A Singaporean In Australia

Hi Nix,

Yup, I did exactly the same thing as MJ. I took almost all my savings from my 2 years of work after graduation to come NZ. Although I differ from u & MJ, as I hire the services of a immigration agent to help me through the paperwork and process last August. Been planning for a move since then though now that I seen your journey, I would say your path would be the better one, as I can take on any job compared to now where I need to get a job in their skilled migrant category.


In fact, I was very surprised to read abt MJ situation on your blog just before I fly off as it's quite similar to mine. Help me wish him all the best.


My exact situation now is that I'm in NZ on a 6 months working holiday visa, during this time, i need to find a job to qualify me for their work visa under their skilled migrant category. The working holiday visa is meant for employer to give me a contract job first while the application for the work visa is processed, so that meant that I can in fact start work right away instead of waiting. If by 6 months, I still cannot find a job to qualify for their skilled migrant visa, I would have to return to Singapore and plan again, maybe searching for a different path.


As for what's happening to Singapore and the young, I have my personal view on it and it could be quite extreme for most people. Personally, I think it's too late for Singapore liao. We lost the chance to get back our country from the PAP in last year election. Our country is going down the path of no return and she will be lost in maybe 50 years, either collapse internally, or taken over from the inside by China or India. Quite extreme I must say.


As for the young, I think after they go through the education system (seeing the foreign scholarship crap) or out working (seeing the FT matter), they would lose their sense of belonging. In fact, I know of a lot of my friends planning to retire in other places, not in Singapore. They see Singapore as the place to earn money only. Some even want to migrate but because of family, friends, other issues stopping them, they didn't go about to take that big step.



I'm ok with u publishing my leap of faith for I hope it may aspire more ppl to share their experiences though I like to keep my name private for now. Just use J to describe me can liao.


Yeah, let's keep in contact and share our experiences. In fact, I think I have a lot to learn from u and others who came before us. For me, I just finding my way around Auckland after arriving here on the 15th March. Tomorrow I'll be starting my job search, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


I have started a blog too but it's still work in process and definitely not the same level as yours. It's more of a straight reporting of my day only. hahaha... Below is the link to my blog but please keep it to yourself for now. I want to put more posts n change my writing style before I go public.


I'm hampered by the fact that I need to watch my data usage over in New Zealand, so will take sometime for the blog to take shape. hahaha..

Cheers,

J



Hi J,

I've read your blog and found it more exciting than reading my own.
NZ is indeed a beautiful place, admittedly nicer than Perth.
I'll be looking forward to introduce your blog to whoever who reads mine when you are ready.
Before that I'll probably share your story the way you prefer, with your name as J only.
I'm just wonder why do you have these 'extreme' views about the future of Singapore and how do peers around your age view your sentiments?

Hi Nix,

Thank you for your kind and wonderful view for my blog. With our different situations, I’m much more mobile since I’m alone here and I have my savings to fall back on though I’m trying to stretch it the best I can so I can stay the full 6 months of my visa and hopefully be successful in getting a permanent job for that elusive work visa.


Hmmm, I think both places have their good points. Western Australia have their own pluses though maybe you need to travel further to reach them given how big Australia is. I had fun when I was there on a 2 weeks backpacking trip during my university days.


Personally, I feel that it’s just a simple reporting of my day which anybody can do. What I hoping to do with my blog is to emulate yours, by presenting my views out, in addition to reporting of my travels, yet I still find it hard to put my own thoughts down as years under the education system had hinder my independent thoughts but I’m going to give my best.


Right now, for my blog to be ready, I need to solve 2 matters. The first I already solved, which you may have noticed, the photos on my blog. It is kinda irritating to see my photos cropped out by wordpress. Managed to find out it’s a dimension issue, so just need to resize them and I’m currently in the process of doing it for my earlier posts.


The next matter would be what I mentioned earlier, putting my thoughts down into words. I would like to be able to explain to others why I’m doing these, why I choose New Zealand and of course, my take on Singapore current affairs. Hopefully, by the end of this month, I should be able to put up some posts on these and be ready.


