#seas2k15

Kyoto

Singapore 

            When one compares Kyoto to Singapore – which has only had its independent idenity for about 50 years – one finds that Singapore doesn’t have that much tangible history.  It lacks unified traditions and large amounts of historically significant places and monuments.  Kyoto, on the other hand, has held great historic significance in Japan for many years, as it served as the Imperial capital of the state with a concrete shared idenity.  

           History is embedded into the very fiber of Kyoto – kept alive with the kimonos worn, with the music played, and structures persevered.  In Singapore, though it obviously had history before colonization, none of that history was kept alive in the present.  The people and the city were deconstructed and rebuilt to promote the ideal of the western colonist.  Kyoto, on the other hand, had to trade some of their history in order to become a “beacon of progress” so that the city would be more than a museum of ancient places (182). Therefore, as Stravors states “modernity…has on balance, actually enhanced Kyoto’s cultural legacy” (184).  So while both cities are rich with cultural experiences, Singapore is not as rich in history as Kyoto.  Singapore’s newness and sometimes brutal pragmatism makes the city too untouched for comfort. Contrastingly, Kyoto is so rich in historic prevalence one is likely to be in awe of the presence of the tradition within.  

           Personally, I’m so thankful – while on this trip – to have seen both a city striving to create its own history and a city striving to preserve their history.  To have seen both and experience both, I was able to appreciate the struggles each city faces as it searches and maintains their idenity.

 - Caroline Bartlett

The Golden and Silver Pavilion are similar in the fact that both were built as retirement houses but acted as political bases giving the elites who built them increased power.  However, aesthetically the two complexes vary greatly.  The Golden Pavilion is three stores tall – with each story using a different architectural style.  The most distinguishing characteristic of the Golden Pavilion is the golden plating that covers the top two stories.  

Where the Golden Pavilion is flashy and self-explanatory, the sliver Pavilion is quite the opposite.  Even though it was named after the metal and it had planned to incorporate silver in the design, the Silver Pavilion is not silver.  Instead, it is a humble brown color surrounded by an amazing garden. 

 In terms of what these buildings tell us about the Ashikaga Shogunate, Stavros states that elites would often retire from Japan’s government in order to obtain greater power from behind the scenes; however, since the buildings were constructed around the edges of the city, there inceptions help to legitimize the emperor and the elites in the government.  Since the Ashikaga shogunate built both the Golden and Sliver Pavilion, one can conclude that the group was extremely powerful in during that time in Japanese society. In fact as Stavros states “Ashikaga Yoshimitsu – famously received an embassy from the Ming court addressing him as ‘King of Japan’” (98).  A title that he received after he had retired from his potion; a title created completely outside of the “frame work of Japanese politics” (98).

Singapore is an extremely successful, global city. A city that has accomplished much, especially when one considers it brief history.  Less than a mere fifty years have passed since Singapore’s independence, and yet the city-state has become one of the four economic tigers of the east, a country devoted to the environment, and a leader in world education rankings.  Truly, if one were just to study Singapore’s surface they would fine a clean, unblemished picture of Singaporean society. Personally, I had similar perspective of the city-state before arriving.  I envisioned this highly urbanized city that was obsessed with being number one.  Now, to a degree, I was correct, as seen in “Chapter Six” of Neil Himpheys book Notes from an Even Smaller Island where he defines an important aspect of Singaporean cultural, kiasu or the fear to fail, which acts as a driving force for the country to be the best.  The picture I have taken below illustrates a little of the urbanization I was anticipating as well. 

However, Singapore is not a utopia.  It has its own flaws.  

Staples of Singaporean society, elements that have acted the city’s greatest achievements come with many flaws as well.  Take for insistence, LKY’s housing brain child, which Warren Fernandez in The Straits Times counted as one of the many successes of the nation, the system – though admirable its attempt in intermingling the population – is an imperfect system.  According to Chua Beng Huat, author of Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State, “citizens’ dependency on state provision renders them clients of the state, reducing their political power at the ballot box” (1).  Additionally, in requiring exact percentages on demographics of the housing buildings, the policy does not mean that these groups will interact with each other, nor does it consider the contentment of each family before placing minorities in geographic disadvantageous areas – where childcare and appropriate food may be hard to find.

