Johor Bahru, Malaysia & Singapore

I’ve been trying to keep myself busy on the days when I’m not teaching by exploring.  Last week took me to Johor Bahru, a Malaysian city just north of Singapore.  It’s reached by crossing the Strait of Johor via a causeway.  From my front door, it takes about one hour – when it’s all said and done – to be walking around in JB.  It’s actually much closer than one hour’s journey would lead you to believe.  The time is lost going through checkpoints, scanning passports, getting on and off your bus, and waiting in lines to be allowed to go through. 

          My mood was changed, for the worse, after wasting my time in immigration checkpoints to get in and out of each country.  Sure, it was inconsequential in the long run.  But to be a man who must go through the exercise each day!

Johor Bahru's accomodating entrance

          JB and Singapore have a very interesting relationship.  They give implicit consent on small issues, but they often butt heads, nay, smash heads, on the big ones.  Many low income workers from Malaysia travel through this hellish quagmire of border security every day to work in Singapore and then to return home to JB.   I can’t imagine the anguish of time lost within these gargantuan halls.  To these unfortunate workers, it is better to make a Singaporean wage and live in JB.  For Singaporeans, fed up with the prices of their decadent malls and shops (see previous post!), JB is a nice day trip for cheap clothes, food, and entertainment.  The nature of the flow of people and goods between the two is representative of the economic disparity between the countries in general.  One side sends its day-trippers for fun in the sun whilst the other sends its workers for a burning day of work.

Singapore's turreted immigration building.

          Though this tacit relationship is important for both, Malaysia and Singapore have never been the best of friends.  Singapore, standing up for its multiculturalism, left Malaysia in 1965 after Malaysia wanted to make “Malaysia for Malaysians” (at least that’s how Singaporeans explain it to me).  Singapore desperately needs Malaysia for its exports of water, as the Singaporean government imports upwards of %40 from its neighbours.  Malaysia does not like Singapore’s pole position on the Malaysian peninsula which gives Singapore a global port and control of the maritime boundaries southward.  The two periodically bicker about sea lanes, border claims, and the price of exported water.  Which have led to the creation of these two friendly looking buildings, the aforementioned immigration fortresses.

Anyhow, this is what I saw in JB:

A locked state building.

A Hindu temple. 

          
JB's old colonial era train station.