On the cusp of its 43rd birthday, Singapore has never looked so good. As it gets older, it grows beyond the image of a shiny city-state of expat bankers and mallrats. It has more energy, more culture, and plenty of new faces. TOS highlights some of the individuals who are adding colour and vibrancy to the little red dot. Photography by Jing Quek

THE NEW HAWKER

‘Ang moh can?’ It was the first thing American Bernie Utchenik heard when he decided to start his own hawker stall in the Tuas industrial area in 2003. ‘They didn’t know an ang moh could do it,’ says the founder of Botak Jones. ‘The hours are long, the work is hard – the expectation of an expat is that they’re highly paid, party hard. The locals hadn’t seen an expat sweating [from work], so it was kind of a revelation seeing me cleaning the kitchen.’

But five years later, with nine heartland outlets (plus offshoots Spaghetti Jones and bar Brewski Jones) serving American fare– from burgers and fries ($7.50) to Alaskan king crab ($18/entrée) – Detroit-born Utchenik doesn’t have to explain himself to locals. He is a local. ‘I hope one day to become a Singaporean,’ he says, sitting beside the ‘real boss’, his wife of ten years, Faudziah (aka ‘Zee’). ‘I live [for] this.’

Botak Jones outlets are in AngMo Kio, Bedok, Boon Lay, Bukit Batok, Clementi, Depot Road, ToaPayoh, Woodlands and Yishun. For more information, go to www.botakjones.com.

THE NEW HAWKER, PART DEUX

Traditional hawker stall holders dishing out time-honoured Asian recipes must have choked on their char kway teow when Kenny Thariyan, 29, pitched his mini-deli, All Natural Kitchen, at Amoy Street Food Centre in April. ‘The theme is not so much Western, more healthy,’ says a beaming Thariyan, aka the ‘Happy Chef’, of the pancakes, soups, salads and sandwiches he serves up at a bargain price. (The handsome Eurasian Singaporean lives the life he markets – he runs marathons and does yoga in his spare time.)

It’s a unique and remarkable outlet, not least for the fact that this is Thariyan’s first job in catering (his mum Ruth helps out with preparation). Purely via word of mouth, in just two months the former engineer has establisheda loyal customer base – both locals and expats – in this office-laden Chinatown hinterland. Thariyan buys fresh produce and makes all the sauces himself; it’s an MSG-free super-stall. But with Robinson Road’s sandwich shops just a stone’s throw away, how can he afford to sell such a good tuna wrap for just $4.50? ‘The profit margin is really small,’ he says. ‘I wanted to find a way to cater to everyone. Hopefully everything will make sense inthe end!

’All Natural Kitchen, #02-110 Amoy St Food Centre (9825 0615). MRT: Tanjong Pagar.Mon-Fri 8.30-10.30am (breakfast), 11.30am-2pm (lunch). For more information, email allnaturalkitchen@gmail.com.

THE LOCALS WITH A VISION

Dr Alvin Koh (left) and Gary Sng (right) – the men behind Collectors Contemporary – are the most laid back gallery owners you’ll ever meet. Armed with bottles of champagne and a wealth of artistic knowledge, their business seems more New York than Singapore as they test local boundaries with avant-garde installations and conceptual art.

‘There are so many galleries here doing South-East Asian art, so we didn’t want to touch that,’ says Sng. ‘Our point is not to come in and steal a piece of the pie, but to add on to a very apparent lack of other art beyond that.

‘Singapore is in perpetual renaissance! We’re always catching up,’ he adds. But thanks to their efforts, the local art scene has never looked better. Sng, a photographer who once ran with Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd in San Francisco, and Koh (previously a locum) moved back to tropical Singapore from the States despite Sng being ‘allergic to his own perspiration’. After realising that they didn’t have space for their burgeoning art collection– including Warhols, Lichtensteins and more – Collectors Contemporary was born. Today this immaculate, state-of-the-art space (complete with moving walls) enjoys a steady stream of local and regional visitors – from expat bankers to polytechnic students and housewives – and as Sng says, ‘They are quite proud to say, you know, “Singapore can do this. Why can’t we do it?” Anyone can do it.’
Furhter information about Collectors Contemporary.

