https://yanqian.github.io/topics/city-in-nature/Recent content in City-in-Nature on Armstrong YanHugoen-USFri, 17 Jul 2026 22:45:17 +0800https://yanqian.github.io/posts/publish/what-i-learned-from-three-trees-in-singapore/Fri, 17 Jul 2026 22:45:17 +0800https://yanqian.github.io/posts/publish/what-i-learned-from-three-trees-in-singapore/<p>When I first moved to Singapore, I kept noticing things about its trees that did not make sense to me.</p> <p>Singapore calls itself a City in Nature.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> Trees are everywhere: along roads, inside parks, outside shopping malls, around schools, and between HDB blocks.</p> <p>But on ordinary walks, I kept seeing scenes that felt contradictory.</p> <p>A large tree reduced to a stump.</p> <p>A small device attached to a tree trunk.</p> <p>A beautiful roadside tree pruned so hard that it almost looked wounded.</p>