PapaMarshall

WC082 – 3/14/2023 – On to Singapore

Noon Report:

  • Location: 04° 23′ 45.2″ N, 104° 07′ 25.6″ E
  • Speed: 15 knots
  • Course: 161º
  • Weather: Partly Cloudy
A bit of sunrise from Deck 2

Events:

  • 7:15 Exercise
  • 8:45 Breakfast (Aren’t we takin’ life easy!)
  • 9:30 Lecture – Singapore: Birth of a Country
  • 11:00 Lecture – Singapore – the State of the City-State
  • 11:45 Lunch
  • 1:00 Cheryl Massage
  • 3:00 Choir Rehearsal (working toward the next talent show later in the cruise)
  • 3:45 Stop by the Living Room bar for a quick snack and a Coconut Lavender Lemonade (YUM!)
  • 4:15 Pick up our passports (the Purser has had them since Indonesia)
  • 4:30 Lecture – Wildlife To Watch For – Singapore to Suez
  • 6:30 Lecture – The Lost Treasure of Flor de la Mar
  • 7:15 Dinner (Celebrating Vietnamese cuisine)
  • 8:00 BBB 9/22 (We got the first 5 right and went downhill from there)

In between we worked on blogs, read, studied, napped, generally just filled the day with normal stuff.

So that’s what a normal sea day looks like these days.

Tomorrow noonish we dock in Singapore for 3 days of adventure.

Till then, R

Cheryl’s Factoids about Singapore:

  • A long time ago, in a land far far away, a Palembang Prince (the grandson between an Indian prince and a princess that lived in an underwater city) sailed to a distant island and saw a lion (a “singa”)- which promptly disappeared. He settled on this island and called it “Singa-pura” and that is how the lion/mer-lion came to represent Singapore.
  • This ancient island city at the very tip of the Malay peninsula was at a very strategic site for traders – you had to go past here if you were going to go up the Malacca Strait into the Indian Ocean. Sir Stamford Raffles was sent by the British East Indies (BEI) Company and purchased some land to set up a BEI trade center in 1819, which grew and grew and finally took over Singapore as one of three cities the British controlled on the Malay Peninsula. Malay stayed an independent nation led by a sultan because they were in control of valuable rubber and tin resources which the British needed. The sultan dealt with the British who very badly wanted to use these resources, and in return, received a profitable trade balance. The British needed workers so invited lots of Chinese immigrants to come work in Singapore – but the Malay people remembered the Malay wars with the Chinese and hated them. (China did not let women and families leave China therefore most of the incomers married into Indonesian families, so Singapore is mostly Chinese.) With the collapse of the BEI in 1858, Singapore was one of the cities ceded to the British-controlled Raja of India. When the Japanese invaded in 1942, they executed 50,000 Chinese Malaysians due to a prior Chinese/Japanese war – the harsh Japanese occupation accelerated independence movements all over SE Asia. In 1945 Singapore and Malay were returned to the British who tried to set up a Malaysian nation in 1963 combining all the former colonies, however there were race riots as the Malaysians still didn’t want the Chinese, so in 1965 Singapore became its own little independent island city-state alone against the might of bigger nations.
  • Lee Kwan Yew, who had studied extensively abroad, got control of the communist independence movement and changed the focus to a Confusion value of “meritocracy”. Lee based this new culture on shared civic values (respect for leaders, elders, teachers), high social/cultural values (respect for family and religion), and having everyone speaking ONE language (he chose English as it looked to become the most prevalent trading language). School is mandatory and everyone advances according to their merit (their own ability-not being related to a high ranking person who can pull strings to get you a cushy job) – this has led to one of the best educated and hardest working nations in the world. As with all this education of the working women, the birth rate has fallen – so new government programs have been set up to promote marriage and childbirth. All males are required to spend 2 years in the military and the country has a high military priority. Their large and up to date navy displays a strong military presence as protection. Singapore is now the WORLD’S most competitive economy and a global financial center in a strategic spot.

PRO TIP:

Along about Hawaii we got tired of fishing in the dryer for socks so we found a mesh bag.

And a bonus…If you are the type who doesn’t run your bra thru the dryer you can throw it in the bag as well – makes it easy to find and pull out before the bag goes in the dryer (assuming you remember to pull it out).