Educational Media Reviews Online

Singapore-Malaysia: The Lion and the Tiger is a concise portrait of the interactions between these two nations at their border along the Johore Strait. It is part of the Frontiers series. Director Patrick Fléouter has also made films on Gibraltar, the Bolivia-Brazil border, and New York’s 96th street, and his concern with the ambiguous nature of borders and the people that cross them is apparent here.

The film documents the symbiotic relationship between the city-state of Singapore, the “Lion City” founded by the British as a colonial port, and its across-the-border twin city, Johor, which is part of Malaysia, whose symbol is the tiger. Under the British, Singapore attracted immigrants from across the region, predominantly Chinese, but also many from India, Indonesia, and other nations. When independence came in 1963, ethnic riots between Malays and Chinese led to the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. Singapore has since become the largest container port in the world, and one of the world’s great financial centers. At the same time, its wealth and limited space have created high costs and financial vulnerability, as low cost jobs are being outsourced to China and other countries. This has hurt not only Singapore, but Malaysia as well.

The film deftly tells the human side of this story through interviews with representatives of various classes of the society, shown in their homes and workplaces. A Malay family tells of their migration in the 1970s to Johor so that the husband could work the construction jobs that were plentiful in Singapore then. Now, the wife is the primary breadwinner, commuting to Singapore to work 12 hour night shifts in an electronics factory, while the husband is excluded from work by Singapore’s single work permit per family policy. A Singaporean Chinese man complains of the pressure to work and the burden of regulation in Singapore, having lost his job as an office manager after 25 years. Now he is self-employed in printing, while his wife works long hours at a pancake stand. Other interviews show a Singaporean Malay woman who is planning to marry an Indian, The couple discusses and exemplifies the decreasing levels of ethnic prejudice in Singapore.

While the interview comments and visuals are filled with telling details that illustrate the currents of economic and ethnic pressures that continue to shape the region, the film’s brevity does not allow for deeper exploration of the topic. The historical background is sketched in five minutes with archival footage, and the filmmaker did not probe his subjects with any extended questioning. Major events such as the Asian financial crisis of 1997 are not mentioned, although the timing of layoffs and plant closings mentioned in the film would suggest a connection. The views of the cities of Singapore and Johor are brief, but scenes of traffic jams at the border crossing and crowded but clean apartment buildings give a sense of life there. Although the film was completed in 2003, the latest date mentioned is the 1999 opening of a second bridge between the two cities. Technically, the film is of normal quality, with the exception of poor audio in a couple of the interviews. The viewer is left with an unsatisfied curiosity to know much more than what is shown here. However, this film does provide a good brief introduction to the Singapore region, and to some of the ethnic and economic dimensions of life there. It is recommended for academic libraries. By presenting multiple viewpoints in a concise manner, it could serve as a good stimulant for classroom discussions of globalization, migration, and ethnic relations.