Strict

Like a lot Americans my age, my first introduction to Singapore came when the American teenager, Michael P. Fay, was caned for theft and vandalism there in 1994. There was a lot of drama about it, and from the American/Western point of view, Singapore seemed far too strict. Some of the penalties imposed there seemed (and seem) to clash with our idea of freedom and civil liberties.
I have actually recently been reading more about this story, and trying to incorporate my own expat experiences with the events of this teen. I remember a couple of summers ago when a daughter of one of the AWA (American Women's Association of Aberdeen) came to babysit. She was about 18 years old and really "polished"- I was impressed with her. Her Dad worked for Chevron and she had lived everywhere- she told me stories of being airlifted out of Indonesia when there was a military coup!!! I remember commenting on how fortunate I thought she was for having the experiences she had and going to International School and how prepared she must feel for University. She countered me by saying that actually she knew so many of her schoolmates who got to college and dropped out because of alcohol, bad grades and the like. She said that actually International School was like a bubble and it didn't prepare you at all for the real world- you were super protected and never really knew what life was "really" like in the country in which you were living. I wonder now if that held true for Michael Fay and others. He belonged to a wealthy expat community and probably had very little idea about the society and its punishments in Singapore. Maybe it just seemed like "little America" to him... I've known plenty of people whom I've met abroad who try to create America wherever they are. Anyway, it's food for thought and I just hope I have the tools and talents to educate D and M to respect the culture and country they're in and for goodness sake do not break the law!
On that note, Saturday night was spent, once again, trying to sleep amidst the noise and chaos of pre-teens and teens enjoying the summer night outside our house, screaming and drinking and smoking and running up and down the street and shouting til all hours. Our neighborhood alliance group is really strong and we are encouraged to make noise complaints as often as necessary, but the police have enough to deal with taking care of the abusive drunks on Union Street (although they did come a couple of hours after phoning them to break up the group). Suddenly fines for drunken disorderliness, loitering, underage drinking and loud aggressive language don’t seem so wrong after all. I am still not entirely decided on how I view punishments like caning, but Sunday morning in my grogginess I was thinking maybe strict is the way to be…