Singapore discipline ... we all aspire to fairness, justness and I will now add happiness
Right ... strange title, but I will share. I am having a bit of trouble getting my deposit back from my landlord... some unfortunate misunderstandings between me, rental agent, the landlord and now interestingly enough the contractor who made made some "fixes to the apartment". Anyway .. this process I hope will be resolved shortly. But here is the story.
I was speaking with the rental agent yesterday and was sharing my story about what happened to me in the morning. I was staying in a hotel in the Geylang Area of Singapore. This hopefully being my final week after getting my visa for Russia on Friday. It was early in the morning. Just showered, wet hair, sunglasses on with 3 bags with me .. one a large and heavy backpack. So I hail a taxi. I look like a tourist for sure. I tell him where to go - Tanah Merah, where I will be staying with a friend for the remainder of the week. So he says ... is it ok to go this way .. I say fine. Anyway .. to cut a long story short, he takes a long way round to get to the main east coast road to Tanah Merah .. I say to him .. "why did you not go to Nichol Highway ? why this long way around?" .. he looks slightly uncomfortable. Leaning forward to have a better look at me in his rear-view mirror. I say .. "look I have lived in Singapore for over 6 years .. please take me directly to Tanah Merah". we arrive .. and he offers me smile, a discounted fare, helps me with my bags, commenting how heavy they are ... and commenting in a questioning way ... what was I doing in Geylang anyway. Clearly I knew the directions exactly to my friends house.
I share this story with the agent, she and her husband have been very straight forward with me over the years. I say to her. If this happened in another country I am sure I would not have received a discount and he would not have been so apologetic. But the taxi driver knows .. if I make a complaint to the cab company about this .. he can lose his job. Yes .. Singapore is strict, there is very low tolerance for unethical behaviour. They also have the lowest corruption rates and percentiles in the world. 
Even this morning I was having a coffee at a restaurant chain in Douby Ghaut. The local radio station was playing and news of a person who got nearly 17 years’ jail and 22 strokes of the cane for rape. (I will not link this) And yes it is true that there is capital punishment in Singapore, and migrant workers were deported after unrest in Little India. And you can not buy chewing gum in the shops.
I am not going to judge this as this is an on-going debate. But Singapore is one of the safest places in the world. But they do remind their citizens that "low crime does not mean no crime", and if you google this phrase you will see many local blogs and images of photos and posters in Singapore with again much debate. So this morning I took a picture of myself at Tanah Merah MRT station on the way to the National Libary. I thought of how I must have looked to the taxi driver .. pretty mean with my sunglasses, complaining about ... just get me there straight. And I thought of Jim Stuart one of my ex-bosses who loves the outdoor life.. and commented on how serious I looked on my profile picture ( BTW .. Jim has always worn such sunglasses, from the time I worked for him in Reston VA with his handpainted VW ... to today seriously I am not kidding check out his FB page ) ..So I thought ... perfect ... this is going to be my profile picture. And I am going to write a story to this on my website.
Anyway .. back to the beginning of the post and subtitle, as was chatting with the rental agency lady about our situation we agreed ... we all aspire to fairness, justness and I will add now happiness. Many paths and approaches to this ... no issues. Singapore this has worked for you. And for me... I have walked a path for 10 years now ... and more about discipline for the practice of self awareness when I visit the temples in Myanmar later in my trip home.