ETHNIC IDENTITIES AND CULTURAL CAPITAL: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF CHINESE OPERA IN SINGAPORE

This article weaves the trajectory of Chinese opera in Singapore with the country's political development. Starting in 1965, the year of Singapore's independence, it attempts to debunk the myth that national culture is resistant to global culture by describing the state's systematic erosion of local culture. From the late 1970s onward, with economic progress, state fears of “Westernisation” led to a centring of Chinese culture in national culture; this was followed by a mini-revival of Chinese opera that coincided with the emergence of Confucian ethics as national discourse and as a culturalist explanation for the “Asian miracle” of the 1980s. This article shows that globalisation's effect on local cultures is not a straightforward process. Instead, it is a complex relationship where the flourishing of a local culture depends on the changing recognition and valuation of cultural identities, ethnicity, and language as cultural capital. This in turn implicates the structural features of national policies and globalisation processes that determine the recognition and valuation of this cultural capital. The use of “cultural capital” as a conceptual tool to isolate the cultural and social components of Chinese opera demonstrates that a local culture flourishes or withers according to the effects of globalisation and national policies on such cultural and social factors.     

Psychosocial Well-Being of the Elderly and Their Perception of Matured Estate in Singapore

This article explores various relationships between the elderly's psychosocial well-being and components of aging-friendly community (continuity, compensation, connection, challenge, and contribution), in order to understand their perception of a matured estate and to discuss implications in housing neighborhood urban design. Interviews with elderly residents living in Bukit Merah (Redhill), one of the matured housing estates in Singapore with a high percentage of elderly residents, were conducted to understand how eldercare infrastructure and social spaces developed within the fabric of a high-rise, high-density public housing estate can support or inhibit their psychosocial well-being, as indicated by the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). Our results postulate that different groups of elderly form friendships and participate in activities in both formal social service centers and informal public spaces. The friendships formed in these places and the convenience of amenities around their houses may affect their perception of their current residences. While the elderly residents are generally satisfied with physical infrastructure, a comprehensive, integrated urban design is further needed to facilitate physical activities, social interactions, and active aging in the elderly in order to enhance their psychosocial well-being.     

State carnivals and the subvention of multiculturalism in Singapore

Increasing attention is being paid to the specificities of Asian multiculturalism in relation to ethnic pluralism, citizenship and developmental state formation. This article examines these relationships by analysing three carnival events in colonial and postcolonial Singapore that were organized by the state to promote its official multiculturalism. Through its cultural logics of horizontal racial segmentation, cascading symbolic authority from the state to co-opted communal representatives and multi-modal ritual iteration, the 1937 King George VI coronation celebrations proffered an imperial multiculturalism based on mediating plural groups and procedural norms. Adopting the same cultural logics in the 1970s, the newly-independent nation-state revived and transformed Chingay, a creole Chinese religious procession, into an annual parade celebrating the nation as comprising racially plural groups bound together by the modern ethos of progress the developmental state exemplified. In the 2000s, Chingay has been turned into an international spectacle celebrating Singapore as a cosmopolitan global city of hybridizing multiculturalism. But indicative of new racial-class segmentation, the old nation-building pluralism is promoted by Racial Harmony Day carnivals held in suburban public housing neighborhoods. This bifurcated multiculturalism reflects the developmental state's attempts to deal with new citizenship trends as they grind against the old ethnic pluralism. While faced with the same issues globalization brings, this postcolonial multiculturalism is distinctively different from liberal multiculturalism, not least because the subvention of multiculturalism is achieved through the state appropriation of vernacular cultural practices through its carnivals.     

Maid-in-Singapore: representing and consuming foreign domestic workers in Singapore cinema

The Maid, a Singapore-made horror film featuring a foreign domestic worker as its protagonist, was released in 2005 to very favourable reviews in the local press. The critical audience generally used the film to praise the development of the local film industry while ignoring the social commentary of the foreign domestic worker experience in Singapore. This paper aims to address this lack of commentary on the issues and circumstances surrounding foreign domestic service in The Maid. Doing so reveals a multilayered representation of order in Singapore based firmly on ethnicity and class, where the images of foreign maids are dramatised, reconstructed and consumed in various discursive forms by various social agents.     

