<![CDATA[Surreal life in Singapore, from Covid-19 to 'circuit breaker' and migrant workers' plight]>

Every lockdown looks roughly the same from afar " the images of empty streets, grocery queues, ventilated patients and hazmat-suited health care workers have become familiar to all. But the actual experience of confinement is probably very different depending on which city and country we are in.

Here in Singapore, the increasingly severe lockdown feels strange in many ways, as if we are in a dream: surreal.

First is the term "circuit breaker" used for the lockdown introduced by the Singapore government on April 7. Critics have said this de-emphasised the seriousness of the mounting crisis, or the importance of staying home or socially distancing ourselves. Indeed, netizens busily split hairs about whether a circuit breaker equals a real lockdown " this is not Italy, Spain or Britain!

But the debate has become moot, as the circuit-breaker measures have been extended until June 1 and the realisation sinks in that " with over 10,000 cases, though thankfully few deaths " Singapore's infections per capita are closing in on these places. Some people have confused "circuit breaker" with "short circuit". And unfortunately, the acronym "CB" is also a common Singlish expletive, taken from a Hokkien/Fujian swear word for female genitalia. A field day for pun lovers ensued as they riffed on the acronym and its other vulgar derivations.

Vehicles travel along a near-deserted road in Singapore during a partial lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus. Photo: Bloomberg

Second is the parallel universe in which the mainstream media appears to operate. There was The Straits Times, the island nation's biggest newspaper, mystifyingly burying the day's most important news of a record number of cases deep in its folds, as if trying to protect someone's reputation.

Then there was Lianhe Zaobao, the largest Chinese-language newspaper, publishing a reader's racist letter about the supposed culture of migrant workers (who form by far the largest cluster of Covid-19 cases in the country) " and then, in reaction to criticism, insipidly trying to justify the misjudgment.

Most glaring was the media's avoidance of the elephant in the room: what mistakes " if any, after all it could be just bad luck " led to the explosion of cases?

It was not until April 22 that The Straits Times finally carried a piece asking this basic question. That the establishment media here is controlled is well documented, and as a former Straits Times journalist, I am under no illusion that standing up to a behemoth with an array of legal and other tools at its disposal is easy.

After all, a brave journalist who raised questions about the outbreak of Hepatitis C in a hospital a few years ago was slated publicly for doing so, a much scarier prospect than those not used to an all-powerful government can imagine. But even with the caveats, the media seem to have given up the ghost more readily than usual.

The upshot is that some Singaporeans have had to turn to the noisy alternative online media or to foreign sources such as the South China Morning Post or Bloomberg for a better glimpse of reality.

A third thing is the social media posts of Ho Ching, who is married to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and heads state investment firm Temasek Holdings. Ho, ranked the world's 23rd most powerful woman in 2019 by Forbes, is an avid Facebook user who sometimes posts an astonishing 350 or more times a day. In January, she controversially advised those without hand sanitiser to improvise with mouthwash, adding that strong alcohol such as brandy, Mao-tai or vodka.

Earlier this month, she upset Taiwanese netizens and puzzled her fellow citizens by reacting to a donation of masks from Taiwan (which had previously banned such exports) to Singapore with a cryptic one word post, "Errr", which some interpreted as ungratefulness. She later elaborated and thanked Taiwan.

And this week, she unleashed another social media storm with her most enigmatic post to date: a string of laughter and emojis, a note that "the world can sometimes be very funny" and a promise of "more later as I'm rotfl" (rolling on the floor laughing). She later explained: "Was born a maverick " coming feet first instead of head first " so I guess irreverence is in my blood ..."

To many of her dedicated fans, the lightheartedness of "Madam Ho", as they fondly call her, was refreshing in a strait-laced society. However, many wondered about her well-being, and a few called her out for being tone deaf in an extremely dire situation.

A migrant worker living in a factory-converted dormitory watches videos on his phone as he serves his stay-home notice amid the Covid-19 outbreak in Singapore. Photo: Reuters

Fourth, the daily coronavirus updates provided by the government " over 1,000 new cases on average lately " also focuses one's mind on another aspect of life here: the line between the people who call Singapore home and the migrant workers who build those homes.

Prime Minister Lee recently pledged to them: "We will care for you, just like we care for Singaporeans." But before the pandemic, the 280,000 migrant workers in the construction sector were largely invisible to citizens, seen by many as second class if seen at all. After the second wave of infections, the daily updates divided the new cases into two groups: these low-wage workers and "the community". No longer so invisible, they are now fenced off from the rest of us, many literally so in dormitories declared "isolation areas". Again, two parallel universes.

Yesterday at my neighbourhood shopping centre everything was eerily closed except for the hawker centre and a couple of restaurants. Singapore shares this and other similarities with cities in suspension elsewhere " including citizen-led mutual help initiatives, the sacrifices of health care workers, and the generosity of people giving to charity at record levels.

Yet I have the distinct feeling that there is perhaps no other place on Earth where life is split so acutely and strangely. Between a thing and its name, between what needs to be spoken and what is said, between most of us and the others among us, and between "us" and "them". If that is not surreal, I don't know what is.

Tan Tarn How is a playwright and children's author. He blogs at tantarnhow.wordpress.com

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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