This is an extract from an article Atiba Jefferson (renowned skateboarding photographer) wrote about a Converse skateboarding tour through South East Asia:

      "We were anxious to get on to the next venture to Singapore, because it would be so different. When we arrived, we ate at a Chinese restaurant. They served the food on a round table that spun around like the wheel on Wheel of Fortune. It turned out that all of the restaurants on our trip had these round-wheel-like tables. The food consisted of things like octopus and lobster. Everyone at dinner was super nice. I’m not sure if it was something in the water, but they were cool. The city was really green with lots of modern buildings. It’s the cleanest city I’ve ever seen; I didn’t see one bum or a lick of graffiti. I guess that proves caning as a punishment for a crime really does work.

This schedule was our first taste of the “you can never be late” mentality. It’s just the way the distributors from Singapore did things. The first place we skated was Go Sports skatepark. There were tons of kids at the demos, and I’d never seen an autograph session last so long. Our Singapore host was into making sure we were having fun, but at the same time, we always had to be on time–the two didn’t mix. They had men in the lobby checking that we never left at night, so we wouldn’t be late in the morning.

We skated the city a couple of times. There was so much marble with all the new buildings. I was sketched out on skating because if they don’t allow chewing gum in Singapore (people asked if we had any gum they could have when we got off the plane), then they couldn’t be too happy with skateboarding. When we were shooting photos downtown, the cops came and kicked us out. We played “dumb Americans,” so they wouldn’t cane us. Regulated by schedules, time passed quickly, but the pace was tiring. By the time we left Singapore, we were hoping it wouldn’t get any busier."

Source: TRANSWORLD