Problem, meet solution

One thing you don’t see out here in Singapore is homeless people.  I’m sure there are some here and there, but I can’t imagine a city like this would ever let them be seen by the public.  Part of it probably also comes from the the fact that Singapore is wealthy,  and the government has the resources and motivation to make sure people have homes.  But I think another part of it is how Singapore deals with mental health issues.  In the US, people with mental health problems are on their own.  If they’re lucky, they’ll have a caring family or friends who will look after them. But if they’re poor or have no one in their life, then they have to fend for themselves, and often that means they become homeless.  There’s no way they could ever hold a job or have the ability to manage a lease on an apartment.  We, as the people of the United States, have collectively decided that the best way to handle people with insurmountable mental disabilities is to simply ignore them and just have them wander the streets aimlessly.  In Singapore, they seem to take a much more proactive approach.  Here, the city apparently takes its population of people with severe mental health problems, and has them become taxi drivers. I know, it sounds crazy, (and I’m not even sure that’s actually the official policy) but it kind of makes sense; it takes the mentally ill off the streets, allows them to earn the money for care and medicine, and also gives them a role in society. Sure, there are some problems; you do have to constantly look out for cabs driving double the speeds limit whenever you cross Singapore’s notoriously pedestrian-unfriendly streets.  Even while in a crosswalk, cabs will often speed right up to you, braking in the last minute, their bumpers stopping inches from your knees.  Sometimes they’ll just barrel through an intersection, although some, despite their obvious uncontrolable mental health issues, still have the sense of decency to lay down on their horn to warn oncoming pedestrians that they’re not planning on stopping.  Nothing is perfect, but this system does beat having to awkwardly walk past them on the street as they desperately beg for change, pretending that you’re checking something really important on your phone.

Laneway! Laneway! LANEWAY!!!

SO I WENT SWIMMING THE OTHER DAY, AND MY EARS GOT CLOGGED SOMEHOW, I'M HAVING A LITTLE HARD TIME HEARING.  SORRY IF I'M TALKING TOO QUIETLY OR TOO LOUD, I'M LIKE A KID WITH EARPHONES ON, I CAN'T CONTROL THE SOUND OF MY VOICE.  DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?! WHAT???

Ok, my ears just popped.  That's better.

Not kidding about my ears though.  Went swimming, and they got clogged for some reason.  They got much better after some home-made (aka internet-read) remedies.  By the way, the best part of having a girlfriend is not that she actively helps and cares for me whenever I have some kind of ailment (supposedly the key to happiness is keeping your expectations in life low), but that she tries to hold in laughter while I use a needle-less syringe to put drops of vinegar and rubbing alcohol into my ears.  Thanks babe.  And thank you internet.  Funny story, pharmacies here don’t sell eyedroppers, but they do sell syringes, and lots of them.  They also sell test-tubes for some reason.  Also, rubbing alcohol is hard to find and comically expensive.  I asked a hijab-wearing employee at a supermarket if they sold rubbing alcohol.  She became visibly uneasy, and scanned my face like she was trying to recognize me from a wanted poster.  And, in order to buy Advil, you have to, by law, get it from a licensed pharmacist.  You don’t need a prescription, but I guess the pharmacist needs to give you a good once over, making sure you’re a person of sound character first.    Isn’t Asia exotic?

I hope you’re not laughing at my ear wax problem, because ear wax is no joke.  This is the kind of problem you get when you begin that slow descent into middle-age.  Gone are the days when my biggest concern in life was finding the hommie with the dankest kush, or the bar with the best “ratio.”   I now struggle with ear wax, made worse by the heaviest humidity you can have while still not being considered underwater.  Luckily, it’s much better now.  The ear wax, not the humidity.

Anyway, you’re probably saying “stop yammering about your damn ear wax Bernie Sanders, and get to the good stuff.”  Ok, fine.  LANEWAY!!!  Actually, more like… Laneway.  It’s an Australian music festival that comes to Singapore, the biggest one here by far.  It was headlined by Flume, Purity Ring, Chvrches, Grimes, Beach House, and a bunch of other bands I feel like I should be shaking cane at and telling about my ear wax problems.  There was about 20,000 people there, with four stages.    The bands were good, although they all complained about the heat constantly.  Sid from The Internet looked downright miserable, and made heat-related comments literally after every song.  The drummer from Battles was so sweaty he looked like someone just threw him into a pool.  And this was by far the most pleasant day I’ve seen in Singapore.  It was also the longest I’ve been outdoors since I’ve gotten here - about ten hours total.  It’s a weird feeling being out in this heat for that long, you kind of get used to it, but it’s still cooking your brain.  You’re kind of like a frog in a pot of water on a stove; you don’t fully realize how hot it is until it really starts kicking your ass.  I was fine until that last hour, suddenly every instinct in my body was to get into some kind of air conditioning, and fast.

Laneway was really fun, all the way through.  The bands were great, and I found a new great band called Shamir, which was a huge crowd pleaser.  The crowd was interesting too.  Singapore is a very conservative place, so seeing thousands of hipsters was kind of refreshing.  There was a disproportionate amount of white people there, mostly Australians, but the majority were Singaporeans and possibly Malaysians.  Singapore is such a law-abiding place, so it was also interesting to see a little chaos.  It wasn’t that great in the end, it mostly consisted of people smoking cigarettes where they shouldn’t and littering like crazy.  The litter was a huge scandal in the local papers the next day, the media here really lays on the collective guilt pretty thick in moments like this.  Al least they made sure to make a point that foreigners and locals were both to blame for this national embarrassment.  Another interesting thing was to see bros almost getting into fights - that’s definitely not something you see on the streets here.  Much of it was Aussie on Aussie, but there was a moment when I saw a group of three Singaporeans try pick a fight with a random white guy.  Not sure what the issue was, but the Singaporeans were mad about something; they flipped him off and did the whole “come at me bro” wave.  The white guy just blinked at them, and walked away.  There was three of them after all, and also getting your ass kicked by a bunch of guys wearing different outfits worn by Ducky in Sixteen Candles would have been hardest part to bear of that whole interaction.

Links to pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153208004151541.1073741832.593441540&type=1&l=277222d258