A Singaporean In Australia

“Some friends have asked me about Amy Cheong and her Facebook comments about Malay weddings at void decks. Her comments and conduct are shameful and completely unacceptable. This confirms what I had long suspected and said : there are deep fault lines in our society, based on race/religion.”

- Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law, Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam

As a competent lawyer, I have no doubt Mr Shanmugam has a sharp sense of suspicion that puts a wily old fox to shame. The Amy Cheong saga has proven him right yet again, though deep down we know that the MIWs are ~~seldom~~, ~~rarely~~ never wrong. The higher MIWs being almost god-like perfect each time, it left a puny mortal here wondering why the government did not lift a finger to correct a long suspected deep fault in the society, based on race/religion.

From birth

Almost too efficiently upon the birth of each Singaporean, we have our race stamped on our birth certification, clearly psychologically dividing us since day zero. Similarly, pick up your pink identity card and take a close look. The first field right under your name would be one that identify your race. Most of us have probably never stop to ponder why there is a need for this. What I'm curious about is that when a Brazilian Singapore PR decided to take us Singapore citizenship, what would be his race on his pink IC? "Others?" I wondered if anyone else find this practice anti-nationalistic. We are segregating our people right there. Aren't we all supposed to be Singaporean? How can we ever be a race-blind society this way?

In school

Hopefully this has changed since. In my schooling days, it is compulsory to take up a 2nd language termed the "Mother tongue". We wasn't given a choice which language to take up because it was primarily tied to our race. A Chinese will take up Mandarin as 2nd language and an Indian will take up Tamil. Again, nobody seems to see the stupidity of this. Is there a reason not to allow a pupil to take up any 2nd language available in school without restriction of his or her race? Very few Chinese these days can converse in Malay unlike 1-2 generations before. We needn't to be rocket scientist to figure out that sharing a common language promotes racial integration. Just look at the way our grand parents interact with people of different races to see how we have regressed in this area due to some illogical educational policies.

I speak from my own experience, a born and bred Singaporean who went through the system. Consider this, a few times a week, sometime in the day, the manner the class was divided was swift and seamless, almost regimental. Soon, the remaining of the students in class would be of the same race, the lesson would start. Tell me if this routine isn't an indoctrination, intentionally or not, to subconsciously divide the nation racially.

In the army

One of our popular patriotic song, "One People, One Nation, One Singapore," goes this way,

Every creed and every race, has its role and has its place

Heartwarming, no doubt. For the innocent minds that is and we really believed in it. When we grew up and went into the army, you couldn't help but look at this lovely piece of lyric in different light. Every race does has its role and its place. What we didn't realise was that each race has a different role and a different place. We confirm what we had long suspected and saw another root of the deep fault lines in our society, based on race/religion.

National service was a bastion of racism. We made no effort to hide racial discrimination. There wasn't a single Malay soul in my army camp. Not even a driver, store man or clerk. I'm not talking about my company only but the entire army camp that includes at least 2 schools and a few formations. Coincidental? I don't think so. The discrimination against Malays has been discussed in parliament and the media, and is justified by the assertion that the loyalty of Malays cannot be assumed, both because they are Muslim and because they have a racial and ethnic affinity with the Malays in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Let me share with you a conversation I had with First Sergeant Yasir during my first month in SISPEC. 1SG Yasir was my platoon sergeant. He was very young for someone of this rank, some even called him a 'high flyer' in terms of Spec advancement. We could see why. He was fit, on-the-ball, responsible and no-nonsense. A proper soldier by any standards.

One night, 1SG Yasir came inspect our section, bunk and bunk and took time to chat with every one of us. There were only 2 soldiers in each bunk. After a few minutes of chat, 1SG Yasir asked us to 'shoot questions'. Any question.

"Sergeant, if we go into war with Malaysia, will you fight them?"

1SG Yasir was taken aback for a few seconds. He must have trained hundreds of soldiers by then but it was clear it was the first time he was thrown as a question so insolently. I didn't realised I was questioning his loyalty to Singapore. It simply came out without going through my mind. Instead of taking me to punishment, 1SG Yasir collected himself, looked straight into my eyes, non-threatening but dead serious and replied,

"I will fight to death to defend my family and friends, it doesn't matter who my enemies are,"

"Thank you Sergeant."

