Where in the bloody hell is he?

I'm in the colonies -- Singapore, actually, and Singapore is not part of China. Singapore is far south of China. Singapore is a very small nation. It is an island nation, and the city of Singapore composes the entire nation that is Singapore. It’s a city-nation-state. My Singaporean friends tell me that Westerners always think Singapore is part of China. In a way, that’s not a completely uninformed guess, as China does have some special city-states that were former Western colonies – Macao and Hong Kong – and Singapore herself is a former colony city-state. And the majority of the population in Singapore is of Chinese descent -- as in, part of the Chinese Diaspora. But young Singaporeans speak English very well. It is their first language. The schools here are good. That’s why I came. 

Can you picture the place now? One degree above the equator, snuggled between Malaysia and Indonesia, composed of nothing but a big island and a few smaller islands, ships with goods manufactured in China have to pass through the Strait of Malacca, near Singapore, to get to the Suez Canal and on to Europe; likewise, so does oil from Arabia bound for China; this makes it strategically placed, and this is where I am. I’ll be home for Christmas.