That’s the word ‘cosmopolitan’ – or the more colourful phrase, ‘a hub of ethnicity’.

My education in diversity happened in – of all places – the Singapore General Hospital (SGH)!

Actually few places can personify this city-state these days more than our hospitals – especially this one, which is the biggest.

Sadly as age catches up with me, natural laws seem to dictate that I visit this place more than I would have liked.

But every trip has its lessons and the latest one began at the SGH café.

Next to my lunch table were three men and a woman – in the 30s – who were speaking in rapid Arabic. They were probably from the Gulf States visiting close ones in one of the wards.

Serving the Arabs were a girl with a strong China accent and two Chinese chefs in immaculate white in the smallish kitchen.

As the lunch crowd thickened a food queue formed, and it included two Western doctors and a Filipino lab assistant.

A little later at the Renal Clinic, I encountered two young dark-complexion girls speaking in a dialect I could not understand. I asked one of them if she was Burmese, and she replied, “No. Yunnan (China).”

She was learning simple English phrases handwritten in an exercise book. Haltingly answering my questions, she told me she had arrived three months ago with a friend to seek treatment.

At the reception, I watched a local staff member struggling to communicate with a Bangladeshi who could only speak his own language.

Later at Urology, four Arabs accompanied an elderly gentleman in flowing Saudi-type robes to keep an appointment.

All these had occurred within a period of four hours. How life has changed! Ten years ago, I would not have such an experience.

The hospital is a microcosm of a Singapore that is increasingly foreign – demographically speaking.

Thanks to the Medical Hub strategy (sorry, another cliché), which means plenty of foreign patients and foreign doctors and staff.

Of Singapore’s 4.68 million population, more than 1 million are foreigners and another 700,000 more are estimated to be permanent residents (PRs), or foreigners who have not become citizens, while Singaporean citizens (by birth or nationalisation) make up the rest of around 3 million.

This means that one out of three people in Singapore today are foreigners (including PRs).

(The government rarely gives an exact number of PRs, let alone the breakdown of their origin).

At Orchard Road or other popular shopping areas, a visitor can get a whiff of the vibrancy and diversity of this fastest globalising city in the world.

On the morning of this writing, newspaper headlines include the following:

> Temasek Holdings has appointed one of Sweden’s top business leaders, Marcus Wallenberg, to its board.

> American Ron Widdows takes over the helm of Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), one of the world’s biggest container shipping firms, from Flemming Jacobs of Denmark.

> An Indian national is jailed for 16 years (plus 16 strokes) for stabbing two maids and his ex-girlfriend’s father, who had refused to let him court his daughter.

> Demand for public HDB (Housing Development Board) flats had risen because of increased demand by PRs; and finally;

> Foreigners are producing badly needed babies, with non-Singaporean fathers accounting for 25% of the newborn babies here.

In the financial pages, there is a worrying buzz in town that some of the 65,000 American and European bankers who have lost their jobs are heading to get jobs here.

Elsewhere Indians cut hair for S$3 (RM7.17), compared to S$10 (RM23.90) charged by Singaporeans. And China students and Bangladeshi construction workers join the local needy to queue up for free meals at temples.

We have little pockets of Africans and Nepalese. Some fake monks from Myanmar and Thailand beg for alms, and Indonesians from Batam sell smuggled cigarettes.

Recently, Singaporeans in Tampines heartland were shocked to see a ‘white man’ – a Hungarian – kneeling on the street and begging from passers-by.

These are, however, small exceptions rather than the rule. The majority of workers or immigrants come to seek the Singaporean Dream just like our forefathers did in centuries past.

They are mostly honest and hardworking, possessing the drive of an immigrant class. They outwork and out-study most Singaporeans.

Probably reflecting the sentiments of many employers, one manager said, “Please don’t say they steal local jobs. In my experience they are ready to do the work the locals wouldn’t touch; they work harder, longer for less pay.”

The overall impact has been an economically and socially flourishing Singapore.

This mass of diverse humanity is adding to the island’s boom. Demographically, statistics has made their arrival inevitable.

Last year, the continuing hot economy created nearly 100,000 jobs where only 39,000 babies were delivered.

The fact is that the arrival of such large numbers to our shores has mildly panicked many Singaporeans. Nine out of 10 told a survey they feared losing jobs to them.

One surfer said recently, “Singaporeans are not against having them; only against policies that treat PRs better than us, like exemption for national service.”

Worried about a backlash, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on Thursday said Singapore must keep a “vital core” of people born and bred here to 65%.

Given the low birth rate, that could effectively kill off any more talk of a seven million population.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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