It wasn't the words that convinced but the assurance of trust. It was coded in the brotherhood in which The Others would never understand.

Should we maintain a policy that express distrust to all Malays as a community even after so many generations? Mistrust breeds mistrust, can we expect otherwise if we continue to pursue a policy that discriminate a certain race implicitly? We are working against a ideals of true national unity.

Working life

Straight after ORD, some of us furthered our studies and some went to work. In every single job application form, you would be asked to fill up the race field yet again. W.T.F. Can the authorities explain the absolute need to fill in our race in a job application? I think it is fair for companies to state any special requirements in their job advertisements. For instance, a Halal food handler or a religious teacher. Besides special cases, I don't think there are excuses for any establishment to have any business in asking for the race or religion of an applicant.

Voting

Isn't it ironic that our government practices 'racial equality' in the form of a GRC electorial system but ignoring everything else? The government is politicising race by insisting the need of a minority representative in parliament. The idea itself sounds dodgy, if anything. Is the government implying that Chinese politicians would not serve Singaporeans of different races? Isn't this going against the meritocracy beliefs that the same people are promoting? The best man should get the job, regardless of race.

Non-conclusion

I understand that every country has their racial subdivisions, Taiwan has their Ah Mei Tribe, New Zealand has their Māori. But when it comes to nationalism, we are so lacking and far behind many countries. Find me a Pinoy Indian or Japanese Malay. I want to be known as a Singaporean, not a Singaporean Chinese. A Singaporean is a Singaporean. We have failed badly in building a cohesive race-blind nation. based on the flawed assumption that Racial Harmony Day works better than removing the race barrier entirely. Tell me, who are responsible of our racial fault lines?

I've stopped updating about personal topics for a while. I used to do that so often because I felt a memory bank is necessary for me to reminisce old times when my mind starts failing me when I am old. Looking at my dad's condition, genetically, I think I have a realistic chance to lose the agility of the mind in my later years. If I get a pre-mature death along the way, my loved ones would be able to read my thoughts if they wish to be reminded there was once such a person in their life. That is why I write.

Having said that, it may be necessary to do this in a separate private blog. I write to remember, not to be judged. For things the way it is, not for the right or wrong. I had people telling me who they think I am just because they read a few words in this blog. Please, not even my wife understands me completely. For the record, I don't even know myself entirely. I simply can't decide to laugh or cry when I read those. But - at least these commenters do it in my face and I can accept that and that's why the commenting options of the blog is still enabled to the public, to the anonymous and the nutcases. What I truly despise are words around the back. I am sure everyone feels the same way.

Albany with a buddy's MIL

Before arrangements to export these personal memories very close to my heart elsewhere, I decide to resume my updates. I've missed too many precious moments by hesitating to write and I realised the longer I do it, the less I could describe my feelings accurately at that point of time. Talking about an ailing memory.

Last night was a memorable night for me. I decided to turn in early at 2100 hrs because Albany refused to sleep when we put her in the cot around her usual bed time an hour earlier. I decided that it was one of those occasional days where she was too active to sleep. My decision to leave my computer and head for bed early was probably the best thing that happened for ages.

Delighted as always

Albany has a knack of imitating me more than Jen, despite her spending all of her time with Jen everyday. At first I didn't notice it. Then I thought it was a coincidence. Then it happened again and again until I couldn't ignore the fact. When I made mock farting sounds, Albany would stop whatever she was doing for a few seconds, stuck her tongue slightly and did the same.

She wailed in her cot last night so I took her to our bed and sat her down. She began to wave her arms and started reaching out for things. I knew she was still in a play mood so I sang some songs to her to hype the atmosphere up. Almost predictably, she chuckled and burst into laughter after a while. Jen's made a mock angry face at her husband and daughter. It was clear who is the in charge of the disciplinary department in our family by now.

In the semi-darkness, we hugged and rolled about. At times Albany would gave out some annoyed whines when I did something she didn't like, such as wiping dirt off her nose. When Jen finally shrugged off her stance and joined us, Albany was delighted and flapped her arms frantically.

