To all the Singaporean students out there who might want to do a PhD:

You should be aware that it is actually possible, and, if you aim low enough, not terribly difficult, to do a PhD in a US university without having to pay anything out of your own pocket. In the sciences and engineering, it’s not difficult to get a funded PhD offer even if you have an undergrad degree from a local university, so long as your grades and research record are good. (In the social sciences and humanities, it may be rather more difficult to gain admission — although once you are admitted, you are typically fully funded. The reasons for this are a bit complicated — feel free to contact me directly if you really want my take on this.) I feel that I had to say this somewhere public, because I’ve recently been encountering a fair number of students in JC or university (or in between) expressing surprise when I told them this. I have to say, I find it shocking that some of their so-called “mentors” in the local universities perpetuate their students’ ignorance of this fact by not informing them of it and instead encouraging them to take up PhD scholarships offered by government research agencies. Given that there are such “mentors” around, I thought I’d offer this small bit of countervailing opinion, however little read it turns out to be.

It’s not just PhDs — there are funded Masters courses in the US, even in the humanities. Please, before you sign any binding contract, talk to people in the field, and talk to as many people as you can find, not just your so-called advisors.

A European friend points me to a Dutch TV feature (link induces a download of a .wmv stream) on Singapore’s “success story”. It’s very one-sided. They interview LKY, Kishore Mahbubani and Philip Yeo, amongst others. They do not interview any poor people living in Singapore — only expats, a Straits Times journalist, and a young man who did his MBA at INSEAD. Nonetheless, the editors must not have been completely taken in by their one-sided sources — at the very end, the narrator says something like “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is”.

I read Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class recently (five years behind the internet intelligentsia) and have been wanting to post excerpts from it that I found particularly pertinent to Singapore. Turns out that today’s ST has an interview with architect William Lim that dovetails nicely with one of Florida’s main points. First, Florida:

Places are also valued for authenticity and uniqueness, as I have heard many times in my studies. Authenticity comes from several aspects of a community — historic buildings, established neighborhoods, a unique music scene or specific cultural attributes. It comes from the mix — from urban grit alongside renovated buildings, from the commingling of young and old, long-time neighborhood characters and yuppies, fashion models and “bag ladies”.

People in my interviews and focus groups often define “authenticity” as the opposite of generic. They equate authentic with being “real”, as in a place that has real buildings, real people, real history. An authentic place also offers unique and original experiences. Thus a place full of chain stores, chain restaurants and nightclubs is not authentic: Not only do these venues look pretty much the same everywhere, they offer the same experience you could have anywhere.

Now Lim:

WILLIAM Lim thinks that Singapore stands out from other Asian cities because it lacks vibrancy. ‘In the upscale, high-rise Tokyo district of Ginza, you need only walk 50 yards to see traditional Japanese low-density streets off the main road.’

Singapore, however, cleared out the back lanes and side streets along with main arteries of old districts during its many urban renewal programmes over the years. The clean-slate approach and rigid state control drained the streets of colour that characterised traditional activities in these areas.

Dullness, he says, is still something that hobbles Singapore despite the more varied housing, shopping and entertainment projects pushed out in recent years. In this aspect, he feels the Government could take a leaf out of the underrated districts of Geylang and Little India.

He notes that these areas - crammed with old-style eateries, independent shops, red light zones and housing projects in side streets - are still vibrant because ‘they have not been substantially disturbed by road widening and clearances’.

Their charm, he adds, is ‘chaotic order’.

‘In this apparent chaos, there is a very unstructured order. Even though goods sold spill over onto the pavement, they don’t spill over onto the street. There is still space that allows people to walk through the area.’

The unpredictability of these areas generates creative energy that easily trumps the carefully planned glitz of Orchard Road.

Singapore needs more of such unpredictable areas which he calls ’spaces of indeterminacy’. This refers to ‘leftover spaces’ like void decks or land under flyovers, which he says should be used for anything as long as it is not harmful.

He also thinks the Government should set aside buildings earmarked for demolition - such as first-generation Housing Board flats - for use by the grassroots and arts communities in any way they deem fit.

Such a low-rental environment will give artists enough breathing space to mingle, explore and create works they would not otherwise do because they cannot afford the high rental for art studios.

‘Art is vibrancy for the community,’ he declares, citing the example of 798 Art District in Beijing, an artist enclave that grew out of decommissioned factories, now being compared to New York’s Greenwich Village.

‘It can be music, photography, writing, poetry. It’s a criss-cross of these ideas that generate energy,’ he says. For it to work, there needs to be enough buzz from not just successful artists but struggling ones too.

‘It’s very untidy and you have got to accept the untidiness,’ he points out.

In the background story:

‘Singapore is quite cosmopolitan, but that doesn’t automatically make a city vibrant. Melbourne is not a global city, but Melbourne is very vibrant. I talk to people in Bangkok, and they never bother about whether it is a global city or not. Who cares?

I would put it another way: Singapore thinks that one can create a great city the way one can create a great airport — make everything clean, comfortable and efficient, and attract a nominally ‘cosmopolitan’ clientele. But people don’t like certain airports for the same reasons that they like certain cities. The creative class especially doesn’t value cleanliness, comfort, and efficiency in cities as much as it does in airports. Sure, you need a certain amount of cleanliness and comfort to work, but taken to the extreme, it leads to a sterile environment. I used to prefer working in the grungier humanities library of my university rather than the much tidier, less crowded, quieter, and sterile science library. The humanities library felt alive; the science library dead. The former wasn’t noisy enough to hinder my work but had enough background shiftings and murmurings and sighs to make me feel like I was in a place full of life. Part of Florida’s argument is that most creative people like environments that are slightly ‘dirty’ that way. All the better if the dirt is authentic.