I take issue to his stereotypes, which are trotted out regularly upon the merest mention of the word Singapore. I mean, "hung for smoking a spliff", really? Th

I take issue to his stereotypes, which are trotted out regularly upon the merest mention of the word Singapore. I mean, "hung for smoking a spliff", really? The chewing gum ban was an attempt at restricting the supply after kids got into a fashion of blocking the subway's doors using it, particularly painful in a country where millions use it every day. The solution was the least obtrusive way round the problem (you can't go arrest kids systematically...); it's perfectly legal to chew it, you just have to import your own stock. Then you realize that you don't care enough to bother, and you stop chewing, and you wonder why every bloody article ever written about Singapore on any unrelated topic has to include the "factoid". Sometimes I think it was a very clever press troll by LKY. Or take the caning of that American kid: caning for damaging a few cars? Sure, but a car in the US costs a few grand; in Singapore, it can cost more than a house and take half a lifetime to pay for (this, incidentally, is about passing on the cost of thrashing the commons to those who do the thrashing - a "liberal" policy never even discussed in the US). If somebody went and torched 10 houses in a street, what magnitude punishment would the US justice system reserve him? As for dancing on tables, my first week in Singapore, not only did the bar I visited for what I thought would be a quiet beer - in Somerset, not Geylang - have paid models to dance on tables, they invited customers to take shots off their body. Not my thing but it's there if you want it. I guess I'm not yet used to the constant stereotyping, so feel the need to speak for the other side. People don't go around generalizing Texans as Christian extremists who eat 5 big macs a meal whilst hunting deer with a machine gun from the back of their Ford pickup (FWIW I know Texans who are/did all of these things); somehow the same level of stereotyping with Singapore is acceptable, and people think a few hours stopover once in a while is enough to qualify their opinion.