At that point, illegal gum and public canings were all I knew about this tiny country at the southern tip of Malaysia.
After I arrived, I learned a whole lot more. Singapore is one degree north of the equator, so that every time I stepped from a taxi or bus, both cooled to temperatures that would make a refrigerator salesman proud, I slammed into a wall of heat and humidity. I got used to being perpetually moist.
Getting accustomed to a population density of 16,417 people per square mile (by comparison, Boston's is about 12,500), and a briskly moving cavalcade of sparkling cars in an ultraclean city where every bit of space has a designated use -- well, that takes longer.
The best place to get a feel for Singapore's beginnings is where the naturally deep harbor of Marina Bay narrows to the winding Singapore River. Life-size bronze statues scattered along the banks of the river show the history of Singapore's trade and culture. Chinese merchants with long braids display their wares, Malay traders are deep in conversation, and muscled workers load carts. Behind them, old wooden boats cruise the gentle river past Boat and Clarke quays, where riverside shophouses have been converted to popular bars and restaurants.
Modern Singapore was born when Stamford Raffles came ashore here with the British East India Company in January 1819. By deft political maneuvering, he claimed the trading outpost island for Britain and broke the Dutch monopoly through the all-important Strait of Malacca, the channel between the Malaysian Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, connecting the Andaman and South China seas.
''In short," wrote Raffles, ''Singapore is everything we could desire, and I may consider myself fortunate in the selection; it will soon rise into importance." So did he. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who died in 1826, is immortalized at the official riverside Raffles Landing Site with an elegant statue. Singapore remained a British colony until 1959.
Of 4.3 million people who live on the 26-mile-long by 14-mile-wide island, 77 percent are Chinese, 14 percent Malay, and 7 percent Indian, so there are Buddhist temples, Islamic mosques, and Hindu temples.
