From hot retail trends to music festivals that went up in smoke, we look back at the best – and worst – of Singapore this year.
1. It should be renamed ‘Hostess pocus’ because, like a magic trick, the two Hostess Club Weekender concerts vanished without a trace. Both the June and November editions of this Japanese music festival were nixed at the eleventh hour. These aren’t the only big gigs that got cancelled – whither thou, Snoop Lion and Mos Def? – but we’re praying they’ll be the last.
2. Can you imagine Jiak Kim Street without Zouk? We sure as hell can’t. The grand dame of Singapore’s nightlife was supposed to shutter due to the authorities’ ham-fisted zoning policies that prize atas condos over local institutions that bear neither the word ‘shop’ nor ‘house’. Thankfully, people fought back. Tens of thousands of them, including top DJs from around the world, signed a petition to #savezouk – and it worked. The club received an extension on its lease and it’ll be around until December 2015 at the very least.
3. It’s been a good year for cocktail fiends. No longer the cost of your mortgage, hand-crafted mixes are now breaching the sub-$20 mark. Establishments like FOC, Spiffy Dapper and 28 HongKong Street let you get sloshed on cheaper cocktails that are every bit as punchy and fresh despite their lower pricetags. Here’s to an even cheaper 2015 – yay for our bank accounts, nay for our livers.
4. When Filipino residents here wanted to celebrate their nation’s 116th birthday in Orchard Road, a splinter group of ultra-nationalist locals slammed the event for undermining the significance of Singapore’s ‘independence as a sovereign state’. Whatever that means. The police advised the organisers against holding the festivities – they obliged, and the event never materialised. Shame on us.
5. Bull-headed minorities aside, Singapore’s still a great place to visit. Lonely Planet named our city-state the ‘Best Country to Visit in 2015’ for its joyous atmosphere, awesome food and slew of new developments. We’re inclined to agree.
6. We’ve shown that we’re old enough to decide for ourselves the ‘right things’ to watch and read. When Tan Pin Pin’s documentary To Singapore, with Love was banned (let’s call a spade a spade) locally but screened at a film fest in Johor Bahru, busloads of Singaporeans caught it across the Causeway. And the National Library Board’s gaffe of trying to ‘pulp’ the children’s book And Tango Makes Three only united parents, writers and educators who spoke out against the homophobic decision.
7. When a Sim Lim store owner swindled a tourist of hundreds of bucks, online vigilantes responded in the best way possible: by raising money to refund the poor sod and leaking personal deets of the offending conman for the world wide web to exact delicious revenge. Oh, sweet schadenfreude!
8. New multi-concept stores such as Flee Away Café and PACT are fusing retail and dining. They’re perfect for Singapore, whose two national pastimes are eating and shopping.
9. The CPF brouhaha that propelled Roy Ngerng to infamy took an ugly turn when the activist and his cadre of chest-thumpers disrupted an event at Hong Lim Park with their obnoxious sloganeering. An event during which special needs children were performing on stage. The poor kids had the scare of their lives – not cool, guys.
10. Farm-to-fork cuisine seems unlikely in our metropolis, but Comcrop, Hatiku farm from Cameron Highlands, and urban farmer Bjorn Low are setting up gardens in nooks and crannies of the city to supply ingredients to the hottest kitchens in town. Because green is the new black.