Singapore and Chinese Culture

This is a sequel to the earlier superpower exchange:

Hello X,

Just a short warm-up reply first. In any case, I doubt you need another huge torrent of words? =)

....Anyway, to summarize our last discussion, I think we are in general agreement about China and India, but differ a little about Europe, Japan and America. But in this mail, I will just write a little about something more modest: Singapore.

I can fully understand what you mean about the lack of historical and cultural monuments in Singapore. I definitely feel over-awed by the stuff I see in Europe, Japan and China. Nothing in Singapore can vaguely compare with the British Museum, the Parthenon, the Gothic cathedrals, the Japanese and Chinese Temples and ruins etc.

Yet while there is a lack of PHYSICAL cultural or historical monuments, the culture of Singapore is still significant and very much worth seeing. What do I mean? Even I did not realize this thing about Singapore until the last few years. But since then I have visited Shanghai and pondered about my trip to Hong Kong and different Chinatowns all over the world. I have also tried to fit Singapore, the world's largest Chinese community (predominantly Chinese to be exact) outside China, into the larger scheme of Chinese history.

To simplify things immensely, China seems to possess 2 'souls'. One is the northern, imperialistic, political and agricultural culture of northern China. This is the culture that is associated with Confucianism, (which disdains merchants) and has dominated China for most of the last 3000 years. This is also the soul associated with the pre-Deng Xiaoping era of Chinese communism (1949-1975).

But there is another side of Chinese culture--one associated especially with the coastal provinces of southern China. This soul is commercial, urban and sea-based. It is a merchant culture that is dynamic, outgoing and entrepreneurial. By contrast the Northern culture is conservative and disdains commerce.

There are only three periods in Chinese history where the southern soul is dominant: one is the southern Song dynasty (around 1000-1200) mentioned in the earlier e-mail, where an incredibly dynamic economy with almost modern features held sway. This is the one of the very rare periods where the national capital is based next to the sea (Hangzhou).

The next period was the Nationalist Chinese period (1911-1949). In this period, the chief metropolis of China was Shanghai, which alone generated half the GNP of the country. It is no surprise that Shanghai was one of the first targets of the Japanese during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war. By the way, its name literally means 'On-the-Sea' (Shang-Hai) and during its golden age, it is the very embodiment of capitalist prosperity, dynamism, evil and corruption, the very essence of the 'southern' Chinese soul.

The third period is quite simply today, where communist China tries to run a capitalist economy. Again the southern coast is the Gold Coast of China.

So what does all this have to do with Singapore? Simply this: during the heyday of Shanghai and after its fall to the communists in 1949, the southern Chinese culture continued in 3 places: Hong Kong (where a huge number of refugees from Mainland China arrived--including some of my own relatives), Taiwan, and of course, Singapore (almost all the Chinese in Singapore comes from only 2 southern provinces: Fujian and Guangdong). The overseas Chinese in these 3 places built up the richest and most advanced Chinese civilization ever known, while mainland China languish in poverty and oppression. Hong Kong and Singapore for instance have comparable GDP per capita to Japan and America--no mean feat for former third world nations.

Today China opens its doors, and contrary to what many people think, the biggest source of capital that is being poured into China is not from the West or Japan, but from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The overseas Chinese have returned, and is building up China in their own image. This is the period of history when the 'southern' culture is having a tremendous renaissance. The future of China is no longer the ancient land based Northern culture, but the southern, entrepreneurial, sea-going and technological culture that has its origins in the Southern Song dynasty 800 years ago.

And the influence of the overseas Chinese extents beyond economics. Sun Yat-Sen, the Chinese revolutionary father is a southern Chinese (by contrast almost every Chinese emperor is of northern stock). And in the 21st century, it is Hong Kong and Singapore that have the most accountable legal and political systems and Taiwan with the most vibrant democracy. In terms of vibrancy in political, philosophical and religious debates and participation, these three places are also leaders (though Singapore is probably much less active).

In short, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong are the pride of Chinese everywhere because they show how the Chinese race too can rise from their degeneration of the last 200 years, where swarms of invaders from the West and Japan trample them underfoot, and build a civilization comparable to the West and to Japan. It makes the Chinese able to believe in themselves again. Indeed when Deng Xiaoping announces his capitalistic reforms in the 1970s, his implicit model was the three countries. If China for instance is as rich as Hong Kong and Singapore, its economy will be 4 times the size of USA, and 10 times that of Japan. That of course is a far-off goal, but the inspiration is there. This is one up China has over India, for there are no comparable predominantly Indian city or nation that have achieved anything comparable to HK, Singapore or Taiwan.

In other words, what I am saying is that, do not look at Singapore as an isolated unit. See the Chinese community in Singapore--once called Nanyang or Southern-Sea by the Chinese--as one important node of the rich renaissance of southern Chinese culture that is now overtaking Chinese civilization--which as you say, would probably become a superpower. Cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the nation of Taiwan, help you to envisage the future China--the free and prosperous China that was the dream of Dr Sun Yat-Sen.

These places are indeed lacking in ancient monuments, because as I have already explained, these are centers of a southern culture that held sway so rarely in Chinese history. They do not represent China's past, but her future. Therefore, if you visit Singapore, the best thing is to couple it with a trip to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai as well.

So there.

Very best,
Jared

PS. I can recognize some of your composers, but of course my preference is for the Baroque ones, as you recall correctly. Vivaldi and Bach esp.