Hmmmm.. How did I come about my “extreme views”? It’s kinda like an enlightenment though it’s gradual at the start before it snap for me I guess. A look into my life story may give a hint. I’m just a normal guy, happy schooling and such during primary school days. In fact, I’m able to perform under the education system of ours though it changed during secondary school when I’m unable to sustain the passion for learning. I feel forced to learn stuff and exams become a pain but still I went through the system and still managed to performed well enough to get along the good path most parents would like their children to go through but I’m not good enough for the scholar path though. Hahaha… My views of the education system took another dip during my JC days. First will be the change in university admission: My batch was the first and only batch that they introduce SAT and make it compulsory and I remember clearly, MOE saying that SAT is different from the A levels and it will help the education system be more varied, something along this line. I say it’s bullshit because it became just another exams papers and the JC started to conduct classes on how to do well in the SAT. Anyway, in the end, the next batch, SAT was made non-compulsory though it will still be considered given the batch before me was in JC1 when we took ours A level. But I must admit, SAT could have help me get into university given my A level results was not that good.


Second thing would be how some of my classmates prepared for the A levels, esp the girls in my class. The focus of their studies was on the core subjects, maths chemistry and physics. GP and chinese weren’t that impt since the points they constitute in university admission is low. It end up with them scoring good grades for the core subjects while barely pass GP. I have to admit, they played the system well but I don’t agree with this kind of studying.


So anyway, with that, I went into army. In fact, at that time, I still feel that Singapore was great, maybe my grouse against the education system is just a minor issue. Afterall, it was 2003 then, Singapore were not this crowded with the FTs yet, things were still running smoothly. In fact, I was very gungho about doing my part in NS, even wanting to sign on. Luckily, my parents advise me to finish my degree first before deciding. Great advice from them because I see the truth about our system (I go more into detailed later). I trained hard n push my men hard in army, looking down on those who tried to slack their way through the 2+ years. (My batch was the batch when they announce it will cut short the 2.5yrs to 2 yrs NS). Back then, I’m young and my eyes were not opened yet.


So upon entering university, I started to take more notice of current affairs as I’m of voting age soon. I came upon the blog by Lucky (singaporemind.blogspot.com), not sure if u heard of him but his posts on Singapore current affairs were top notch and superb, you should check it out.. Initially, when I found his blog, his writing style was towards satire (like mr brown) but it does set me thinking. His style had changed in the past years, becoming more vocal and straightforward of the failings of the govt. I found yawning bread, temasek review, online citizen etc. Year 1 & 2 of my uni life was still fine, I’m able to work with all the foreign students but I starting to observe their numbers, in school or in public.


Things snap for me when I went for my industrial attachment in my 3rd year. I did it with a Singaporean girl and a china scholar (thanks to our govt). Even the company was full of FT, Malaysian, prcs etc. That china scholar shows the worst of their countrymen, the worst traits you would associate with them. He had it all. To rub salt into my wound, he even discuss abt breaking his bond after graduation with the prcs ppl working at the company, asking them for help n advice, though not openly in front of me. We have a prc supervisor at the company and our prof was a prc too. I suspect he scored well for it since in foreign lands, countrymen always look out for each other, this is human nature. To make it much worse, I learnt from my conversation with him that our govt gave scholarships to some who were already in their 3rd or 4th years uni over in china to come here to start all over again and the education system there was faster than ours, so our year 1 subjects was a repeat for them. The sheer injustice of the system n how our govt is doing it snap me. I started to look more deeply into their announcement, I distrust the straits times and with guidance from bloggers that is able to explain what’s wrong clearly (though I’m not prone to tabloids), I slowly came to see the ugliness of our govt and their distorted presentation of history. Needless to say, my views of prcs tumbled to the pits n recently, even my views of India Indians started to turn for the worse too.


