Culture | The GP Rebel

Government Funding for the Arts in Singapore: Is It Enough?

As we might learn early in the game, Cid Meyer’s “Civilization”, a society requires practical sustainability before it can devote human resource towards specifically artistic endeavours. As Singapore functions as a sort of city-in-simulation, we see this progression play out in real-time. From a struggling resource-poor rock in the ocean, it took a lot of results-producing work to get the nation to first function and then sustain itself. In this narrative, artistic development was not high on the list of priorities that got government support. Today, Singapore is different. People from all over make Singapore a must stop-over destination to enjoy the vibrant nightlife, entertainment and recreation opportunities it now offers. This transformation occurred on a policy timeline, which means government support for the arts was planned for as an eventuality. But to say that the arts are flourishing in Singapore today would be premature. Singapore’s founding history as an independent nation has much to do with how it manages its relationship with the arts. Especially in the early years, the arts were aspirational as long as basic needs were still a struggle to acquire. Setting the tone, then Prime Minister outright declared poetry a luxury. It was not because he was ignorant or anti-art, but more because he was pragmatically pro-survival. He didn’t say Singapore couldn’t have it, but there were some prerequisites to be met first: food, water, shelter, security – Maslow’s basic stuff. Lee’s tone resonated with the population and the social attitude that survival came first lingered for a generation or two, or three. Honestly, to some level it still does. Parents discouraged their children’s dreams of pursuing and even practicing arts beyond after-school tuition for the purpose of grade certification. With little government support for the arts – and some implied discouragement, even – Singapore’s gained the reputation as a ‘cultural desert’. But let’s take a step back to other civilizations that had a thriving arts scene without so-called government support. Art, in some vocations, was literally baked into people’s livelihoods. It wasn’t that they sold ‘art’ but practical things like food and household materials. The art was in the packaging, in the storage containers, made of materials that survived across time. Because they were hand-made, their creators could play with the designs and make them unique. But because people didn’t buy the containers but the contents, these containers ended up in the trash heap in non-biodegradable form for modern day archaeologists to find and display for the admiration of modern day people. “Such art”, we say.” Such an artistically flourishing civilization” as we stare at amphorae once discarded as garbage long ago. Some of the work Singaporeans engaged in during the 1960s may have been similarly ‘artistic’, such as our celebrated ‘dragon kilns’ that once fired pottery, but prosperity came through work in mass-production and clerical duties. Not much art to find in either. The people neither produced art nor had much time to appreciate art, apart from isolated dedicated professional artists. Local culture and art forms were at least kept alive in schools as co-curricular activities and otherwise kept within family or community spaces. As Singapore continued to prosper, it crossed a threshold that made the arts a luxury it could afford. However, not for its own sake but primarily for – as usual – pragmatic purposes. A cultural desert only has so much to offer before people lose interest. It was a period of brain drain, when people started looking at foreign countries with more freedom, less educational pressure and more variable climates other than ‘hot and wet’ as viable options to call ‘home’. At the same time, if Singapore wanted to attract talent from overseas, offering just money wasn’t enticing enough to seal a commitment to a tiny island with nothing worth spending on. Government purse strings opened to fund infrastructure like the fancy and iconic The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, and amphitheater structures in town centres as local performance and exhibition spaces. They funded new arts academies like the Nanyang School of Fine Arts and the School of the Arts to train young Singaporeans for careers in the arts. They funded an increased budget for schools to employ professional coaches offering performance level training in music, dance and theatre. At the right time, government support reached out to all levels of the arts development in the community that needed the boost. But governments don’t spend money unless there is a return on investment. Foundationally, the people now receive encouragement that artistic expression is not just aspirational but achievable. The hope is that young Singaporeans have the green light to start creating a culture that is truly representative of the nation. There is also a layer of government control over the artistic narrative that Singaporeans are creating, whether through funding conditions or negotiations over community standards. While these are expected restrictions, perhaps there is an additional layer of overenthusiastic government support for international artists for the purpose of farming their aura and capitalizing on their superstar appeal to drive the tourism market. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour 2025 stands out in Southeast Asia in that Singapore paid to be the exclusive stop in the region. Singapore also funds international performances like musicals exhibitions and other performances like the annual F1 concert series to create an almost year-round calendar of world-class must-attend events. While these attractions no doubt bring in the tourist dollar in lucrative amounts, they also somewhat discourage local audiences from attending local productions which are taken for granted and often seen as of lower quality. Considering the spectacle they are competing against the contrast is understandably stark. The arts cannot be said to ‘flourish’ on government support alone. At best, government support is a boost and an encouragement to the local arts scene. But if the people the art is created for do not support their own local creators, the best we can describe the local arts scene is “it’s a start”. Realistically speaking, an artistic culture needs …

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Has Singapore Done Enough to Encourage a Healthy Lifestyle?

