The Keynote of Singapore

"... plain, kind folk, hard at a bargain, not very cultured, perhaps, according to modern ideas, but British--oh, so British! That is the keynote of Singapore; never mind the swarming masses in the streets, yellow, black, and brown, or the chattering Babel of their many tongues--the place is British, stolid, prosperous, conservative, resentful of change, distrustful of enthusiasms, and commercial--above all, behind all, beyond all commercial."

- Roland St John Braddell,

One Hundred Years of Singapore, 1921,

Vol. 2, p. 466

It has been almost a century since Mr Braddell penned these words for the centenary of the founding of Singapore as a British trading settlement. I wonder how much we have changed since then?