Official Business

Today I went to the U.S. Embassy in Singapore which was the first time I’ve ever been to any U.S. Embassy ever. It felt strange getting into a cab and saying “U.S. Embassy” like I was on some type of official business… that feeling what shattered when the driver grunted ‘hhuh!?’
“The United States’ Embassy.”
“Oh, American!”
“Yes… American”
“Can.” … and we were off to the American Embassy.
The embassy here in Singapore is basically designed to look like a fort, very square, crenellation on the walls, built out of big cement blocks, guys out in front with machine guns. It’s a good thing we built such a terrifying structure in a dangerous country like Singapore. The thing was definitely built to intimidate and if I weren’t a citizen I think I would definitely dread going in. Instead I guess I had some idea that I could just walk in as a U.S. citizen, feel comfortable, get my extra visa pages then leave. This was not the case… I was really shocked by the amount of security they had at the building. There were two sets of locking doors I had to pass through while having my belongings sent through x-ray and detained before I could walk through a metal detector and up a hallway to a second metal detector. Finally I got to the lobby where a guard who had been radioed ahead knew exactly the purpose of my visit and directed me to the correct waiting room. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I were a foreign citizen…. Though I did see that were made to wait outside under a tent before being called up to the first security house to start the same process I went though (at least as a citizen you can skip the line and move right to the front).
Anyway, the actual process of getting the extra pages in my passport was pretty fast once I got though security. The short wait while they did the processing was interesting though. Living in Singapore as a white person is strange especially when you see another white person walking down the street. It seems that you should have some connection…like maybe you should talk and maybe you could be friends even though it’s just a random person and you assume they speak English (because everyone in Singapore does) and maybe they’re from your same town... Instead I just continue to walk and feel relieved once we’ve passed each other. Sitting in the waiting room at the embassy is even worse because you know all those people are from the U.S. you feel like you should talk with them. Instead I had no interest in talking with any of them or fining out what they were doing in Singapore. Some of the side chatter was pretty shocking…about how Dick Cheney‘s gotten such a bad rapp with the press for shooting his friend in the face., and how Rove and Cheney allegedly leaking the identity of a CIA operative wasn’t worth investigating. I just wanted to get out of there which I was able to do after only about a 15minute wait.