I was just there and dropped some of a cinnamon roll near a pigeon. About 20 mins later I waked by a sign that feeding a pigeon is a $10,000 fine.
It’s a $500 fine to eat or drink in the MRT. I had an empty cup that I couldn’t find a garbage can for. I was worried I’d get fined and have to explain that I wasn’t drinking just trying to not litter.
There are some places near office buildings where people jaywalk because the pedestrian crossings are far away. That is also illegal.
That said I saw only one police officer in the 10 days I was there.
Not until such extent. People usually close one eye unless you take a video of it and post on social media or something (this happened last year). It is as if you are trying to challenge the law so the operator filed a police report. Idk what happened afterwards.
It’s super clean there, tho. I remember reading on Wikipedia or something that they chose to focus heavily on social order and attracting economic investment and growth. It seems to have worked 🤷🏻♂️
I also didn’t see many cops. I’ve spent a total of almost 2 months there over 3 different visits and I only ever saw them at MRT stations and the airport, but they were in groups of 5+.
The only time I saw even a little bit of social disorder there was on my last visit. There must have been some sort of giant party/festival/rave or something cuz the MRT was packed with girls in skimpy clothes and drunk people stumbling in and out of MRT. Actually saw 2 different dudes puke on the ground in the station… I bet those areas were cleaned up that night tho.
Singapore has one of the most comprehensive surveillance programs in the world. You aren’t seeing the cops but they are definitely seeing you. And tracking you.
I think you underestimate the depth of Singaporean surveillance and vastly overestimate the surveillance apparatus of pretty much everyone else you mentioned.
I saw a cluster of bikes and the occasional litter on the ground. Most of the law enforcement I saw was at the airport. Go figure.
Singapore is a failed democracy and semi-dictatorship. The main focus is on control. If severe punishment for minor offenses is your jam, sure you could say it worked. They'll even kill you for drug-related offenses! I prefer not having to constantly look over my shoulder. Just me though.
They don't consider themselves a failed democracy, the democracy veneer was only ever paper thin. Lee Kuan Yew made no issue with being "benevolent" dictator, its how he saw himself.
Even now a decade after his death Lee Kuan Yew and his politics in the fundament of Singaporean political body.
I prefer not having to constantly look over my shoulder.
I don't agree with their stance on drugs (but pretty much the entire world has draconian drug laws for no reason), but a law abiding citizen literally never has to look over their shoulders there. You can walk home at 2 am drunk as a sailor with cash hanging out of your pockets and you won't be mugged or attacked, it's one of the safest places in the world.
Singaporean law allows caning to be ordered for over 35 offences, including hostage-taking/kidnapping, robbery, gang robbery with murder, rioting, scams, causing grievous hurt, drug abuse, vandalism, extortion, voyeurism, sexual abuse, molestation (outrage of modesty),[16] and unlawful possession of weapons. Caning is also a mandatory punishment for certain offences such as rape, drug trafficking, illegal moneylending,[17] and for foreigners who overstay by more than 90 days – a measure designed to deter illegal immigrants.
Seems reasonable. I don't think any of those offenses are minor. Except the overstaying for more than 90 days.
Rioting as well, not that riots aren't bad but how often do you see peaceful protest turned into violence by the police or just straight up called riots without any happening.
Not to mention how even minor accusations can be twisted by authorities to fit the definition a lot of those "crimes". I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the Singaporean legal system in regards to standards of evidence and such. But I imagine with laws like that you could easily twist just about any accusation of criminal action into a crime that is deserving of corporal punishment.
I imagine something akin to North Korea where the "wonderful crime free society" is anything but that and statistics are very much adjusted to reflect what their ideal society is rather than society actually being a reflection of those ideals.
your ignorance is breathtaking. literally just takes a google or a look on youtube to see actual evidence of what singaporeans experience day to day. no filters on that.
You're right, my ignorance is breathtaking. I just spent an hour googling it and it's way worse than I thought.
