Today’s class featured two guest speakers who each taught us about a different city during the 20^th century. I’m going to focus on the city of Singapore, which we learned about from Doctor Ng. Singapore is a tiny peninsula in Southeast Asia, but despite its size it is extremely urbanized. The British Empire recognized the economic potential of Singapore because the region was home to many spices which were both rare and expensive at the time, so in the early 1800’s they annexed Singapore as a Crown Colony. Singapore’s convenient location and access to waters for global trade made it a very successful colony economically. Due to the high traffic of trade through Singapore, it became a melting pot for several different peoples. There were the indigenous people of Singapore, who had inhabited the land since before the British had acquired it, Chinese people who came to Singapore for economic opportunity, and of course the British colonizers. Singapore is a prime example of many of the themes we have discussed from the early 1900’s. The colony was a direct result of globalization, and the British’s Eurocentric views led them to believe that Singapore was up for grabs, even though it was already inhabited by the indigenous people. After learning about Singapore at the dawn of the 20^th century, I can’t help but see some similarities shared between the United States and Singapore with concern to the “melting pot” that occurred in each place. Also, women in both places were searching for more individual opportunity and freedom. Although this search was rudely interrupted by World War One, it’s interesting that similar themes are visible in two very unrelated places.