Singapore's Smoking Samsui Woman Controversy Through a Web Developer's Eyes

The story I'm about to talk about today, is pretty old, at least in the news cycle context. It happened more than a month back, and the incident is fast fading from public consciousness. It's taken me at least that long to come to terms with it, and understand why certain elements of the case offended me on such a profound level.

To anyone who doesn't want to beat this particular dead horse, I more than understand; go play with another ball of wool and watch some funny cat videos while I unpack this.

What happened

The owner of a building in Chinatown had hired an artist, one Sean Dunston, to paint a mural on the exterior wall. Dunston decided to paint a tribute to some of the pioneers of Singapore, the Samsui woman. To that end, he produced a work covering the wall, of a young, slender woman in the blue work clothes and red hat of the quintessential Samsui uniform, smoking a cigarette.

From Google Maps

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) issued an order to the owner of the building to remove the cigarette from the mural, as the depiction of smoking on a public-facing wall contravened the Singapore Government's stand on advertisements for tobacco products and smoking.

The URA also cited feedback form an unnamed member of the public. In Sean Dunston's original Instagram post, this was an excerpt from their correspondence. 

We wish to bring to your attention that URA has received feedback on the mural from a member of public. The feedback received is as follows - "We find this mural offensive and is disrespectful to our samsui women. The woman depicted in this mural looks more like a prostitute than a hardworking samsui woman."

Cringe, man. Massive cringe. More on that later.

The URA then followed up by saying that the mural would have to be changed, or the restaurant which operated in this building would have its temporary license revoked.

Reactions

It was a heady mixture of scorn and disbelief that anyone could mistake a simple picture of a female laborer sitting down and enjoying a cigarette as the come-hither soliciting pose of a prostitute. There were those who opined that the cigarette, while possibly too modern (in those times, it was more likely to be of the hand-rolled variety), was absolutely a feasible historical representation of the quintessential Samsui woman.

No artistic freedom?

There were those who expressed concerns about artistic freedom in Singaporean society.

And yes, those who actually thought that the Samsui woman absolutely did look like a prostitute. This weirdness thankfully seemed to be at a minimum, though I have suspicions that these were basically just civil servants in subtle damage control mode trying to make the URA's instruction seem reasonable.

The Association of Women For Action And Research (AWARE), perhaps feeling the need to appear relevant, also weighed in with some garbage about perpetuating "a male gaze", and then backtracked later. 

What really offended me, and why

Now, the actual opinion of the Samsui woman looking like a prostitute, though I'm thoroughly dumbfounded by that, wasn't by itself offensive. I'm not offended by the fact that people have opinions, and that often these opinions don't match mine. That's a fact of life, and, where subjective topics such as art and morality are concerned, par for the course.

What did offend me was that the civil servant who drafted the URA's response, saw fit to include the feedback of that one member of the public, and acted as though this inclusion was ample justification for their decision. Who was this one anonymous person whose opinion held so much weight? Was it their own opinion which they then passed off as some fictional other person's? Was it their mother-in-law? Some random Karen passer-by? Our newly minted Prime Minister Lawrence Wong? Our President, Tharman Shanmugaratnam? Which individual, out of Singapore's population of over 5 million, has enough clout to speak for all of us on this matter? We'll never know, because the URA also decided not to disclose their identity.

Our mysterious art critic.

The fact that the URA gave such a nonsensical reason as justification, is insulting; even more insulting than if they had not deigned to give a reason at all. It smacked of the good old heavy-handed, "I have the authority to do this, just take it and be grateful I even bothered to give you a reason, peasants."

This irks me due to similar experiences I've had in web development. Clients somehow seem to think that the fact that they pay for a website entitles them to say things that don't make any kind of logical sense. Buddy, you paid for a website. You didn't pay for the ability to redefine reality.

"This color scheme makes me feel moody. This needs to be more vibrant." It's been decades, but I don't think the technology to create a website based on subjective feelings, exists in any part of the world.

"I don't like this. Let's redo it." Pretty sure that in order to get anywhere, we'll need something a lot more concrete than "I don't like it". But for some mystifying reason, people confuse web developers with mind readers.

"I asked my friend what he thought and he didn't like the layout." Again, who is this "friend"? The imaginary childhood kind? Or at least some authority in the field of web design? Also, doesn't it occur to them that the website isn't actually meant for them (or their friends), but their target audience?

The URA response was a great example of the kind of out-of-touch correspondence that reeked of arrogance. The sort of arrogance that genuinely expects not to be ridiculed for providing such a laughable response. The sort of arrogance that comes with having precious little experience in justifying oneself, or worse, offering something rather more convincing than "because I said so". The sort of arrogance so cartoonish that it borders on comedy.

The similarities of this case to my previous experiences as a web developer - vague subjective objections, feedback from anonymous unrelated person cited and all - were pretty triggering by themselves. But at the same time, I fervently hope that this isn't the quality we can expect of our civil servants.

Many Asians have older relatives that expect to be taken seriously (even when they talk nonsense) simply because they're older, dammit. The URA, similarly, seems to be afflicted with the kind of characters that expect to be taken seriously (even when they talk nonsense) simply because they're the URA, dammit. 

So yes, I'm dismayed at the URA's response. I'm also annoyed that it took Dunston raising a stink on Instagram and the subsequent public outcry, for the URA to get their collective heads out of their asses. 

Epilogue

The mural of the Samsui Woman was allowed to remain unchanged; however the owner of the building was fined a modest 2000 SGD for contravening the regulations. This seems like a good compromise. 

And hopefully, the URA has learned a PR lesson from this; or better still, properly educated the civil servant in question. Singapore can do better; indeed, if we want to continue punching above our weight, we need to.

Your moural authority,
T___T