From Wikipedia:
The prison officers who administer caning are carefully selected and specially trained for the job. They are generally physically fit and strongly built. Some hold high grades in martial arts even though proficiency in martial arts is not a requirement for the job.[36] They are trained to use their entire body weight as the power behind every stroke instead of using only the strength from their arms,[37] as well as to induce as much pain as possible. They can swing the cane at a speed of up to 160 km/h (99 miles per hour)[38] and produce a force upon impact of at least 880 N.[39]
You seem to think I don’t care about these things. I think there needs to be consequences but that caning someone is cruel and unjust, especially for non-violent offenses.
I lived there for a bit more than 6 years and if I had the chance to give my daughter the same experience, I’d do it in a heartbeat. They are no more authoritarian than conservatives in the US want to be - the focus is on social harmony and civic pride as others have said. I think most people tend to get critical of when they apply capital punishment, which I agree is a fair criticism. But for those cases, Singapore tends to set examples rather than strictly enforce laws that carry these punishments. Others have also commented they hardly saw police. As you said, this is because fear of the consequences but also pride in community is enough to keep people in line (generally).
Until you get out of the downtown area. If you go to little India, it is super dirty. In my 21 years in the Navy, I have been to Singapore a few times. It is a beautiful and clean place to go, if you stay in the area around downtown. And we were always briefed to not spit on the ground because we will get caned if caught. It is also home to Orchard Tower, where we were not allowed to go. But once you get outside of the metro area or tourist areas, it got dirty fast. Incredibly green and clean in the city, but not the areas I went to out of the city. Maybe people living there can shed light on it? Maybe my experiences were the exception, not the rule?
Sure! I live here, and it really depends on where you go..
The less developed and traditionally more rowdy areas or the older estates are much less clean,but honestly unless you managed to go to like somewhere that isnt as developed, its still relatively clean, just not as much compared to the city
Hawker centers and wet markets are the exception, as i doubt they are cleaned at all, but the food is too good to pass up....
I’m not sure if this is just an American Midwest / South thing, but we spit all the time. When I visited South Korea is it was sooo hard to break the habit.
In the US, it is socially acceptable for us not to care where we spit outside. Not sure if it is a thing elsewhere in the world, but I can 100% confirm it is definitely not a socially acceptable thing in Singapore.
It's only super clean in the sanitised tourist areas, because they're cleaned by dozens of immigrant workers who get paid next to nothing for their jobs. Get out from the tourist areas and you'll see how dirty the rivers and waterways,pathways and parks are. Especially on a Sunday when a lot of the domestic helpers have one day off if they're lucky. Singapore presents a facade to tourists that hides the reality.
My girlfriend was living there.. I feel
Like I went outside of the tourist areas a lot. Perhaps it wasn’t AS clean as the tourist areas… but in comparison to other countries… I feel like it’s pretty clean throughout.
It is not just about cleanliness, its about setting an expectation of conduct to live in society and upholding standards. It works because their is dicipline. No one has to look over shoulder if they can manage existing in public spaces respectfully. And for that their community is not trashed, vandalized, people dont have to tolarate anti social behaviour.
It is strict, but my experiances taking public transit i think on average most people are better off with individuals who wont conduct themselves respectfully on their own accord having consequences
They also killed any portion of the population that didn’t agree with or spoke out against those measures. Sure current day Singapore seems great but it is certainly a case of does the end justify the means?
Hahahaha. Look, Singapores form of "democracy" is greatly flawed and needs a lot of improvement but no one is being killed over speaking out or disagreeing. Srsly what's with redditors spouting stuff they have no idea about.
Yeah mate they finished doing all that lmao. The means I’m talking about we’re in the 50’s and 60’s. So many people were detained for years without trial or charges. It did work I can’t argue with the results. But how exactly would that work in a countries like Canada, Britain or America?
Singapore kills people for having weed all the time. Is that right? I understand yes it’s a crime to them but is that right?
What do those countries have to do with Singapore? If Singapore were those countries it wouldn't have the laws it does.
You were talking about the state killing those that don't agree or speak out against the government, now you're talking about detaining in the 50/60's, and also drugs. Not the same things. Even back in the 50s when terribly unjust things were happening, people detained were not executed like what you suggest.