Then it happened, in the crisp silent Spring night, she muttered, "Deh, deh."

Albany with her namesake

I thought was dreaming when I heard her whispering the same words two morning ago. By now, we knew it wasn't. Jen and I heard it together. I had been trying to get her to repeat them over the past 2 days in vain, by repeating the words, "Da Da" to her. This time, I heard it loud and clear and understood. I moved my face close to her from behind and said, "Deh .... deh. Deh ... there." Hey presto, Albany repeated them, not once but several times. I was ecstatic, grabbed her and laughed. She squealed with delighted. Jen's face went thunderously black.

"Why aren't you thrilled?" I quizzed.

"Jealous," she said.

They love each other by now

I laughed and reasoned out that Albany wasn't calling me and reminded her I had been teaching her how to say, "Papa" all these while. She was probably making her first word-sounding communication randomly. Besides, "Deh Deh" sounds quite far apart from even Daddy to me.

Earlier on, we had a group hug. Albany was confused but I could feel she was contented. Fortunately I got to experience this right the first time for my first child. It was magical. I wouldn't imagine I would gush over things like that a few months ago. I guess every guy has his time when it comes. I cannot help but assume I would be working at the very same time or driving back from work at best and would miss this entirely should I decided to postpone our migration because of Jen's pregnancy. Just maybe. It may be a careless assumption, but being home at 1700 hrs most of the days really help heaps where family life is concerned. That is probably hard to dispute. Moving over to a strange new place is never a bed of roses. The blog makes no attempt to paint it this way. I record my fears, loneliness and misfortunes openly here. For little things that made me feel the pains of migration is worth it, this would be one of them.

Albany and 'boss'

According to a Mindshare survey [link] carried out early this year, 56% of 2000-odd poll strongly agreed or agreed that "given a choice, I would like to migrate." If you are panicking, [link] relax. Take a seat, a sip of the coffee and hear me out.

Migration is a familiar topic, so allow me to have a little word. First things first, there are simply too much room to misrepresent and misinterpret in any survey and probably isn't really the best way of finding out truths. For a start, how well is that 2000 Singaporeans sampled from the rest of the population? We do not know. Thus, sleep well tonight and every night. You will not wake up one morning to see half of the Singaporean population departed. You'll have a higher chance striking that CNY multi-million toto draw.

Ok, let's not be mean and chuck someone's hard work into the bin. Let's just assume the survey was done objectively and flawlessly, thus data collected are accurate. So, take a glance at the summary of that survey see what it tells me. These are supposedly to be some key reasons why Singaporeans are unhappy enough to consider an emigration out of Singapore.

1 in 4 Singaporeans are idiots

How do I define an idiot? Well I define one who thinks "he should be spending his entire working life paying off housing loans." Happens that the survey gave me data how many idiots are among us. Coincidental.

Push Factor from Outer Space

Alright, 62% of Singaporeans think political leaders are paid too much. So? Why would Mindshare assume these Singaporeans are unhappy enough to contemplate migration because some jokers earn big bucks? Does it makes any sense at all? Nuts. No doubt if these folks get to swap salary with their ministers, I bet they will be very happy people indeed. But tell me if it is because their ministers now earn 2000 bucks a month that makes them happy or their new multi-million annual salary?

Retirement?

Retire comfortably in Singapore? I'm surprised we are talking about being comfortable here while retiring is a big question alone. Ah gong didn't say you can retire ok? Don't despair though, there are plenty of vocation sectors to choose from: Transportation, Security, F&B and Recycling to name some.

Sense of entitlement

"Singaporeans should be granted priority in employment". Yes, the majority of us think so. We think we are superior, we are special. Once in a while, I'll look through the traffic source of this blog. Often, blog hits came from google searches results. Look at these examples:

I often wondered what does "Australia jobs for Singaporeans" means and what the searcher really hope to find. Do we really think there are red carpets rolled out for us, Singaporeans, all over the world to invite us to take up jobs? I think some of us think too highly of ourselves. I even heard Singaporeans saying, "I'll apply for Australian PR when I feel like it." One of my ex-colleague told me, "I will never move to Australia, unless they give me a job of minimum $5k." Trust me, I've heard and seen more and I don't make things up.

