News from Singapore

When I was a sophomore in college in 2005, I had a roommate who was an exchange student. His name was Li Xin and he was from Zhangjiakou, China. Before coming to the United States, he had spent the first few years of his collegiate career in Singapore. Singapore is an island-nation south of Malaysia in southeast Asia.

My roommate got a scholarship to study at a university in Singapore, but the scholarship had a big string attached to it. To receive the scholarship, he had to agree to work in Singapore for six years after graduating from college. I had never heard of such a thing in the United States. I am interested to know if other countries have similar programs to attract highly skilled workers.

After one semester in the U.S., Li Xin returned to Singapore where he finished his studies and then obtained a job as an engineer for a company that makes semiconductors. The company he works for is based in Idaho but has plants in 10 countries, including Singapore. He recently started working in a position in which he coordinates purchasing orders between the plants all over the world. A month ago, the company sent him to its headquarters in Boise to fulfill this task. Last weekend, he visited me in Iowa, and we caught up on what has happened in the past half-decade.

Learning about life in Singapore is fascinating. Singapore was part of the British Empire until its independence in 1959. The official language of the government is English, although it is only the second most common native language after Chinese. Many people on the island speak Malay, and a few also speak Tamil. My roommate told me that he commonly hears Singaporeans mix these languages together in their speech. This annoyed him when he moved to Singapore, but he has since gotten used to it and can understand the locals just fine.

Li Xin also told me about Singapore?s harsh criminal justice system. Americans became familiar with it in 1994 when an American named Michael Fay was sentenced to caning for acts of vandalism and theft allegedly committed in the country. U.S. President Bill Clinton got involved in the case and asked for Fay to be spared the caning. Fay was not spared, although the number of lashes he received was reduced from six to four by order of Singapore?s president, Ong Teng Cheong.

Singapore has the death penalty for drug trafficking, which has also caused diplomatic rows in the past when foreigners are involved. Li Xin also told me that chewing gum is banned from the country. He said the government implemented the ban to clean up the city, which had been littered with chewing gum.