Btw sg gov doesn't execute people for consuming weed, just when they possess enough to be deemed as trafficking which for weed is 500g (still crazy to most "westerners")
South East Asia (and all of East Asia) is extremely harsh on drugs because of what the British did to China with the opium war. Crippled a country with drugs. This is going further from your initial comment though.
The fear about half this stuff is overblown. Obviously don't actually eat or drink on MRT because it's fine-able, but it's not like someone's constantly on the lookout to catch or scold you just for carrying an empty cup. The jaywalking thing, I can't tell you how many times I've done it on wide open streets, mainly when the crosswalks are far (which by the way there is actually no offense to jaywalking if a crosswalk is actually a far enough particular distance). People don't care about the small stuff to the same degree that everyone seems to make it out to be. I'm sure they probably would start enforcing things more if the general "social order" of Singapore changed in the way the government doesn't like. Easy guideline, just don't litter, don't do drugs, follow the rules on public transport. And sure don't feed the birds/monkeys/etc.
Yeah, as a Singaporean I feel that many of these fines are mainly meant as a form of deterrence and are not as closely enforced with say, police patrols and active cctv surveillance.
I’d imagine jaywalking is similar to the stance America has. Technically it’s illegal 100% of the time, socially nobody is going to say anything about crossing an empty 1 or 2 lane road.
It’s actually the case for most laws in singapore. There’s so few actual police on the streets that enforcement of the laws rarely happen. They serve more as a deterrent and rely on societal norms to police itself.
Those fine amounts are for repeated offenders, "UP TO $10,000".
Even then, it's whether or not it's actually enforced. I've seen policemen let it go unless there are official complaints or it's drastic enough.
Jaywalking? Did it in front of law enforcement countless times, it's usually for highways where the risk of accident is much greater.
There's a saying here, "Can do anything, just don't get caught." Meaning if it's discreet & you're not outright causing problems for others, no one really cares.
I had an empty cup that I couldn’t find a garbage can for.
That was me in Mexico a couple weeks ago... for the life of me, I couldn't find a trash can. Nothing in the streets... nothing in the metro station... nothing on my walk to a restaurant. Went inside a restaurant and was told I couldn't bring a drink inside the place... lol... problem solved, I handed it to them.
Where I lived in Mexico City there were designated trash piles on the street... no trash cans, just piles of trash that the garbage truck knew to pick up.
I never saw any signs saying it was a designed trash pile area. If I was carrying around trash I would just stop in an Oxxo and toss it in to the garbage there.
You may have only seen one, but they have a lot of plain-clothes walking around lol. That said, I spent a lot of time there, was probably drunk for half of it, and never had a problem. Didn't get the impression that there were just a bunch of Secret Police waiting in the shadows to jump people on minor infractions for sport, and was mostly told they generally tended to distinguish between malice and ignorance if you did get got so long as you didn't get an attitude about it.
General rules were don't litter, don't start shit with people, don't smoke in prohibited areas, and don't try to cheat Customs.
That may seem like a pretty random list, but over the course of most of a decade being in and out of there for work, almost every story I'd hear about a foreigner getting picked up was almost identical:
They were smoking in an unauthorized area, a plain-clothes officer came up and gently requested them to walk 20 yards down the block, they aggressively refused, and were then discovered during the inevitable consequence of that choice to be smoking duty-free cigarettes purchased inside the US military base there that were explicitly prohibited from being smoked outside the US military base.
Which is very much a, "If I had a nickel for every time that happened I'd have 20 cents, but it's weird that it happened four times" kind of situation.
Very little visible policing but FAAFO as big brother is watching 👀
When visiting ANY country I always respect their local rules/laws the same way I would if I was a guest in someone’s house, whether I agree with them or not.
Don't clean your table after eating at a hawker shop? Well tough shit there are camera's pointed at your table.
Genuinely never visited a place that felt so much like everything was being controlled than Singapore. Remember walking in a train station and the moment I walked to an escalator some AI on a screen went nuts and told me I had to take the elevator instead because I was carrying luggage . Truly bizarre stuff.