The concept of a healthy lifestyle places the responsibility of being healthy on an individual being disciplined enough to make the right daily choices in terms of diet, sleep and exercise. And look both ways when crossing the street. In this way, the individual can look forward to a long life with a lower risk of contracting a so-called “lifestyle” disease that often puts a damper on the festivities. Society, too, has a role and a responsibility to play in keeping its people healthy and active for as long as possible. It has to at least create and provide the environment within which people can be healthy. Considering how Singapore has declared another increase in local life expectancies, as a society, it’s doing pretty well in this regard. What is the importance of a healthy lifestyle? Developing good daily habits that keep us individuals hale and hearty is one of the more important life choices we can make. After all, if we’re going to spend anywhere from eight decades to a century alive, we’d like them to be generally happy and free of pain. Maintaining our health is a key factor in doing so. Although being disciplined in making healthy decisions is a pain in itself – choosing to eat health-giving foods in moderation, being active in working up a sweat and putting aside our worries and stress of the day for a good night’s sleep – the payoff is worth it all. It does not mean that we cannot indulge ourselves once in a while, but conscientiously maintaining these daily habits means that when we do indulge, the cost to our bodies amounts to less, in the long run, than if we indulged all the time. How is living a healthy lifestyle a challenge? Human beings are unfortunately tasked, or cursed, with the requirement to work for a living. Work can occupy us for much of the day’s 24-hour cycle. Some of us prioritize making more money and so choose to spend more time at work trying to be productive. Such habits of working long hours with few breaks, hastily eating junk food at our desks and returning home too exhausted to socialize meaningfully, yet sleeping fewer hours than recommended constitute a pattern of behaviour that to us Singaporeans, is both familiar and something we tend to regret later in life. Being sedentary for long periods of time causes our metabolism to decrease, our posture to deteriorate, our muscles to atrophy, our cortisol levels to spike and we eventually get testy, impatient, and at some point start wondering what we were meant to live for. Changing our daily habits is likely to reverse these undesirable outcomes, though it starts with a decision to re-prioritize our working hours relative to everything else. How does Singapore contribute to the citizens’ healthy lifestyle? I know, easy to say. People have to work for a living. But then people also need to live to make their work worth the while. And Singapore at least provides the infrastructure for making certain healthy life choices easier. The environment is safe, clean and pollution is low for a city. Law enforcement is trustworthy, clean air makes it easier for cardio and aerobic exercise – whether a scheduled exercise regimen or simply commuting by walking or cycling between destinations in the neighbourhood. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and National Parks Board (NParks) work together to ensure an equitable mix of greenery with public infrastructure, ensuring that public spaces are both pleasant to stroll, jog, cycle or rollerblade through, while ample shelter – natural and constructed – keeps the worst of the rain and sun off our backs. Furthermore, every housing estate has built-in sports and exercise facilities minutes’ walk away from residential units. Whether it’s pickleball, badminton, sepak takraw, or futsal, these facilities can be booked through an app at reasonable rates. The newer estates like Tengah will have their own sports hubs, like those already operating in Sembawang and Tampines. These are central locations in which many public sports facilities are located including swimming pools, basketball courts and fully equipped gyms along with their support and training staff. Nutrition is affordable and available freshly cooked in our hawker centres with each individual stall monitored closely by the National Environment Agency (NEA) for hygiene and is visibly graded accordingly. Likewise, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) has published a voluntarily downloaded app that helps to monitor daily calorie intake and offer advice on food choices based on personal history. For people who prefer home cooking, groceries are kept affordable – there is a current, if temporary, price freeze going on in NTUC supermarkets while the Straits of Hormuz remains closed – and the more unhealthy options are clearly labelled as such. This way, people still maintain some personal autonomy regarding what they choose to eat while being informed that they could have made better choices. Sleep, though, cannot be monitored or regulated by society without severe privacy violations. So Singaporeans are solely responsible for how much sleep they get daily. Yet, conditions like our long working hours, digital distractions and a culture that prizes productivity make sleep quite a challenge. Singaporeans report less sleep on average than most of the world and we have to slap an ‘Area for Improvement’ label on most individuals’ foreheads on this one. How can Singapore residents LIVE a more healthy life? Overall, Singaporeans can make use of much community support in living healthily. There are many programmes offered in our community clubs that cater specifically to group exercise, whether tai chi, or zumba with seated options for the more elderly of us, but more importantly it is through this opportunity to connect with our neighbours socially that we motivate each other to keep going while sharing our own life experiences and other health tips, modern and traditional. There are even programmes that support our mental health, like animal therapy, that are open to our foreign domestic helpers. Individually, though, it still …

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