Why Singapore banned chewing gum
Lee Kuan Yew , who died on Monday at the age of 91, is famed as the man who turned Singapore from a small port into a global trading hub. But he also insisted on tidiness and good behaviour - and personified the country's ban on chewing gum. What was it about gum he so disliked? For a while after the gum ban was introduced in 1992 it was all foreign journalists wanted to talk about, Lee Kuan Yew complained later, in conversation with US writer Tom Plate. That and caning, as a form of punishment. The ban remains one of the best-known aspects of life in Singapore, along with the country's laws against litter, graffiti, jaywalking, spitting, expelling "mucous from the nose" and urinating anywhere but in a toilet. (If it's a public toilet, you are legally required to flush it.) When Singapore became independent in 1965 it was a tiny country with few resources, so Lee, the country's first prime minister, hatched a survival plan. This hinged on mak