Singapore 11October2025: Singapore Panoramic Tour: Is Singapore Soulless?
“Singapore Panoramic Tour” sounds a bit easy peasy just what the doctor ordered for haggard jet laggers. On a luxury coach (no WC facilities) at 09:15. First stop Merlion Park at the Esplanade Bridge. Right behind us one views the Singapore skyline with innumerable skyscrapers many with bank and insurance company signage. Is this Manhattan? Our tour guide, a former trader of financial instruments, notes Singapore is the third largest commercial centre in the world. Despite the urban nature of the city centre lush foliage plantings create an illusion of space. Is Singapore soulless in all its glitter and affluence?
Across the water from Merlion Park one can see a huge casino and hotel somewhat as imposing as the Sydney Opera House. I am not sure I expected such bland modernity and the wealth of Singapore. The only toiling masses I can see in the blistering heat and humidity are Bangladeshi construction workers.
The tourists, many Indonesians on this visit, flock to the statute of the mythical Merlion which possesses the body of a fish and the head of a lion. Its fish like body symbolizes Singapore’s origins as a fishing village. The statue’s head represents the city’s original name Singapura (lion city in Sanskrit). According to legend, Sang Nila Utama- a Srivijayan prince of Palembang- landed on Singapore’s shores amidst a tempest at sea. Near the mouth of the Singapore river, the prince spied a strange creature, which he identified as a lion, thus giving Singapura its name. This legend is embodied in the statute at Merlion Park.
Spouting water at its mouth, the Merlion statue stands at 28 feet high. It was designed by Kwan Sai Kheong, built by local craftsman Lim Nang Seng and unveiled in 1972 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. It faces east which is believed to a be a direction that brings prosperity.
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