Singapore News

Lugging a tree trunk from Singapore to Taiwan on a plane is no fun, it may cause the baggage to be overweight and it is hard to fit into the overhead locker. This is no ordinary ex-tree, this is Singapore's most popular newspaper - the Straits Times.

I joke not when I say that my decision to bring back the Saturday edition was stupid, thoughtless and reckless but once started I could not turn back. Determined not to lose face or to tell my wife that I had not thought my actions through, I lugged that Trunk all the way back home despite the fact that it caused havoc at every turn. It is hard to describe this newspaper without seeming mad or having lost the plot, but living in Taiwan I am used to newspapers that reach a maximum of 10 pages and even that is when they use bigger print in the advertisements.

When I got back home and my wife had finished trying to lift the ex-tree to beat me over the head with, I got down to seeing why this load was so heavy! 202 pages in seven sections! That is why it weighs a ton. An attempt to bend this newspaper in half for convenience of carriage or handling is impossible: way too thick and the sections must be separated to do this if at all. Rather a complete forest than an individual tree. Regardless of the difficulty in getting this forest back home and despite my wife's ire for doing so the reason for it being here with me now is so that I could study it in detail and in depth.

The price? Well in Singapore terms it is 60 cents or around 20 pence in the UK. Not a lot for such weight one could say. Skipping through the pages I was surprised at the thousands of adverts that adorned every section. Not fill-in advertisements for furniture, shops or places to eat but full double spread showings of fancy apartment to buy, a page devoted to one shop selling mobile phones and another double spread for a department store advertising a cheap run on Bra's. In fact upon further investigation nearly two thirds of my 60 cents went on adverts and only 20 cents on news. So the cost is quite high considering that there is not that much in it after all.

Singapore is noted for its good news. Whilst in the rest of the world the front page of the local newspaper will undoubtedly carry some horrendous murder or accident the Straits Times tends to go for the good. My editions headline is: "We'll Have enough Water", on the next page, "NY Gardener rakes in 223m Jackpot". It is not until the third or fourth branch that the bad news starts to work its way out like sap and after many an advertisement has been seen and brushed aside. The news here is bad news but about the world outside of Singapore rather than the bad news inside.

Does anything bad happen in Singapore? It is a good question but whether or not bad things occur they do not often get into the paper. A good example of alternative reporting is when a train of the MRT system (the underground) had a failure a couple of years ago. As a result of the failure a number of people were hurt and some deaths resulted. In the western world this would probably carry the headlines of "train accident causes horrendous carnage" or "Twisted bodies on the MRT". In the Straits Times this was reported like this, "Train Driver commended for fast reaction" and another stated, "Driver Saves the Day".

Another example of alternative journalism is to write the article about something bad after the punishment has been metered out. Back home a news item may read "Boss caught burning maid with cigarette". He has done something bad and the news item will dwell on his evilness and the terrible plight of the poor maid with the burns. In Singapore this would have been reported in a different way: "Boss sentenced to twenty lashes of the cane". No mention of what he did in the headlines but instead news of a crime that has already been reported, investigated, taken to the courts and a verdict found, rather like a commendation to the fantastic criminal justice system than news about a bad boss and a poor burnt maid. NB: I am not making any comments as to the merits of each type of reporting here just pointing out what my current tree and those of the past seem to give to me reading wise.

In short order any really bad news will generally be given a small space squashed in towards the center or back of the Newspaper and between two imposing adverts of an eye-catching manner. "Ex-monk waved Hacksaw at Mum", which is not seemingly so terrible after-all and paints a humorous picture, is hard to spot when a bright blue advert with a large Honda Car zooms towards you and a full page spread of wonderful dishes makes your stomach rumble.

Even if half of the pages are filled with adverts, seven sections do seem allot. In actual fact it does not take all day to read the full paper. Some sections can be discarded by the average weekend-reader, like the Employment Section and the other two of classifieds, leaving four other branches to be perused. The first of the four remaining sections is the International News, easily skim read as the headlines are digested from around the world and the actual articles ignored. The second wad titled "Home" is also quickly bypassed as news about residents being shifted to newer and better houses tends not to be of interest to those not being displaced. The third brings better reading and a more in depth study follows. This is the section headed "Asia", giving news from around Asia and at the back is found some Business News. These last few pages tend to be studied the most and for the longest as they portray through company collapse and gain an idea as to how the world is turning. For me anyway!

The final section titled "Life" gives another fifteen minutes of perusal as I work my way through adverts for holidays to Australia and an unrivalled Luxury Condo in the West Coast. Interesting and eye-catching but hardly affordable! Naturally the weather in Singapore, the television programs for the weekend and the fact that "nothing cleans better than a Braun Oral-B toothbrush" are of no interest and quickly bypassed.

After picking and choosing what is to be read and what is to be passed by, the full paper can be read, assimilated, digested and discarded in an hour. Yes, my struggle to get that paper home resulted in one hour of reading, nowhere equal to the two hours that I can spend on my local paper of 10 pages, the one without all of the adverts and "good news". And to beat it all there was no crossword puzzle to idle away another hour with a hot cup of coffee to hand.

Usually buying a newspaper and failing all of the reading matter, the crossword gives worth to the money spent on buying it. Even a small one is okay: even a tiny little one with only ten clues would have been better than what I found in my forest. I found nothing at all. I went through that paper time and again searching for a crossword, flicking over the pages like a madman and then when reaching the end without result turning back to the beginning for a recheck. Nope, not a crossword to be found. I am sill shocked about that, still considering rooting around in the waste bin where it lies to check again.

It is also worthy to note that should a thought come to mind of choosing an alternative paper to the Straits Times, well forget it. Singapore has only one major newspaper and that is this tree. If you don't buy the Straits Times then you don't buy anything.

But don't be disheartened good news is always around the corner! Through the hard work of dragging that tree through Singapore Airport and sneaking it onto the plane against the Stewardesses wishes, and whilst shoving it into the overhead locker using brute force and determination and managing to hit the taxi driver with it at the other end (not on purpose of course), I did get something worthwhile from it.

The Taxman is now making e-filing even easier; there is a flea market in Bedok on Saturday (news item not an advert) and from the International News Section it is revealed that a little town in England called Tiddleywink is at last getting a road sign of their own. It also seems that Simon and Garfunkle may get back together for a song or two and that "Globalization has some negative impact on woman" according to a woman.

Oh, and from the adverts a couple caught the eye: "avoid marrying a jerk, keep your marriage hot" and a marriage convention to be held in Singapore where they will be issuing out sizzling recipes for love (I may book my place now). And the "Clean air at home with Sharps Plasmacluster Air Purifier" may cause me to rush out and buy one.

Yeah, maybe all is not lost.

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Published on 6/12/03