Why Singapore banned Chewing Gum

[News Article from 2015 by BBC News Magazine.]

Why Singapore banned chewing gum

28 March 2015

IMAGE SOURCE,THINKSTOCK

By Elle Metz
BBC News Magazine


Lee Kuan Yew, who died on Monday at the age of 91, is famed as the man who turned Singapore from a small port into a global trading hub. But he also insisted on tidiness and good behaviour - and personified the country's ban on chewing gum. What was it about gum he so disliked?

Opium in Singapore - the history and background

 Video: Hikelopedia's [Singapore and the "Scourge of the Chinese"]

Hotel New World 1986

1986 seems not very long ago.

But it is almost 40 years ago (as of this writing in 2024)

And there was the disaster that was Hotel New World.

"Operasi Pukul Habis" - National Day 1991. Malaysia plays a prank on Singapore

 

Comments on the video:

Flashback 1931 - Adopting Convent Children

[From Aug 2018]

An application to adopt a young English girl whose father has abandoned her and her brother, and whose mother has passed away due to "consumption" (Tuberculosis).

Singapore's First Tanks... and the story behind them

 

(Photo: Yusof Ishak Collection, Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore)

Why Did Singapore Fall (1942)

On the 15th of February 1942, Lt General Arthur Percival signed the largest surrender in British history at Singapore. The city was supposed to be a fortress, but his force of 85,000 men had been defeated by just 35,000 Japanese troops.

Little over 2 months earlier Japanese forces had invaded Northern Malaya. Thanks to their advanced tactics and training, the Japanese advanced with incredible speed pushing the unprepared British back to Singapore in a so-called 'bicycle blitzkrieg'. When they crossed the Johore straits and captured the Bukit Timah heights above Singapore itself, Percival was forced to surrender.

So how did the Japanese defeat a numerically superior force? Why wasn’t Singapore an impregnable fortress? And could the British have held out?