Lionel Barnard, head of the Hwachong Humanities scheme, described this to a bunch of wide-eyed J1s in 2003: When the great American economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrapped up his TV series about his theory of economics, which demonstrated that Big and Benevolent Government was Beautiful, his final clinching argument was embodied in the city-state of Singapore. For the final episode, he ascended into a helicopter and filmed the island of Singapore from a bird’s eye view, a glinting metropolis in the tropics of Asia. No doubt the beauty of the HDB blocks dotting the emerald isle was breath-taking. A decade or so later, in 2006 or 2007, a Singaporean poet attended Harvard University, where she was invited to a Christmas party by her host mum, Nancy Sinsabaugh, at the house of Valerie Epps, a professor of Law who had married Harvard’s first black Dean. There, she met Kitty Galbraith, the economist’s wife, to whom she related the story of hearing the story of the making of the TV series. “You know, poor John had to have three copies of the exact same outfit made for that shoot,” she croaked, her eyes gleaming with this recollection from a far land she remembered visiting. “It was so hot, and he was sweating the whole time like a pig, and it took three whole days to get that shoot right, so he had to have two copies of his suit made. In the closet at our hotel room we had absolutely nothing, except for three identical outfits – just to get it right.” first published http://judithhuang.com/blog/?p=1585