A Singaporean In Australia

So do I have to write about mundane stuff? Yes. This will be one of those boring time wasters Jan the nurse honestly told me about. Life in Perth may be incredibly boring to many Singaporeans. (She actually said this blog is boring, not Perth, but I am conveniently pushing the blame as you can see)

Every Singaporean brought up in a city environment so it is common to find many turning their nose to the idea Perth living. One of the reasons is convenience. We have the convenience in so many aspects of life that you can only imagine in Perth. In Singapore, we can get what we want in easily and quickly. Food, clothes, tools, sex, entertainment, amenities and covered linkways, you name it. If we are given most if not all basic material wants that a human being can ask for, is there even a right for a Singaporean to feel unhappy? Probably not but it isn't difficult to understand why if you buy into the concept of the law of diminishing marginal utility.

One of the benefits of living a life out of the country after decades of societal conformity is that you get a 'utility reset'. So when ducks waddled into a workshop where they have no business to be, it was delightful for a city-bumpkin from Singapore. But if they do that often enough, especially when they start to stealing his lunch during his toils, you can be sure he will soon be throwing a crowbar towards them to convert them into lunch instead.

If you have a sense of humor and a easy-going personality to be able to grin it out with your spouse through bad experiences that you will never experience in Singapore, such as train breakdowns, you will find the flip sides easy to tide over. If you hug each other like frightened monkeys when you experienced your first storm or play hide and seek when there is a blackout in the evening, those will be part of your fond memories when you look back one day. It's fun to reminisce and laugh about it. On the other hand, it is hard to explain why most of us will feel extremely pissed off when stuff like that happen in Singapore. 

Flip sides aside, the nice part comes when you experience the delightful nuggets of life there. I can't understand why it is so easy to feel relaxed or happy at the slightest things there while a shower of blessings in Singapore couldn't keep the grouch away. Perhaps it makes a difference being in an environment where there is a wide diversity of what people want in life. It feels like a parallel world, at least for the first 5 years maybe until the law of diminishing marginal utility catches up or the environment regress to a similar state where you came from.


It needn't to be a so call "First World" country. I believe we'll find happiness, probably even much so in "Third World" countries. It is very difficult to resonate with this. Trust me, I know because if I will not recognise myself if someone time-travel backwards and show the old me what I wrote 5 years into the future.