I spent this morning on a trip to Canada. It was a dream of course, and like all dreams, it had no beginning. I hadn’t been aware of being in Canada for very long when I was bothered by uncertainty about how long I’d been there — one night or two? — and how long I’d be staying. In actuality, I was dozing, waking up slightly every so often before sinking back into my slightly re-postured dream; but, in the dream, it was New York that was a dream. I was in Canada.

Let’s say that it was Toronto. I’ve never been to Toronto, but that didn’t get in the way. I was staying in a basement flat with several other young people who worked in publishing. Yes, I was young, too. Everyone was very nice, and at some point my dream must have decided that I was staying in Toronto, not visiting for the weekend. I may even have had a job — I certainly had work to do. And in those moments when I’d come to in my bed in New York, the work that I had to do in Toronto was much more agreeable than the work I had to do in New York. It was vague, the Toronto work — unlike the New York work. The work in Toronto was pleasant and easygoing. The New York work bristled with requirements. For example, a picture for this entry. I didn’t have one, and I still don’t. But the prospect of having to get up and work in New York became less onerous when I realized that I could write about my dream. When I got up, which was not now.

That was the other nice thing about being in Canada: I got to stay in bed. It’s a very gloomy day here in New York, plus it’s a Monday. I have to go to the Post Office at some point, to buy three-cent stamps to paste on the latest batch of postcards of Will and Kathleen. The postcard rate went up yesterday. If I had sat down an hour earlier to write out, address, and stamp the postcards on Saturday afternoon, I’d have made it under the wire, being able to shove them into the collection box inside Gracie Station. But the Post Office was closed before I even sat down. Oh, yes, staying in bed was very nice this morning, and I abandoned myself to my dream of Canada, and to moments of wakeful savoring of the dream, so completely that the voices of guilt and indignation, bidding me to get out of bed at once and get to work, were silenced by the pillows.  

Why Canada? I was reading about Singapore just before going to bed. I have never been to Singapore, either. Kathleen was there once, on her trip round the world in October 2001. Even she found the humidity hard to bear. No matter what time of day or night, no matter how recently it had rained, the air was sodden. Otherwise, however, she reported no discomforts. The corporate-totalitarian atmosphere did not oppress. She would not have described her brief visit to Singapore as William Gibon does: “Disneyland With the Death Penalty.” I don’t think that Kathleen got past the humidity.

I have always assumed, since first learning of the Lee régime’s success, that most of the people who live in Singapore are happy to be there. They’re willing to sacrifice ephemeral personal freedoms — the right to chew gum in the street, say — for solid personal prosperity. I don’t get the feeling that anyone in Singapore harbors imperial designs over the rest of the world. It really is a Confucian paradise, where father knows better and the city-state knows best. My only hope is that kids who have the mischance to grow up there without being psychologically suited to it are helped into new lives elsewhere with generous grace. Artistic kids, for example. Maybe Singapore has something like the Amish rumspringa, a period of tolerated adolescent rebellion. I’ve never heard of it, and, if they do, I expect that the running around takes place at special settlements well outside the city. In Hong Kong, perhaps.

So long as Singapore remains a prosperous city of two or three million people on the other side of the world, I have no objection to its form of government. I would caution visitors to be aware that they are taking their lives in their hands simply by setting foot in a jurisdiction prone to the draconian. But I don’t see why a city-state should set out to be generally welcoming. Singapore for the Singaporeans, I say! I wouldn’t mind seeing a dozen or so Christianist equivalents, where homophobes and racists could make themselves comfortable — at a distance. It wouldn’t work, though. First of all, Christians have been imperially-minded from the get-go. The second thing is, you know how they say that Islam has never had a Reformation (and therefore isn’t prepared for a modern, secular globe). Well, Christianity has never had a Confucius.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2012 at 10:13 am.