Some worry, however, that the island's unique patois known as Singlish could be lost, and with it an important cultural glue unifying the multiethnic, multi-religious city-state of 5.1 million people.
As anthropologist Scott Atran of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor points out, the benefits of holding such unfounded beliefs are questionable, in terms of evolutionary fitness.
Before Baidu expands, however, it needs to answer an obvious question in an age when even the most transparent of Internet companies are struggling to maintain the faith of their users.
These writers represent community as dynamic, as something that must be negotiated and renegotiated because of its members' divergent histories, positions, expectations, and beliefs.
Ms Begum's local education authority, Luton Borough Council, added that all schools would now be advised to take pupils' religion into account when imposing school uniform rules.