ZINEGAPORE is a tongue-in-cheek guide to one of the world’s cleanest, safest, greenest and most expensive cities. Created specially to commemorate Singapore’s 50th birthday in 2015. Hopefully it will offer visitors to our tiny island some insights into our local cultures, practices and lingos.
Editor’s Foreword:
Back in the times when our policemen wore shorts (so we Singaporeans like to say), many of us lived in rural kampongs and overcrowded squatter settlements; noodles cost 20¢ a bowl at the roadside hawker who moved from place to place carrying his baskets of food on a pole across his shoulders; and television, with black-and-white broadcasts that ended at 10 nightly, was still a novelty.
Fast forward 50 years, and here we are. Still teeny (though about 23% bigger thanks to land reclamation) but a frequent shortlistee in lists such as the worlds major commercial hubs, worlds biggest financial centres, worlds busiest ports, and other economic, healthcare and education rankings too numerous to count.
This zine however is not about these big facts and figures. Its about the little things, the everyday things, the Singapore as we locals see it: from the inside, full of quirks, a tarnish here and there—but our home nevertheless. Welcome!