expect (Amazon rainforest for example), so learn to recognize and embrace the opportunities, and live life to the fullest!

For a nice view on Singapore from Charlie Munger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVcKkPflmT8

If you are interested in the yoga school I enrolled in: https://www.svastha.net

I was lucky enough to meet Rafiqa during my yoga classes. Like all Singaporeans, she was kind and welcoming and invited me to experience many of the nice spots of Singapore. However, she went above and beyond in her kindness and invited me to a Hindu wedding during my stay here. To experience a different culture in such an incredible event made my first stay in Singapore even more special. 

I met Philip Lu, an entrepreneur of similar age, who was in Singapore to kick off his start-up in wildlife preservation. Having studied here and knowing the city, he showed me a around Singapore, especially the beautiful nature. We formed our own little reflection group and almost every evening we would have a dinner, discuss the day, and see how our plans and ideas were turning out. Having a friend around to share such an experience together and helping each other through tough days but also celebrating the good days together made living here so much more fun. I wish you a lot of succes on your further endeavours which no doubt will be succesfull Philip!