Orderly Singapore sparkles, but the fling's with Beijing

Temperatures have hit the searing 30s, construction sites drone, spewing dust into the air, and families descend on shopping malls for quality weekend time with free air-conditioning. It may sound like summer in Beijing, but it's not.

This week I'm in Singapore, the tiny city-state on the tip of the Malay Peninsula rarely featured in international news.

Most Chinese have a vague geographical notion of Singapore, which takes up but one syllable in the tripartite of Southeast Asian country names that rolls off the tongue - "Have you been to Xinmatai?" - for "Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand".