Does Singapore Have a Culture? (as explained by an unqualified teen boy)

I’m writing this from the discomfort of my airbnb tiny 2 bed loft or rather 1 bed and one slinky little loin cloth of a mattress loft. I’ve been here a good 15 days and though I wanna talk about my experience so far or what I missed from home or my thoughts about my work, I instead wanna talk about culture or rather why we think there’s a lack thereof in Singapore.

Here in Manila, I am steeped eyelash-deep in culture (40 lashes specifically). Working at a radio station that heavily emphasises local music, I’ve been to a few gigs here and witnessed the local music. I have to say it’s ear-gasmically good. Off the top of my head, Bras Pas Pas Pas Pas (mother pass away), Metro Fantastic and Squid 9 are just some of the amazing bands I’ve heard. They blow any band I’ve seen in Singapore out of the water (like a gay sea otter). Their music is better written, better performed, their musicians are more talented and they genuinely feel the music far more than your average cover band in Singapore that plays at a atas cafe in Tiong Bahru. I originally thought it was because Singaporean musicians are part-timers whereas these bands are full-time musicians who live and breathe this stuff like some sort of music-based life form inhaling notes and-okay I’ve gone too far with this analogy. As it turns out, and I learnt this when my boss totally burned (which in Tagalog is Sunugan, thanks Migs) me on air and corrected me on this, the bands I’ve talked about are mostly part-timers too. So Singapore really has no excuse when it comes to our lacklustre music that leaves a sour note in the mouth when bands play a heartless cover of Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud.

A pretty crap photo of Metro Fantastic plying at Saguijo

A better photo of the guitarist of Squid 9 who never appears in any form on their albums

It got me thinking about how we Singaporeans always poke fun at how we have no culture as a way to cover up our panicky insecurity that we actually have no culture. A lesser person might succumb to the thought and search high and low for musicians or artists or heritage artefacts that point to our culture or history but I the absolutely-qualified-to-talk-about-this 19-year-old boy who thinks too much will do no such thing. I do think Singapore has a culture, I just think we’re looking in all the wrong places and understanding it all wrong.

Let’s start with the problem. I think we all agree that our government’s attempt to preserve heritage sights and teach our multi-racial histories in schools are desperate ways to form culture out of things most of us don’t identify with. I’ve never been filled with the warmth of my identity when I see a bunch of primary school girls dress in their Kebayas and dance the traditional Malay dance which none of their parents know themselves. So how genuinely can we say we identify with that culture besides “my race invented that”. I don’t think a Chinese person has ever gone to Chinatown and thought “ahh my people, my culture!” A further argument could be made about how these things are cultures of individual races and not a Singaporean culture and I’m inclined to agree. A Sari is more connected to the Indian Peninsula than it is to Singapore.

Okay so where else do we look? If not in the history, then in the arts. We fund arts programmes and have local bands and yes that is a representation of culture but it is a miserable one at that. Our local artists struggle to make money and would all love to go overseas. More than that none of them have a Singaporean flavour. Foreigners don’t look at Gentle Bones and immediately go “that’s uniquely Singaporean.” It’s influenced by Western styles (just like Beaunite is influenced by bad parenting, I hope they make their comeback as they promised). Our artists and painters, name one that’s become a household name. Ironically I can only think of that Einstein dude from Kids Central and he was Caucasian. What about filmmakers? I think on that front we do have something to show. As much as we hate to say it, Jack Neo is a front runner in representing our culture in film. Kelvin Sng did a great job with Taxi Taxi and Anthony Chen with Ilo Ilo too. There’s a valid culture that’s unique there and though I might be biased because I’m surrounded by filmmakers and media students, these movies are pretty well known as well as the names behind them.

The last place we think of is society. What does our daily social habits say about our culture. We point to Singlish as culturally significant and we always make fun of choping tables with tissue packets. We talk about things like our compulsion to queue or our need for bubble tea but I don’t think any of us are truly proud that any of this is our culture and we would all only say half-heartedly that this is the culture we identify with as a country.

So where does that leave us? An uncultured country? We think of reasons like: we’re too young a country, we have too many different races or we’re too small. But I argue in spite of all that, we do have a culture it’s just not one that we like nor one that we’re looking in the right places for. First let’s stop assuming that culture has to be rich in history. Why is a 100-year-old shophouse somewhere in Little India that nobody pays attention to more culturally significant than the newest Arts Science Museum or Vivocity? The relevant definition of culture here is as follows: "the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” So if it’s customary for teens to go “hey wanna go Zouk?” more than “hey wanna check out the war memorial site at Fort Canning?” who’s to say Zouk isn’t culture? I feel it's more about relevancy and what we identify with and less to do with tradition or representation. Then again I'm just a kid so you could easily argue against.

