The Republic of Singapore is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. Singapore is very global when it comes to education, entertainment, finance, healthcare, technology, tourism, trade and transport. The country is a multicultural society because it consists of a lot of different ethnicities, people have different beliefs and the unalike spoken languages there. There are four official languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and Malay.
Singapore has a dialect of the English language that is lingua franca, influenced by Chinese and Malay. It is also called Singaporean English. The people in the country is also known to another way of speaking which is called Singlish. Singlish and Singaporean English are different from each other, because one is more common to use everywhere, meanwhile the other is used only orally. Singapore English is not the same as Singlish. While the former is a variant of English, Singlish is a language on its own with a different grammatical structure. The reason why English is one of the official languages in Singapore, is because of past history in the country. The colony of Singapore was a British Crown colony that existed from 1946 until 1963, when Singapore became part of Malaysia. When the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies at the end of World War II, the island was handed back to the British in 1945. In 1946, together with other colonies, Singapore became its own crown colony.
Since the country is very multicultural, we can find different conflicts in the society. There are a lot of conficts about religious and ethnic matters. The schism between local Singaporeans and foreign workers marks something of a shift in Singapore´s ethnic relations. Historically, social tensions were seen as arising from relations between local ethnics groups, with the 1960s race riots between the Chinese and Malay populations being the most prominent example. Singapore has also tried their best to stay out of other countries quarrels and conflicts such as Iraq and Syria, adding that those battles are not fights for Singaporeans. This is all about keeping the harmony between the different races and religions, but it seems like people are unsure what or who to believe anymore.
Pao Kun Kuo
Pao Kun Kuo was a playwright, theatre director, and arts activist in Singapore who wrote and directed both Mandarin and English plays. He founded three arts and drama centres in Singapore, conducted and organised a number of drama seminars and workshops, and mentored Singaporean and foreign directors and artists. Kuo is acknowledged by both locals and foreigners as the pioneer of Singapore theatre, and was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1990 for his contributions to Singapore theatre. His plays are characterised for their dramatic and social commentary, use of simple metaphors and multiculturalism themes, and have been staged locally and internationally.
English Literature and Culture 