Let me tell you none of these 2000 people will leave Singapore. None. Zero. I can confidently assure Jentrified Citizen not worry about it. If I were to poll 2000 married men, ask them just one question, "Given a choice, would you like to have sex with Scarlett Johansson?" and get 75% of the men answering, "Yes," is it conclusive to declare 75% of Singaporean men are unfaithful to their partners? Remember, liking and wanting something is entirely different from doing it. We are talking about migration here, not eating dinner.

Over the past 2 years, I've came across so many forumers in the migration thread asking how to get a job in Australia despite me sharing the hard truth told by job agents here themselves that their clients will not grant interviews to candidates who are not physically residing in Australia unless it is a special skill set that is exclusive. An internal job transfer seems like much higher possibility. Yet we still see new people coming up and ask, "Are there jobs for someone like me?" or "I'll move if I could land a job."

The Singaporean mum, M, who has gotten her Australia PR, purchased her car and house in Perth while she is still physically in Singapore last month, is still having the nerves and hesitation about moving over despite leaving herself almost no other choice but to move. Jen and I also gave up the thought of migration a few times before finally deciding we wanted it done. It wasn't easy. That was why when I set up a "migration section" in this blog, I stressed a lot to migrants wannabes on spending a lot of time sorting out the mental part of this before even anything else. The agonies and mental dilemmas one has to go through during migration are very hard to imagine and probably very much underestimated by most.

Enough said about Mindshare's nonsensical poll. It is as bad as asking Singaporeans, "Given a choice would you like to be the sole winner of the CNY multi-million toto draw?" and then reporting,

95% of Singaporeans want to strike toto!

Big fucking deal.

We took my parents to the beach on Sunday. Alas, we didn't take any pictures there so I have to net-lift some pictures from the internet closest to what I saw that day.

A part of Coogee is for sale at the moment. There are land parcels along Socrates Parade beckoning at potential buyers. The mounting bars of the boundary fences were already erected, clearly demarcating residential land of different shape and sizes. Even each unit's letter box had already been completed. It was all ready for buyers to buy up and start building their dream home.

When we talk about dream home, someone's dream may be another's nightmare. For my dad, a house built on one of the land parcels here would be a home of his wildest dreams. To live less than 50m away from sea, an ocean in this case, indulge in fishing every day without fail, watch the stars at the balcony each night and allow the rhythm of the waves to coo him to sleep. Pipe dream or not, at least my dad dared to dream beyond his golden years, despite the teasing mocks from family and never let it up.

How many of us still dare to dream anymore, barring that common one to be the sole winner of that multi-million CNY toto draw? For many, including myself, our secret dreams made way for realistic practicality long ago. We are afraid to tell the people around us what we very much love to do anymore. We are so afraid that we do not even dare to whisper to the little dream to ourselves anymore when no one is looking.

Coogee is a beautiful quiet suburb at the west coast of Perth. It is 20km away from the city and just 8-10km south of Fremantle but it contrasts the port town of Frenmantle rather clearly. I drove past Coogee on my way to Henderson for delivery twice. This region never fail to give me a dreamy and peaceful feel to it, nothing like the more vibrant coastal suburbs along up to 50km north of it. Perhaps it is just early developments days. Wouldn't it be a pity if it turns out to be similar to the rest?

Do you know what are the 5 shared values of Singapore? [link]

1. Nation before community and society above self

2. Family as the basic unit of society

3. Community support and respect for the individual

4. Consensus, not conflict

5. Racial and religious harmony

Presenting insights of the last shared value first because in Singapore, we place the most highly regarded value at the last of the list. Take a cue from the SAF core values [link], you know it's as true as the blessed sun. Indeed, racial and religious harmony is an important shared value. We recognise the need for different communities to live harmoniously with one another in order for all to prosper.

The Singapore government reminds their people every chance they have about how they created the Singapore Economic Miracle that won admiration from the rest of the world. How modest of them not to mention our Racial and Religious Harmony Miracle they have achieved.