THE VOICE OF THE MIGRANT WORKERS
James Brown has nothing on these hard-working people: Singapore’s maids and nannies, its construction workers putting up scaffolding in the blazing heat. But how many people stop to find out their stories? Local charity HOME – the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics – does just that; since 2004, it has given a voice to the 170,000 or so migrant workers in Singapore. While many have left their homes in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh to find gainful employment and security in our booming country, others have not been so fortunate. HOME executive director Jolovan Wham (top right) notes that, at press time, there were 1,200 cases of migrant worker abuse and neglect being investigated. One case deals with a domestic worker not being paid for six months; another involves a cleaning lady hit over the head by her employer. ‘There are a lot of things not in their favour,’ including a linguistic divide and poor sleeping quarters, says Maygalai Tangarasu, 21, an NUS student interning with HOME (top, third from right). Working with foreign embassies as well as support groups Migrant Voices and Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), HOME helps to provide legal advice about workers’ rights, mediation between employer and employee, even shelter and food. ‘When I had no makan, when I had no money, they helped me,’ says worker Rajjak (top, third from left). ‘I will never forget how much they helped me.’

To volunteer, donate or find out more, go to www.home.org.sg. HOME’S HELPLINES: 6341 5525 (domestic workers); 6341 5535 (non-domestic workers)

THE UNITED NATIONS OF STUDENTS

Alexandre Miet, Cecilia Webb, Jonathan Meur, Holly Banning, Sumantra Chatterjee, Yeong Seivon and Warren Tessler are just seven students in an emerging breed who leave their home countries to pursue academic interests in Singapore’s specialised schools. These passionate and independent pupils, aged 19 to 28, range in disciplines, from hospitality to fashion, biology to business; they come from countries as diverse as France, the US, Malaysia and Mauritius.

‘I came here as part of the inaugural class of filmmaking graduate students. I’m also half-Malay and living in Singapore would give me the opportunity to be much closer to my family,’ says Los Angeles-born Tessler, who’s pursuing a master’s degree in filmmaking at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia. Chatterjee, from New Delhi, is pursuing his PhD in stem cell research, and with an eye for detail, he conducts experiments at the Genome Institute of Singapore. Chatterjee is as observant out on the streets as he is within his controlled environment. His advice on living here? ‘Don’t abuse the local people in your native tongue,’ he says. ‘Some of them know it!’ Meur, from Mauritius, who has lived here for five years and attends SMU, did not want to limit himself to a professional career in a French-speaking world (he studied in the French system until his was 18), and has decided to make Singapore his ‘secondary residence’.

Considering six of the schools these students represent are as new to Singapore as they are – all but Nanyang have launched these programmes in the past eight years – the future of the Lion City looks that much brighter.

THE NEW CORPORATE WORKPLACE

It’s nothing out of the ordinary to find global companies with their Asian headquarters in Singapore. But a firm that started out with just a handful of regional employees in 1996 – and now boasts a staff of more than 200, with 47 international workers from countries as diverse as Hungary and Indonesia – is no ordinary undertaking.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), a global travel management company, is not a brand name that immediately rings a bell. But if you’re an employee of Shell, Pirelli or any of the other companies they service, these are the people who make all your travel arrangements – a major undertaking considering how often Singaporeans go abroad for work. With a presence in 152 countries and territories, CWT’s choice of Singapore as its Asian HQ was based on the usual motivating factors: strategic location, political stability, reasonable tax bracket and, as recent years have shown, an emphasis on attracting foreign talent. The local offi ce is staffed by individuals spanning 15 nationalities, some of whom have been here long enough to offer insights into the Lion City.

‘It’s like we live dog years here: Singapore develops more condominiums, entertainment complexes and shopping centres in a year than anywhere else does in seven,’ says Frenchman Nicolas Pierret, CWT’s director of Global Accounts Asia Pacific, who moved here tempted by the prospect of ‘having a serious job that was close to a beach bar and a regular wakeboarding spot’. For Canadian Derek Haggart, his home for the past 11 years is simply defined as ‘an oasis of sanity in an otherwise chaotic region of the world’. Meanwhile, Indian national Srinivas Rao summed up the island’s dual identity best: ‘[There’s the] contrasting buzz as a developed country, which has the perfect blend of the East and West.’