"But if we succeed," wrote the anthropologist Lévi-Strauss, "in getting to know foreign societies better, we at least provide ourselves with the means to detach ourselves from our own, not because it is the only one that is absolutely bad, but because it is the only one from which we need to gain distance." This book is based on two years of field research in Singapore. I owe the successful completion of this research primarily to numerous Singaporeans, to whom I am deeply grateful. Not only because they conveyed their perspective on their society to me, but also because through the mosaic pieces of numerous interviews, information, and discussions over time, a picture of Singaporean reality emerged that not only revised my notions of Singapore but also my perception of my own society.