I also questioned some of their policies like the high pay (I personally believe, if a person is corrupt, no matter how much you pay, the person will still turn in the end. Though I doubt it matter much since some of our corruptions are already legalised. This raise another point for me, if I say this views out, I won’t be surprised that I’ll be attending a coffee sessions with ISA or get sued my pants off. If this happen to me, what about my family and friends? Will something happen to them too due to their association with me? This is ridiculous. I living in Singapore, why do I have to be scared of these?), the ERP (If my memories don’t fail me, when they announce the ERP, the govt mentioned that it’ll replace the COE in the future since ppl pay when they used to road, so no need to control the cars liao, but somehow, both stayed and become money spinner for the govt), FT & scholarship system which I experienced first hand, how they like to do selective comparison to put forward their policies (pure bullshit), the secrecy surrounding a lot of information we should know, like how much it take to build a hdb flat, the cost of land, number of scholarships given. These questions were asked in parliament but the answer they gave sucks. Making it worse, the questions were submitted beforehand and we still get such shit. Haiz…


In fact, some of my predictions on Singapore came true. The most notable one would be PAP fielding a foreign-born candidate who never went through NS. I expected this to happen in 2016 elections though it came earlier in 2011. Next, I think we may see a PRC PAP candidate in 2016 and if that really happen, Singapore really in deep shit. Though I found out later, quite a couple of their MPs actually came from Malaysia but 2011 was the time where the issue came to people attention. I really wish my predictions don’t come true but I foresee a collapse of our country within our lifetime. I hope I’m wrong but I’m not too optimistic about it. That’s why I trying to secure my future and if the day really come, I’m in position to help my family and friends.


Hmmmm, how people around me feel. First would be my family: My parents still buy into the bullshit that Singapore is the best place to live in and with my degree, I would be set for life. They still don’t understand our country had changed. My degree is not that helpful now with all the FT flooding in at cheaper pay and buying a roof over my head is so expensive that I doubt I can retire peacefully or if my job is still secure when I’m above 40. Not to mentioned the education system becoming more and more demanding, kids need to know words before they enter primary 1. Wth is this? I think I’m still learning how to form sentences when I’m in primary 1. If possible, I won’t want my kids to go through this kind of shit.


My siblings feel similar to my parents, in part I guess because the policies still haven’t affect them that badly yet (my bro was affected by the population control measures as he was the 4th child, so he didn’t have edusave until recently but he still young, he haven’t seen the shit yet). But at least they still have some irking of the failings, so they understand part of the reason why I trying to migrate.


My close friends understand my views, in fact, some of my views were agreeable with them too. It’s just that I’m too extreme or pessimistic in my thoughts. So I could be the odd one out at times but at least I still able to discuss such things with them. As I told u, some are even thinking of migrating too but their family are holding them back from doing it. Or their other half is holding them back. Of course, they are still some who still view life as rosy and don’t really see the truth as the policies don’t really affect them. I feel quite sad to see such friends as they don’t understand that others are already suffering, they are just lucky that they are not affected. If they are affected, things will be really bad and may be too bad. Maybe because my views turned ppl off, so I don’t really state it out a lot. Only when I become closer to someone, then I’ll state my views. Most of the times, I’m just a quiet observer in discussion like these.


Interestingly, my observations lead me to something: Guys are more harder on the govt than girls. This I believe it due to the fact that guys have to spend 2 years serving NS and the ippt n reservist after that, they don’t really take it too kindly to the govt. Girls on the other hand, are not affected and given our culture, guys are supposed to be the breadwinner of the house, so a girl actually have a lot of choices in life, be a career woman, housewife etc, they can afford to job hop with much worry since when they get married, society expect the guy to provide for the family. Of course, there are exceptions but generally, this is the trend I believe. So when they say that the younger generations are more likely to be against the govt, I say it’s partially true. The guys are likely to vote against them but girls are more likely to vote for the PAP. It’s my 2 cents worth of thought and hopefully, I’m able to develop on it in the future though I’m not going to make much friends with such a conclusion. Hahahah..

J