Singapore is significant to Rebecca because Colonel Julyan boasts about his knowledge of the Far East. In Chapter 21, while making small talk, he talks about how he spent five years in China then Singapore. In the early twentieth century, Singapore was a British colony. Sir Stamford Raffles first landed on and established the island as a trading post for the British East India Company in 1826. Trading of rubber and tin boomed in 1869 when the Suez Canal opened. However, when the Great Depression hit, the country suffered greatly. Biblioasia, a website produced by the National Library of Asia, writes, "Between 1929 and 1932, the value of Singapore’s rubber exports declined by 84 percent and tin by 68 percent. This contrasted with the period 1921 to 1925, when rubber exports rose by 384 percent and tin by 74 percent" (Seow). In Rebecca, Colonel Julyan also talks about how Singapore has the best curry and English curry does not compare. Curry, specifically fish head curry, was a very popular dish in the country. A report exploring Singapore's history through cuisine discusses the popularity of fish head curry. They find during the early 1930s, "Fish head dishes prepared by Chinese hawkers and eateries, suggesting there was a market for this type of protein..." (Pakiam et al.). Both these sources come from an academic article. This location illustrates how extensive British power was because Singapore was a British colony at the time and a lot of it was under British rule. Mapping this location on COVE reveals both how the novel's real geography grounds its atmosphere and how this place connects the novel to Britain's wider colonial and economic history.
Bibliography
Research: Singapore’s Experience of the Great Depression | BiblioAsia, (PDF) Culinary Biographies: Charting Singapore's History Through Cooking and Consumption. Final Report for the National Heritage Board of Singapore, October 2020., A history of Singapore: a timeline of events