A little insanity could just be the medicine the doctor ordered for Singapore, as Yeoh Siew Hoon observes at the first Skydiving Festival.

I am getting a bit concerned about Singapore's sanity these days.

Last Friday, someone base-jumped off its tallest hotel, the Swissotel The Stamford, for thrills. And over the weekend, hundreds of people jumped off a helicopter, again for thrills.

The occasion? The first ever Skydiving Festival in Singapore.

Now in case you are wondering what's the big deal, well, let me tell you it IS a big deal in Singapore to me, definitely a bigger deal than the recently-allowed bar-top dancing, which is more titillating than thrilling.

I mean, to skydive needs an adventurous, almost, insane spirit while to dance on bar-tops merely need lots of alcohol.
Think Dutch courage versus the real courage that is needed to jump off a moving helicopter at 10,000 feet.

One of those brave or foolhardy enough, depending on how you look at it, to take the plunge was Lim Neo Chian, the chief executive and deputy chairman of the Singapore Tourism Board, who did a tandem jump.

Lim hopes the festival will become a regular fixture on the Singapore events calendar.

He believes having such a festival will do wonders for Singapore's image. For one, it would shatter old notions of that Singapore is nothing but a safe, clean and green city and for another, it would associate Singapore with urban adventure – an image it is trying to cultivate with other activities such as the G-MAX Reverse Bungy attraction at Clarke Quay.

And while he hopes that such an event will attract foreign tourists, he confesses that his immediate ambition is getting more Singaporeans to jump, especially young kids, as his daughter did.

"Imagine the confidence boost it would give young people," he said. "It would get them out of the comfort zone, and get them to look at things differently."
He is right.

As I watched hundreds of ordinary folks strap themselves to a tandem master and take the leap of faith that day, I couldn't help but observe that skydiving is, in many ways, the physical equivalent of what Singapore is trying to do as a nation, to ensure it stays relevant and competitive in the new world order.

Over the last few years, the government has been loosening up on rules, but you cannot "uncondition" nearly four decades of conditioning in a couple of years.

People, as we well know, take longer to change than rules.

The new Prime Minister, in his maiden address to the nation, is encouraging Singaporeans to speak up. But years of censorship have led to self-censorship, and it will take a while before people get used to the idea of expressing themselves.

Skydiving, on the other hand, is easier. To do a tandem jump, all you have to do is to close your eyes and jump (or be pushed off the plane). The master does the rest, really, because when you are in free fall for 30 seconds, your brain gets too scrambled to remember any of the instructions you've been given.

Lim's first comment when his two feet were on solid earth was, "It was so fast I didn't know what was going on."
Sometimes that's the best way to approach life.

I celebrate Singapore's descent into madness. Makes it a greater place to live, and an even greater place to visit, as far as I am concerned.


The SHY Report
A regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry by one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, Yeoh Siew Hoon.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her company's mission is "Content, Communication, Connection". She is a writer, speaker, facilitator, trainer and events producer. She is also an author, having published "Around Asia In 1 Hr: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries". Her motto is ‘free to do, and be'.

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