When I was 15 years old, my dad informed us that he had been promoted and we were moving to Singapore. I had no idea where Singapore was, or how long we would live there. He brought home some books so we could begin studying the new country we were moving to. There were some tears shed because we were leaving our childhood friends behind. Still, the mystery of the place intrigued me.
I poured over those books everyday. I showed them to my friends and shrugged my shoulders when they asked me if I could learn an asian language. The one thing that surprised me were how many strict laws Singapore had:
- It is against the law to use a public toilet and not flush it.
- It is against the law to spit in public.
- It is against the law to cross a street outside of the pedestrian's access.
There were many more rules. The "infamous" banning of chewing gum only occured when I was already living in Singapore. I don't remember being bothered by it. Other kids at my school (International School of Singapore) prided themselves in smuggling chewing gum into the country, and stories were passed around of glum-looking tourists (they were usually American) being stopped by the police because they were breaking the law.
From then onwards I stopped chewing gum and I've never looked back.
Today, I'm starting my march for the banning of chewing gum in Britain. Singaporeans were right: chewing gum is evil and everyone who indulges in it is a criminal.
I am drafting a letter to my local MP with the suggestion that anyone who chews gum should be put to death - especially the ones who leave chewing gum on park benches so they will get stuck on people's office trousers and completely ruin them.
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