新加坡土地综合利用效率探讨

新加坡经济发达、人口密集、土地狭小。、但有限的土地并没有成为新加坡经济社会发展的制约。相反,通过借鉴世界城市规划发展的成功经验和自身的创新土地管理,新加坡在土地空间利用上展现了其面对住房、交通、环境、水资源利用等城市发展共同挑战问题时独特的解决方法。长期稳定的综合规划、短期局部的灵活应变和土地效益的综合考量成为新加坡土地政策的三大特征。新加坡在土地管理中对土地使用效率和社会公平兼顾的政策理念与效果,对中国快速城市化进程中的土地管理有非常有益的借鉴。     

对新马华文文学史撰写及其文学大系编纂之研究

方修关于新马华文文学史的著述、《马华新文学大系》的导言以及新社编选的《新马华文文学大系》的导论等都是以现实主义文学史观观照新马华文文学的发展,偏颇之处在所难免,因而有必要对20世纪80年代之前的新马华文文学研究作一回顾与反思。     

Singapore: social development, housing and the Central Provident Fund

The high rates of economic growth and significant improvements in standards of living recorded in East-Asian nations such as Singapore in recent decades has attracted increasing attention from social policy scholars in the industrial countries. Many believe that the experiences of these countries offer useful lessons for the Western welfare states. This article examines social security and housing policies in Singapore and shows how both were an integral part of a wider commitment to promote economic development. The article suggests that Singapore provides a good example of a developmentalist approach to social welfare that successfully harmonises economic and social objectives.     

Where tradition and ‘modern’ knowledge meet: exploring two Islamic schools in Singapore and Britain

Muslims live in a ‘modern’ world where subjects such as the English language, mathematics, sciences, and information and communication technology (ICT) are highly valued and enthusiastically transmitted in schools. How some Islamic schools attempt to equip their students with ‘modern knowledge’ while remaining faithful to their religious traditions is the focus of this exploratory study. Using two Islamic schools in Singapore and Britain as illustrative case studies, this paper examines their history, aims, curriculum and pedagogy in their aspiration to acquire ‘modern’ knowledge within their Islamic world views. It further explores some common challenges faced by students and teachers in both schools in their quest for a balanced curriculum. By highlighting the Islamic schools in two Muslim minority countries, this paper aims to contribute towards the international literature on how religious schools assert their cultural heritage and negotiate their learning in the modern age.     

新加坡政府执行力分析

新加坡人民行动党政府的执行力受到世人的广泛赞誉。首先，责任政府是新加坡政府执行力的条件，即政府要负责任地制定政策，确定执行目标，以岗位责任制保证执行，并及时对政策等进行监控调整以达成更好的执行效果；其次，强势政府是新加坡政府执行力的途径，政府重视政府权威，重用具有刚性的强势精英，挥舞“大棒子”将负责任的政策贯彻执行到底；最后，廉能政府是新加坡政府执行力的保证，塑造出高效廉洁的具有执行力的组织，通过文官制度培养执行力人才，同时，借助政府外的力量有效地完成政府要执行的任务。     

Building assets from birth: Singapore’s policies

ABSTRACT

Singapore has created innovative, inclusive and comprehensive asset-building policies designed to promote social stability and development. Asset building from early childhood is an important part of this overall strategy. In 1993, Singapore’s government initiated a universal child asset-building policy, Edusave, which provides resources for improving educational outcomes. Since then, three additional asset-building policies for children have been implemented: the Baby Bonus and Child Development Accounts (CDAs), Post-Secondary Education Accounts (PSEAs) and Medisave, a health savings account. We discuss each of these asset-building accounts for children in Singapore. We point out distinctive features and assess key elements in overall policy design.