Secondly let’s also drop the assumption that culture is organic. I don’t think we should put centuries old Kampong houses that grew organically over time from small villages up on a pedestal but say that the “Anything” and “Whatever” soda drink fad contributed nothing to our culture. Culture can be artificially produced from the most heartless of money-grabbing corporations and if it becomes socially significant than it counts in my opinion. Coca-Cola manufactured the Santa look we know and love today, making his suit the same shade of red as their company colour and yet he’s a beloved part of Christmas culture that even we Singaporeans celebrate. Kpop too is a culture and it’s one of the most tightly produced and manufactured genres of music out there. So I think it’s completely valid to say NEWater or Polar Puffs & Cakes is our culture. Furthermore, we borrow culture from all over the place. Indian tea drinking customs came from the British who gave them tea in the first place. Even here in the Philippines, the cultural significance of Catholicism is a remnant of Spanish rule, hell even the name Phillipines honours king Phillip II of Spain. So I think even though practically 100% of our culture is borrowed from some other nation or race, it's still valid and still ours. Even though salmon sashimi came only because Norway imported salmon into Japan yet nobody thinks of salmon sashimi as being partly Norwegian. We too own the cultures we borrow because what else can we do but borrow?

Lastly, and I think this is potentially where we Gen Zs could identify with most, Singapore has a pretty rocking internet culture. Our r/Singapore subreddit has 159,833 subscribers (as of writing this) whilst the subreddit of our neighbourino to the north (Ned Flanders tourettes acting up sorry) only has 35k subscribers there. As much as we hate to say it, I think our mindless Youtubers like NOC are way more culturally relevant than Ang Paos or durians. In the same vein, our influencers, at least the ones that have something to say rather than those that just have sponsored posts on their IG, are culture creators too. If I walk up to a Malay kid on the street and ask to talk about Hirzi, chances are they could tell me more about him than the Baju Kurung he’s asked to wear twice a year during Hari Raya, and honestly so could I. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The stigma is that we don’t like to think our culture is not the classy high brow things like Haw Par Villa or the Esplanade but it’s often more to do with stupid stuff like Beaunite or Han Hui Hui. Singapore is one of the most connected cities in the world with some of the best data coverage and the highest average internet speed in the world by a huge margin. So it comes as no surprise that so much of our social customs and culture should take the form of internet memes. The word meme means "an element of a culture or system of behaviour that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation."

Nobody said our culture was good or that we had to like it. We also have a culture of complaining and being Kiasu and I think we don’t acknowledge that as our culture not because we think there’s something more that’s a better signifier of it, but because we don’t like to think our culture is just sucky. Our culture kinda is, but not because we lack it, but because we don’t acknowledge the bad sides and “meh" parts of it. It’s also a lot less in your face simply cause we don’t have the space to display it and a lot of it is digital anyway.

Having said all this and as I’ve said many times before, I’m in no way qualified to talk about this besides being born and raised in Singapore. So I guess...I'm fully qualified...? I feel what I have to say is valid because it’s a subjective viewpoint on a subjective matter so it’s as significant as what a screaming baby has to mumble about it too. You could argue that countries like the US have history and culture as we traditionally think of it and yet at the same time have far more internet culture than Singapore has. Therefore what point am I making if I say our culture is internet based or artificial if there are countries that have far more in both? To that I say that my point here isn’t that we have a lot of culture per se, just more than what the general consensus thinks because we don’t acknowledge all aspects of our culture.

I am also not calling for a change of anything, really nothing has to be done besides maybe a change in mindset, the government can still keep funding the empty art galleries and the struggling plays because they’re still important for sure. What I wanna say is that though now I’m here in Manila, a city with as big a heart and personality as I’ve ever witnessed, I don’t think Singapore inferior. I don’t think we’re bland or boring, I think our culture is just sucky. We complain, we’re unhappy, we work too hard and play too little, we’re too clean and limited and safe and cowardly and PC but I love Singapore for that because if that’s our culture than so be it. I’d rather force myself to love it than live in denial and say that that’s not our culture and desperately point to Thaipusam and men walking on fiery coals and say “THIS is our culture!”. It's and it’s not (yes I abbreviated it is, fight me with words cause I’m a coward). And for those of you that can’t take it, move out because then you’re reaffirming our Kiasu culture anyway.