Jeremy Tiang 2
Details
Jeremy Tiang 2
Metadata (MODS) |
|
|---|---|
| Titles | Jeremy Tiang 2: Clip 2 |
| Name | Jeremy Tiang |
| Name | Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Type of Resource | sound recording-nonmusical |
| Genre | Interview |
| Identifier | Interview |
| Identifier | Jeremy Tiang Clip 2 |
| Abstract | Jeremy Tiang and Joanne Leow discuss how land reclamation has and continues to shape Singapore's boundaries and how capitalism propels this process. |
| Extent | 4:48 |
| Form | sound recording |
| Note | Joanne Leow: It’s so interesting to me that the story and the way you’re talking about it, see it in some ways more like an archipelago—more than the dominance of the main island that we’re so accustomed to thinking of. When you were thinking of that story and thinking of going to all those offshore islands, did it change the way you saw—I know you talked about the perspective—did it change the way you saw the totality of what we think of as nation or state? [0:30] Jeremy Tiang: I’m interested in the fluidity of Singapore’s identity anyway, I guess. For context, my mom’s Malaysian, and growing up we spent a lot of time in Malaysia, and also we lived in Woodlands, so, in my childhood we went to Johor a lot more than we ever went to Orchard, so I’ve always had this sense of—you know, the idea of Singapore being self-contained quite tenuous anyway, because that wasn’t my upbringing. No, I don’t think it changed the way I saw the totality of Singapore because I’ve always been very interested in how permeable these borders are anyway. And because the borders aren’t fixed—like, as you say, the outline of Singapore has changed so much over time and will continue to change. And it’s manifested in little ways. I mean, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Beach Road is where the beach used to be, and I was like “oh.” [1:31] Joanne Leow: Yeah. Jeremy Tiang: And that’s really quite a big shift. And I think other people are almost more aware of it than we are ourselves. I’ve an Indonesian friend who, you know, likes to joke that…I think it’s something like “oh, Indonesia used to have 13700 islands and now it’s only 13000 because Singapore took the other 700 for the sand.” [1:56] Joanne Leow: And I was just gonna ask you exactly that, actually, because your story investigates that human cost, right, involved in rapid and iconic construction, right, the skyline. But then the other thing about reclamation, to me, in some sense, is kind of occupation by other means. You’re still taking someone’s land whether from the bottom of their riverbed and ruining their coastal ecology there, or denuding their islands and making them disappear. So, I don’t know, I’d just like to get some of your thoughts on that. What do you think of this idea then of land reclamation, which is in some ways almost like a kind of subtext in the story in some ways, I feel, because it’s that kind of taking of the land is tied to taking of the labour. [2:38] Jeremy Tiang: Well, I mean, Singapore is far from alone in that. It’s, I guess, the classic first world problem, which is the tendency to believe that you can buy your way out of anything. So, the rich Americans who believe they can buy any level of healthcare and want to live forever basically, are no different to Singapore believing that it can continue expanding indefinitely, and, just, there’s no limit to how much you can reclaim, there’s no limit to how far we can push out the borders. So, it’s, I guess, it’s a kind of hubris. Not accepting that there are limits, and continually pushing outward. And yeah, we don’t really talk about how we extract all kinds of resources—human, land, natural—from our neighbours. There’s a lot of talk about ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] and ASEAN cooperation and being part of the community, but coming from a Singapore perspective it almost seems like a willful blindness, a way of rearranging the region to suit us, like we’re all one big happy family rather than Singapore as a hegemonic power within the region. And we distort a lot of things. You can’t really go, “we’re all so happy, cooperating and being a community” when Singapore has so much more wealth than our neighbours, and therefore calls the shots in many ways. [4:19] Joanne Leow: And wealth that’s also actually in some senses constructed by labouring bodies from our regional neighbours. [4:26] Jeremy Tiang: Yes. I mean, it’s a vicious circle. We have more money, so we can attract more people, and then we pay them pretty much nothing. So, we continue to become wealthier and they continue to become poorer, and the greater the difference is the longer we can get away with paying them nothing. |
| Access Condition | Contact Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Subject Geographic | Pacific Ocean |
| Subject Hierarchical Geographic | Asia--Singapore------Singapore |
| Subject Local Name | ----transnational trade--Landscape / Skyline--Coast--economy--Pacific Ocean-- |