JUNE 26 — Despite the ubiquitous tourist souvenir T-shirt declaring the city-state a "fine” city, Singapore is anything but fine. Nothing about this complex, well-run tiny country is neutral. People either love it or hate it.

And all the passionate blog posts, columns or forum rants will attest to this. One forum discussion in particular was pushed to the forefront this past week.

Titillatingly titled, "Why do people hate Singapore?” — the conversation showcased both ends of the spectrum from the disgusted citing completion, cost or lack of transparency to the die-hard fans declaring this Little Red Dot to be the bee’s knees.

The apogee of the latter perspective arrived when a self-declared ang-moh attracted nearly 100,000 views with his verbose (2,064 words!) passionate defense of my country.

I won’t bore you with the details but in short, he says that Singapore is the closest you can get to a near perfectly run country because he explains, amid all the freedom, the welfare, the "quality of life” that Singaporeans seem to admire about Scandinavian countries, he sincerely doubts that any person with the desire to be in a competitive, fast-paced, ultra modern, yet clean, safe and economically solvent country would have any other option other than Singapore.

He also goes on to explain that most of the complaints people have are no more than poorly researched uneducated whining.

"People need to understand one thing, if you want to demand the government to do something about your problems, please make sure you’ve done enough academic research about whether or not your problems are essential problems, or are they problems that are just characteristic of a modern metropolitan city, for if they are, there’s really no solution to many of those problems.”

You can read his full comment here: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-hate-Singapore.

A general view of the Orchard Ion shopping mall in Singapore June 2, 2016. — Reuters pic

And he is certainly entitled to his opinion although I find it impressively tone-deaf that as a white male, he feels he is well-positioned to declare Singapore free of racism and I question how much of his educated perspective is simply the view of a very privileged frog in a very comfortable well.

But these questions aside, I have a related theory on why people like this gentleman and so many others like him continually and constantly declare Singapore to be nothing short of awesome.

Well, in part — because it is. All the positives are undeniable. It is safe, clean, well-planned with good schools, a thriving economy and the unbeatable proposition of a $2.50 (RM7.56) chicken rice meal all day, everywhere.

The other reason why Singapore gleams to these ang-mohs and their ilk is because of our neighbours.

Obviously not on an individual level but in terms of governance — watching coup after coup in Thailand, or Malaysia inch (or lurch) towards Huddud laws, Indonesia stumble from one corruption scandal to the next is deeply frustrating.

Singapore looks so good because our neighbours are just so bad. A gleaming, squeaky clean beacon in a region still locked in the Third World, it’s an old narrative but one that is now more misguided than perceptive. The comfortable lead Singapore enjoys over its neighbouring countries and even more comparable neighbouring cities actually fuels some of the complacency and arrogance that I suspect holds the city back.

Why innovate, why reform, why adapt when you are already so far ahead? Why should our people complain when they have it so much better than their neighbours? Well because we, as Singaporeans, really want to work through the obvious problems — race, housing, transparency, free expression, and democratization — that prevent us from becoming a truly perfectly run country.

Let’s give the ang-mohs something to really write home about.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.