Racial issues have been commonly regarded as 'sensitive issues' in Singapore. Thus, Singaporeans do not discuss about it publicly, perhaps only behind tightly curtained bedrooms for the minority. In recent years, there had been high profile arrests on bloggers who carried out their racial slurs beyond the line. Gagging the public means there is no expression of unhappiness, thus breeds harmony. Thus racial inequality does not exist. Singapore believes in Harmony, not Equality. So long as we maintain harmony no matter how marginalised some are, it is right.

The Sedition Act is in Chapter 290 of the Statutes of Singapore only applies to bad bloggers. Majority of bloggers are after all no-lifers, mostly probably unemployed for years and do not have social manners. They might as well be placed in a cell whenever possible. They probably would not notice it so long if we give them internet access in jail. Dignified professionals, however, are exempted from prosecutions. This is meritocracy. Probably. So long as Singapore survives till the next 21 July, Racial Harmony Day, where children in schools wear nice traditional costumes to school, hold balloons and hands with one another, all bad blood will be reset to zero. The way our traffic demerit points get erased off the system after the waiting period.

Unlike other countries, our people do not torch places of worships of other religions and we are very proud of our years of racial peace. After all Singapore is a first world nation. We are poets, not warriors. Thus differences are settled literally. That happened to be in line with our NTUC Chief's tagline of "Cheaper, better, faster". Why hit the streets where you can hit the internet and burn in cyber-flames?

Undermined races or religion bodies must swallow the bitter pill and bite a few bullets because harmony is of paramount importance to the prosperity of Singapore and its people. May the Gods bless Singapore forever more.

"Help me eat up the Bak Chor Mee in Singapore." Those are words from Carol, before I went back to Singapore. It is safe to say it is a common assumption that overseas Singaporeans will eat a storm from the moment they touch down until they depart again. I thought I would be doing the same when it was finally my turn to return home.

Other than the weather which really got to me, I had an unexpected experience of feeling as if I had never been away before. I couldn't even remember what was my first food upon my return by now. Local food re-aligned to my taste buds seamlessly. I didn't notice how exceptionally delicious my food tasted or craved for anything in particular. I did though, stopped by Jalan Besar Hawker Centre to have my $1.20 ice kachang, which in my opinion is the best ice kachang in Singapore by far. But that was because I was in the vicinity to purchase some kitchen items. I didn't travel far specially for it.

The teh still suck at that particular stall in Teck Whye Shopping Centre. I couldn't help but made a remark to my mum that I could brew a more drinkable version this morning with inferior equipment and ingredients. As a matter of fact, I did. I enjoyed the experience of sitting down and being served my fishball noodles and teh without having to feel a pinch when it was time to foot the bill. That was an amazing saving grace for Singapore, good food at affordable price. I never took that for granted. My friends had heard me commenting too much on this over the years. Once too often perhaps, till they may be secretly pleased I'm no longer around to spread my doom-gospel.

I pray no one reads this one for the broken record is somewhat spinning again today. Over the years, I read signs which worried me. I could see one of the aspects I love most about Singapore is slowly drifting into decrepitude but there isn't anything I could do about it. It is probably an unintended by-product of our government's fixation on progress. Singapore has been enmeshed into an obsession for upgrading. We must look nice, new and nothing less than perfect. No, that's actually not enough. Everything around us must be swagger quality. No, you cannot go around with a Nokia phone with a rubber band tied across the screen. That's societal death sentence. Our cars reflect our manhood. The bigger it is, the bigger it is. It has to perform and preferably polished. Our pets should be manicured, whenever possible. Slapping an Adidas dog-shirt on our pet dogs in Singapore heat is cool. We must live in condos. If that isn't possible, we must live in HDB flats that looks like a condo. Renovation is a must. A HDB flat isn't complete without false ceilings and feature walls that go out of fashion in a decade. That is when we do it all over again. Walls must be hacked because our house should not look like the chap's house next door. Never mind if we saw the floor plan and agreed to it before signing that agreement of lease. We pay for walls HDB built, pay a contractor to hack them away and pay the same contractor to patch it up in another spot because customisation is fun. Come on, some of us buy a Mac and run it on Windows OS. What's a bit of wall hacking?