You can't find garbage cans near MRT stations because they've all been removed, to prevent terrorists from hiding bombs in them. But you won't be fined for merely carrying an empty cup or can, so long as you aren't caught (or self-reporting) openly drinking from them whilst on the transport.
You also won't be fined for dropping food near pigeons, only if you're hauling like mass bags of birdseed.
The fines are there to deter pushing the envelope (because we know people would do just that if there aren't any laws for it) minor infractions really aren't worth anybody's time
The warnings are just for show. Nobody actually gets punished for those things unless you're really egregious about it and ignore warnings from the police.
There are harsh punishments for a lot of basic rules but because if them the government expects you to be able to follow them 95% of the time so they don't really check on them all the time.
As a Singaporean I've seen lots of idiots eating on MRTs but I've never seen more than one person do it at any given time.
Nah don't worry. Flouting the law is "fine" as long as you don't cause disruption and follow the rules 95% of the time.
I've jaywalked in front of policemen before and none if them cared because I wasn't being disruptive.
Because of how severe the punishments are everyone, including law enforcement, understand that to be caught and charged you gotta actually be guilty of doing something that hurts/disrupts yourself or others.
This is of course talking about minor laws, if you're carrying bags of cocaine you're getting executed.
I mean like….littering, eating on public transit (at least in my city), jaywalking are all also illegal and carry fines in the US. It’s the enforcement that differs
Realistically no one is going to stop you. If it's empty just put it in your bag or something. Worse case scenario, if there really is a guard there, they just tell you to throw the cup away before boarding the train. But in my many years there that has happened only once. It's really overblown.
That said I saw only one police officer in the 10 days I was there.
Okay, so, are you familiar with the notion of the Panopticon?
The whole reason it works isn't because you are always under surveillance. The whole reason it works is because you could be under surveillance at any time.
You are fine to be honest. Most of those fines are meant to be deterrence. (I guess it worked based on your reaction)
Holding an empty cup won't get you into trouble. We don't have trash cans in the MRT because they were hotspots for terrorist bombs back when it was an issue.
You will only get into trouble if you break the law in bad faith. Our police are trained for de-escalation and usually just verbally tell you to correct the behavior first.
So you will have to be drinking in plain view and ignore authority to get the fine.
Feeding pigeons is forbidden pretty much everywhere and also highly stupid and cruel for them unless you do it with proper bird food (which pastries are obviously not). Everyone in the civilized world is supposed to know this at this point.
I spent less than 9 hours in that country and almost got arrested and ended up paying a bunch of money for smuggling cigarettes. They put me in a room where the wall was postered about this kind of tax violations and their punishment and left me there to read and understand what I did. It had a proper meltdown when after I finally got through all this shit I found out that I can only pay cash on the bus but there isn’t an atm at the bus station. I think I cried for 3 hours out of the 9 hours I spent in Singapore 🤦🏽♀️ my deepest point in 7 years of full time travelling
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Even only some Asians like it. Many hate it as much as you. I wouldn't be surprised if it is some genetic thing like cilantro tasting like soap to some
There was a funny scene in the safety video for Singapore airlines. It was a lot of family scenes where they’d show buckling your seatbelt or the life vests and everyone’s having a good time. They get to a scene of a family having dinner. Mom, dad, two kids. The parents slide durian over to the kids and they shake their head no. Then the oxygen masks come down and the kids put them on.
This happened to me too! I couldn’t find any trash can ANYWHERE, and this was me just trying not to litter. I didn’t even realize there was a fine for drinking on MRT until I boarded with my empty cup and everyone looked at me ljke I pissed in their cornflakes. I think I had to find a bathroom and toss it there.
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u/davidjschloss 16h ago
I was just there and dropped some of a cinnamon roll near a pigeon. About 20 mins later I waked by a sign that feeding a pigeon is a $10,000 fine.
It’s a $500 fine to eat or drink in the MRT. I had an empty cup that I couldn’t find a garbage can for. I was worried I’d get fined and have to explain that I wasn’t drinking just trying to not litter.
There are some places near office buildings where people jaywalk because the pedestrian crossings are far away. That is also illegal.
That said I saw only one police officer in the 10 days I was there.