Additionally, the ‘Asian values’ of “discipline, order, respect for education and authority over western values of individualism, liberalism and democracy” (Bowring) that LKY implemented as a part of Singaporean cultural, contributed to the view that Singaporean females main purpose was to reproduce or “to have more babies” (Fernandez).  According to Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, in Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore, LKY “[charged]…the nation’s mothers…accusing them of imperiling the country’s future by willfully distorting patterns of biological reproduction” (344). From Heng and Devan, one can see a genetically purist perspective promoted by LKY, even as it degrades women and ethnic groups. Though I have not personally witness gender discrimination, LKY’s vision, as showcased by the video, promotes a chauvinistic society.

So even though Singapore has made all of these exceptional accomplishment as a city-state, the nation still suffers in terms of human rights.  And what is the purpose of Singapore’s growth and status if not for the benefit of its people?

 Works Cited

Bowring, Philip. "Lee Kuan Yew Obituary." Http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/22/lee-kuan-yew. N.p., n.d. Web.

Devan, Janadas. "Chapter 19: State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore."Nationalism & Sexualtion. By Geraldine Heng. N.p.: n.p., 1992. 343-62. Print.

Fernandez, Warren. "Singapore's Founding Father Mr Lee Kuan Yew Dies Aged 91 at 3.18am on Monday." Singapore News & Top Stories. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2015.

Huat, Chua Beng. "Housing Studies." Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State 15.1 (1998): 45-60. Web.

So for those of you who don’t know, my name is Caroline, or Line as my family calls me, and this summer I’m participating in the South East Asia Summer program (SEAS) with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. SEAS is an 8 week overseas, two class adventure for first-year students taking place in three different countries. The majority of time is spent in the city-state of Singapore at the National University of Singapore (NUS).  In addition, the program also includes an excursion to Malaysia & a two week stay in Japan.  The theme for the program this year is comparative urbanization, but it varies from year to year. (For more information for anybody wishing to apply in the future click here. I highly recommend it! :P) 

Personally, I decided to apply because everything fell beautifully into place. It all started when I contemplated taking a Japanese language course when coming into UNC; however, I was hesitant to jump right in, so instead I took a Japanese Popular Culture class.  I absolutely loved it!  Therefore during spring semester, I decided to take a first year seminar just for fun and that followed that interest – Japanese Tea Culture, which was taught by Dr. Morgan Pitelka.  

During his class one day, the study abroad office visited to talk about upcoming opportunities, one of them being SEAS. The information I was given depicted SEAS wonderfully, and talked of the scholarship awarded to all recipients of the program and the additional financial assistance given to those students who needed it. During SEAS, a professor from UNC takes 25 first year students to NUS and a country under their expertise. This year the professor leading the program was the same professor from my First Year Seminar – Dr. Morgan Pitelka, who has done extensive research in Japan.

At this point, all of the pieces were coming together, and I decided why not apply. So I got my previous Japanese Pop Culture professor, Aratake sensei, to write me a letter of recommendation, and then learned the she had pervious been a part of the SEAS deliberation board.  (Like really this whole thing was God’s design.)  Aratake sensei was able to give me pointers about the interview portion of the application process AND write me an amazing letter of recommendation. After I completed my interview, I was sitting in Ram’s Head Dining Hall at UNC around 6 o’clock eating dinner with Gabby (sure that I wasn’t going to get a notification that day since it was after 5) when all of a sudden, I received a text message from my suitemate Haley asking me if I had gotten SEAS.  I was a little frustrated with the circumstances at this point, snow had pushed back the interviews and thus the decisions.  Regardless, I stabbed the email app on my phone just to check. And then… it was there. I didn’t even have to click on the email.  The first line under the subject line said “Congratulations!”  That was the moment that I started dancing in Ram’s.