"You can't save on paint when you paint," my buddy implored. "There are things that you cannot save!" Oh. Really. No wonder some girls clad their faces like geishas when they hit the streets. Eating a dozen of Omega 3 pills a day isn't particularly a good idea even though these are good for us. There are some simple rules in life that shouldn't be confounded. It wasn't about saving, splurging, being stingy or spendthrift. It was about being commonsensical. Anyway I did a decent job painting my entire house in 4-5 days, saving paint or otherwise.

When it comes to food. Good old food's not good enough. Food's gonna be garnished gingerly with a little bit of zing, a bit of zip and a bit of boomz. Perfectly functional acrylic signboards must be pulled down, replied by glamourous pictures of badly photoshopped food and their pricing in random fashion. That too, became an eyesore and had to be substituted with designer fonts and colours.

Exposed services cables and pipes must be concealed because they have everything to do with good, cheap food. False ceilings. Of course, put plenty of these in. It is a must. False ceilings are staples to Singapore, food only comes a close second behind these.

The wonders of false ceilings is that these could be used to create romantic down lights. All cables concealed of course, never mind secret grime and grease caking up behind unchartered regions. All conveniently concealed, that's what false ceilings are for right?

To make things worse, like anything else in Singapore, peer pressure is a bitch. You send your kids to tuition 8 times a week, I will do it because Ah Seet next door do it, Ah Zel next block also do it. One coffee shop after another will follow suit, after watching the joker next door churn out designer inspired kopi tiams with false ceilings all ready to cake grease and to improve food pricing and quality.

Like the reader here who used to comment in my blog with the moniker 'SME owner' would say, "Someone's gonna foot the bill and it would be wishful thinking to assume that this will not be passed on to the consumer." The next thing is that kopi tiam owners will claim is that they have been forced to 'upgrade' to designer level if not they will fold up due to competition. Remember, no false ceilings, food not nice. So they are probably right.

How about my favourite makan places, the good old hawker centres? Ah. They disappear more magically than any David Copperfield's tricks over the years. What could have happened? Not sure what NEA is up to. Lately I read some guy by the name of Vivian announcing NEA is planning to build new hawker centres finally, 27 years after the last hawker centre was built. He also said this,

"My preference is that these centres be run on a not-for-profit basis, so I won't be selling centres to commercial operators."

Does that mean the government has been making profits that they prefer the public not to know over the years on hawker centres? Good to know NEA will not liaise with 'commercial operators', many which I suspect will be food investment groups that has Temasek Holdings sitting there as major shareholder. Well done, Vivian. We are proud of you. Just one favour please, keep the false ceilings away from your hawker centres as long as you can.

I invited my parents to join us in Perth, to enjoy Spring and being together as a family again. So far, they seemed to appreciate their first week. There wasn't many highlights, to be honest. I had to go to work so the parents were pretty much home-based because we have but just one humble car and I use that for work.

We took them to grocery shopping a day after we landed in Perth. It wasn't our idea of sightseeing. It was out of necessity. The fridge was threadbare when we returned. I liked the idea of having mum around during grocery shopping. She would tell me which items were cheap and which were expensive in comparison to Singapore prices. Even till today, she hasn't stopped swooning over the 'cheap' huge piece of salmon we bought over last weekend as she happily added some into Albany's meal.

Speaking about Albany, she was practically the battery that energise mum everyday. Even dad, to little extent but understandably so. Mum spoke endlessly about Albany every evening when I came home from work. It was good to see her excited again. They toiled for us ever since they became our parents. Time has sapped much of their zeal while we barely noticed. When we finally stop and take a look one day, they have aged so much.

My mum used to joke with me when I was a young boy. Whenever I asked her how I could repay her, she laughed and told me to drive her around in a Mercedes Benz when I grow up. Deep inside, she knew her son would never be outstanding enough to do so. I suspected she didn't really care for it. My mum has taught me the meaning of materialism since I was young. It was simple to grasp. There isn't any.

