A Singaporean In Australia

When I was preparing to leave Singapore, I went around bidding my friends goodbye. One of them told me, "If you cannot change the environment, change yourself." He was referring to one of my main grouse about how uncomfortable I felt the overcrowding in Singapore. When I left Singapore, the population was 5.18 million. The current population of Singapore is 5,744,135 as of today, Tuesday, January 17, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates. He was damn right about not being able to change the environment. However, he got the second part wrong. The only way for me to accept an ever-increasing population on a already jam-packed tiny island was to believe living like sardines in a can was necessary - and whatever lies the PAP tried to axiomise. Changing my mindset about the PAP, their cronies and their legalised corruption is much harder to do than to change the environment that I live in. So I chose the path of least resistance.

Do not get me wrong. Wait - even if you do, I don't fucking care. Truth to be told, I never forget the advice friends gave me. While I appreciate each and every one of it, it does not mean I am able to take them all the time - at least not immediately. Will I change the way I think about Singapore one day? Perhaps. I don't know. I sure keep that advice in mind to change the way I think about something I dislike, before it mutate into a cancerous level that I will never reconcile with anymore.

Summer in Perth is something I strongly dislike and I do not hold back my views about it. Ironically, I have been told I have been writing about Perth life with rose-tinted glasses. If I want to explain what selective reading means to my kids in future, I'll cite this example. Over the last 5 years, it has become a routine for me to curse the searing heat of Summer in Perth from December to the next February, sometimes way into March if Autumn comes late. 

Sure, it is possible to change an attitude. The difficulty ranges from easy to near-impossible. Changing my attitude towards Summer in Perth is easy, as compared to the PAP and where they are taking Singapore to - that's on the opposite radical end. To take my friend's advice, I look at the best things about Summer, which is the availability of some of the most amazing fruits I enjoy. Melons, nectarines, peaches, plums (yuck), grapefruits, grapes. It is a period where harvests of such fruits are bountiful and prices are decent for consumers like me. I even took the trouble to move to an area within the metro region in Perth with the biggest concentration of vineyards. I figured that, if the next Summer is not as forgiving as how the current one is turning out to be, at least I will be happy watching the vineyards on the way home. They are beautiful, don't you agree? 

I will never imagine myself saying this. I am actually enjoying this Summer. There are very few very hot days so far and there are many days with a comfortable range between 18C at night and 27C at their afternoon peaks. I told mum the other day that even if the rest of Summer is as hot as the previous five, it wouldn't be half as bad overall. After all, we are already halfway through Summer by today. In addition, the Summer flies didn't seem to arrive in Perth this year (yet?) We did have a taste of them at their peskiest best during our camping trip in December but I have no trouble with them once I returned to Perth. This is turning out to be great.

The effort put in by MIL seems to be paying off. Most of her plants are doing well. The trees are slowly maturing.