The only thing strange about choosing Xiamen in China's Fujian province, or Amoy as it is called in the local Hokkien dialect, for a holiday destination is the fact that I never thought of going earlier.
After all, the southern port city and its surrounding area is where many Hokkien Singaporeans, including my paternal great-grandparents, emigrated from.
Yet, compared to high-profile Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the small city of 2.6 million was not high on my list of travel destinations, until I started looking for a relaxing but culturally interesting getaway for a short year-end trip.
Though I was conscious that it was a 'homecoming' of sorts, the trip did not result in any life-changing revelations in that area. As a Singaporean, I have never felt I was missing a part of my Chinese identity.
What did strike me, however, was how civic-conscious Xiamen society is, especially in contrast to other mainland Chinese cities. For example, people spitting in the streets, while still an occurrence, is markedly low, as is smoking and shoving.
It also has tall, shiny skyscrapers and although there is no subway system, there is an efficient bus system which functions much the same way.
As my travel companion, who spent a semester studying in Beijing and has travelled extensively in the country, put it: 'Xiamen gives me hope that China can one day become civilised.'
Of course, this was said tongue-in-cheek - China has a long and proud history of civilisation, to say the least, but it is fair to say that residents of this Special Economic Zone appear more sophisticated and genteel than their peers in more closed-off and poorer parts of the country.
But I did not leave a clean, modern Asian city just to enjoy another Asian city's cleanliness and modernity. Unlike Singapore, Xiamen is blessed with beautiful natural scenery, with tree-covered mountains and gorgeous sea views. The weather, while warm, is not muggy.
Architecture-wise, it boasts grand and well-preserved colonial mansions, especially on Gulangyu, an island which was a foreign concession from the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 until World War II. It is now a popular island for recreation similar to Sentosa, except with vastly better scenery both natural and man-made.
Gulangyu island
Meanwhile, travellers looking for 'authentic' grit and grime will love taking snapshots of the streets of the Old Town, lined with picturesquely dilapidated shophouses with cluttered walkways, a far cry from the garishly painted and somewhat sanitised look of many shophouses in Singapore.
All this was not surprising to me due to research I did before the trip. But the one thing I never expected was to go to China and discover a city that, in some ways, is more advanced than Singapore in terms of urban planning and lifestyle.
For example, all its public buses are equipped with automated announcements stating the name of every stop and the upcoming one. Bus schedules are clearly marked with the next stop listed, so that there is no doubt as to which direction the route is running in. Best of all, the buses actually appear to run on time.
But what truly impressed me was how much effort the city puts into being environmentally friendly. The first indication of this was how the numerous rubbish cans at street corners come in pairs - one for recyclable material and one for waste - even off the main streets.
The second indication was how rarely I was offered a plastic bag with my purchases, unless I had bought multiple items or something bulky. The one time I asked for a plastic bag at a supermarket, as I had several purchases, I was told to pay 2 cents for it, which I did happily.
It was a refreshing change from Singapore where your purchases, no matter how small or few, are routinely tossed into a plastic bag before you can even say no. I have even encountered cashiers who, upon being told the bag was not necessary, actually throw it away rather than use it for the next customer.
True, I might perhaps have a rose-tinted view of Xiamen due to one pleasant week I spent there, and no doubt someone who lives there 365 days a year will have plenty of grouses. But I must admit that, at times, while in Xiamen, I found myself wishing Singapore would learn a thing or two from the city which many of our ancestors came from.
A surprise did await me, however, when I got home and started reading up even more on Xiamen. Remember those shophouses? In Xiamen, I had assumed that this style of shophouse, with three floors and a covered walkway in front, had originated in Xiamen and was brought to Singapore and Malaysia by Hokkien immigrants.
But according to Everyday Modernity In China (2006), edited by Madeleine Yue Dong and Joshua Goldstein, it was the Chinese immigrants who ended up returning to China, or 'huaqiao', who actually introduced the 'qilou' to Xiamen in the early 20th century, 'styled after Southeast Asian architecture'.
The Chinese Diaspora (2003), edited by Laurence J.C. Ma and Carolyn Cartier, concurs: 'Straits-Chinese-style architecture exists only in Malaysia and Singapore, and to a much lesser degree in Xiamen, China, as a result of returned overseas Chinese who redeveloped central Xiamen in the 1920s and 1930s using the architectural designs of the Straits Settlements.'
In Sir Stamford Raffles' Town Plan of 1822, the founder of Singapore ruled that shophouses must have a covered walkway of about 5 feet wide along its street front, meant to shield pedestrians from the sun and rain.
He probably never expected his practical invention to make its way to China. But in this globalised day and age, influence is far from a one-way street.
And who knows, perhaps one day, Singapore will get the hang of the whole plastic bag thing after all.
ysteph@sph.com.sg
This article was first published in The Straits Times on Nov 21, 2008.