Traffic was good today and I reached home at exactly 1700hrs. Some thoughts ran through my mind while I was executing chores. Supposed I work my ass off, sacrifice all my family time and finally 'be there' in 10 years time and supposed she has light dementia like my dad by then? Would that Mercedes Benz really hold any meaning to her? Each of us has only X amount of time to enjoy the presence of our parents before they are mentally or physically gone. I think the right time to spend more time with them is now. Not when we have babies and need a cheap caretaker, not when we finally earn a lot of money and can afford to buy them luxuries that holds very little significance to them anymore and certainly not when they lay in their deathbed with expensive paper gadgets we bought to suppress our guilt.

I have a wife who allowed me to take my parents along during our trip down south a few years back. That was supposed to be our honeymoon. Which of you guys would have the support of your wife in this circumstance? I'm blessed. That was the longest overseas trip my parents ever took in their entire lives, only to be superseded by the current one. We knew that was our only chance of doing so, before a long stretch of labour to save up for our following move to Perth. Throughout the past year, I never fail to work towards having them here for a few weeks or even months if they wish to. The thought of that brought be some smiles during my harder days as a steel tradie. I hope to leave fond memories for them to take home with for this trip. I would not persuade them to stay here for long periods but I will certainly make the effort to make this possible if it is their wish to. It is all up to them.

Meanwhile, every chuckle between grandma and grand-daughter is music to my ears.

Would be interesting to know more about how you felt during your time back in Singapore? Was there any sense of displacement? Has Singapore changed in the short time that you've been away? Did your friends and family try to convince you to return to Singapore permanently, or did they express a desire to join you in Perth?

I met an Australian lady who migrated from Egypt years ago. I asked her if she felt like a stranger in both Egypt and in Australia, and if not, how long it took for her to feel like an Australian. She said that she has never been back to visit Egypt because people have told her how much it has changed, and she wanted to remember Egypt the way it was. And also, she said it too her a number of years before Australia felt like it was truly home and she felt Australian. Yet, when speaking about how Australians raised their children, she referred to them as "these Australian families" and not "we".

So yes, there is plenty more that we, your readers, would like to know. Please keep writing :-)

Your Fellow Singaporean in Australia

******

Hello, My Fellow Singaporean in Australia,

They say absence makes the heart grows fonder. While generally true, being absent for too long a time could get one estranged from friends or family. Sometimes the claim isn't the absence itself but what you did or did not do in absence. Since you are interested in my thoughts about my return to Singapore after a year being away, I will try to jot down some notes along the way later. In this post instead, I will like to share my thoughts on the interesting story of your friend.

I had written my thoughts about 'feeling Australian' before. Due to globalisation, Australia is fast becoming another multi-national, multi-cultural country. In time to come, I don't think there is a big issue not 'looking Aussie'. There isn't much we can do about our looks anyway. After all, it is hereditary. I thought it would be common sense though if we could try blending in by cladding ourselves in right preferred 'local' attire on the right occasions to get people to feel more comfortable around you. For instance for my case, there is a distinct type of workmen clothes that Aussies wear without large variance. Some workers in light trades even work in bermudas, something unseen in Singapore. As far as appearance, I think it isn't difficult to look the look if we observe a bit.

That is how far we can go, in my humble opinion, as a Singaporean educated and grown up in Singapore. Can we sound the same as locals? No chance, unless you are a gifted linguist. Can we think Aussie? Try as we might, it will be limited. Try explaining leh, lah, loh and the why the usage of knn is never quite literal to a PRC or Pinoy Singaporean PR. Maybe they'll get a hang of it after a while but they'll never be quite there. The same if we think we can think like an Aussie. Don't get me wrong, it is our duty to assimilate but personally I think it is foolish to expect we will be 100% integrated one day.

That is why I feel that if you are born and bred Aussie (probably a next generation?), yes. Else, we are just pretenders if we go around shouting, "I'm Aussie, because I hold a blue passport!" Doesn't work that way. If we cannot sound like one, or think like one, we will never feel like an Aussie. That explains your Egyptian friend's situation. That also explains why you called yourself a Singaporean in Australia instead of an Australian previously from Singapore. Subconscious @ work.

To further illustrate, take a look at these folks

Familiar faces to you I'm sure. For decades they appeared on television and practically ate, drank and breathed Singaporean culture in their line of work. Maximum exposure if you ask me. I'm not sure what are their nationality status now. Singapore citizen, Singapore PR or S-pass holders. Doesn't really matter. The question is, how much do Singaporeans like you and me recognise them as one of us despite them being around for so long and could even utter a few words of Singlish by now?

I'm not sure what is your profile but for someone like me, who came to Perth to work in my 30s, I don't have a chance in hell to be accepted as an local by a local. What I feel is that we don't need to be obsessed about how 'Aussie' we are. I've mentioned this is my friend winkingdoll's blog before. Consider these names:

Lim Bo Seng
Yusof Ishak
Tan Tock Seng
Tan Kah Kee
S. Rajaratnam

None of the above were born Singaporean but had contributed a lot to our country and received admiration and adulation from the people till present. Of course, we cannot compare ourselves with these people. I'm a small person, not a nation builder but I feel we can learn from this. If we go about making the place better for people living around us, we cannot go wrong. With that in mind, I think if we go along the line of contributing in small ways to the community we are living in, or at least take the effort to learn what does an asshole meant to a local and take care not to be one, it will not be long before some chap points a finger at us announces to his friend that, "He's my mate." I think that's good enough for me.

An average non-exercising adult takes in about 0.84 kg of oxygen a day. If that sounds very little to you, think again. To most, air is very light, seemingly weightless and that is the point here. Just how much is 0.84kg of oxygen?

The average adult at rest inhales and exhales something like 11,000 litres of air in a day. The air that is inhaled is about 20% oxygen and that works out to be 2200 litres of oxygen. That is how much oxygen we takes in every day. However out of this 20%, we consume only about 5% of oxygen. We exhale the rest of it. That works out to about only 550 litres of oxygen consumed per day. Well, if you consider how much water we drink per day, our oxygen consumption is easily 100 folds over.

For the entire 8 months, we were fortunate to have Albany in pink of health. However, she fell sick on the second day of our return to Singapore. For the entire first week, she coughed intensely through constant medication but manage to recover on the 8th to 9th day, much to our relief. Whenever we brought this up to anyone, their reaction would be, "It's the air!" Thinking back, the whitish smog that engulfed the skyline when we touched down was indeed a possible suspect.

On the first Tuesday, Angie and Lexis kindly gave me a lift to a coffeeshop in Tampines where I met Mr Gintai, the famous MRT king blogger. That - was another story for another day. The conservation between Angie and I in the car ride instead, was relevant to this topic. When asked where she was from, Angie had to stress that her family was from Ipoh (did I get this wrong?) but she grew up in JB. When I asked her why must she be specific about where she grew up most of her life, she revealed that the women of her birth place are famously beautiful. (modestly implying she wasn't)

"Where's the link here Angie?" I asked.

"The girls there grew up drinking good water and breathing good air," came the reply.

Ah. What do you think? I think it makes some sense. Of course, our general appearance such as features and shape are determined genetically in which the environment we grow up in has no bearings on. But if we grow up in good climate, taking in clean, fresh air, the quality of our skin and hair will definitely be better. And it is hard to dispute that beautiful looking half and flawless skin makes one look better.

As far as I'm concerned, Albany's rosy cheeks disappeared during our return to Singapore, replaced by heat rashes on her face and neck. The rashes disappeared very quickly in a few days when we came back to Perth. To me, the issue about air quality wasn't about beauty but health. If we liken a human body to a car autonomy, our lungs would be our air filter. It isn't difficult to figure out that no filter in the world has an 100% efficiency. I reckon the same for any pair of lungs, regardless of which model we are installed with. That simply means that oxygen through the limited filter goes in our blood steam and our heart pumps the blood to everywhere else that requires oxygen.

That includes our brain.

A good climate also helps moderate our mood and general attitude, though a good climate doesn't necessarily equate to good air. It is straightforward though, when it comes to good air. Good air helps in our general well being. Angie was probably right. It makes us prettier too. Since we are a concrete jungle in Singapore, I''ll recommend going into nature reserves early morning in the weekends to take in good fresh air. Why early morning? It is when mosquitoes are not in their full zeal yet.

Past Rants