A Singaporean In Australia

My Buddy of 25 years is coming over tomorrow to spent a week with me. Damn, how quick time passes. We were talking about it weeks ago and now I'll have an evening to prepare for his arrival after I knock off from work later in the day. Then I'll see him at the airport after work on the next day. It'll be nice to see him again. Apparently he is ditching SG51 for B25.

The first time we went on a trip together was actually a few months before I left Singapore in 2011. He told me, "Hey, if we don't do this, we'll never know when we can." So we did. We made a short trip to HK, albeit with a slight heavy heart on my side upon hearing his words. It would have been great to have some of my old friends in Australia. With the kind of lifestyle we can have here, it will be awesome with the right company. Unfortunately, in a couple more years, none of my friends will be eligible to apply for the Australian PR due to points lost through the age category. Not that I really harbored any illusions any of them will come my way though. At an early stage, I had already resigned to the fact I will be physically apart with family and friends for a very long time. The weaker friendships will naturally come to nought as well. I also know (before I came here) that I will never be able to forge friendships like that with new friends here. Not the way we went through fire and ice. It is just one of the things any migrant will have to be resigned to, sad to say.

During B20, I almost promised him I will go on another trip with him on B25. Fortunately I didn't or I would have to break that one. He is making it easy for me by visiting me this time. So I have to travel with him, by hook or by crook. It will not be easy this time round. We were free spirits. Now he is bringing along his wife and I will have to bring mine and 2 young kids with me. Beats me how it will turn out eventually. My initial hope to take them to the little town of Albany was downplayed. I will attempt the less ambitious trip down to Margaret River instead, doing the tourist thing with Tucky and wife. He hasn't been there, so he may find it fresh and nice.

Be it in Australia or Singapore, I don't have many friends. So this one counts big. I found myself fussing over the planning of his days here, only to find this isn't one of the things I am good at. I'll just have to tell him in the very me way, "Hey, this is what I have got." Much of the pressure comes from the hope that the trip leaves an impression nice enough for future returns. You can't blame me for being silly. With a family of four now, I cannot be flying back to Singapore as and when I like. I have to remind you, this is not what a pissed poor peasant does. However, since Perth is 'boring' and offers little competition to other countries, most Singaporeans will take the better buck elsewhere.

Worry not about the future. We'll smash this one first.

I told Tucky despite visiting Margaret River a few times, I have never seen the fucking river. He told me we should go find it. So we shall.

If you ask a dozen of Singaporeans living in Australia about life in Australia, you will probably get 13 answers. Though I've put down an astonishing amount (more than 1000 posts) of data in this blog, they were the subjectivity of one man. By no means I advocate that moving to Australia is good, and right, for everyone. On the other hand, don't come telling me it isn't either, just because you don't find it good for you. I've live my life on both countries and know which end of the candle I prefer to burn.

So for every asingaporeanson with a thick rose-tinted goggles, you'll get one who wants to bring Marilyn along.

You'll get the smart-ass accountant pretender, cycling-to-work hippie moving back to Singapore to earn a few more cents and .

You'll get a bridge burner who will never return to Singapore except to attend weddings of a few more important people left there.

You'll get an exported dog taking photos with every Singapore minister that drop by during Singapore Day.

You'll get the opportunistic one who will bend whenever the wind blows.

You'll get one thanking god everyday for making her way here before it is too late.

You'll get a clueless one who doesn't remember how and why he got here.

You'll get one of those who'll rather tent in the bush than to return to Singapore.

You'll get that family man who moved his family here for their future and never look back.

You'll get the solo wanderlust, who seek a carefree lifestyle.

You'll get the disillusioned ex-professional, who wants a treechange or exit his mundane world of perpetual strife.

You'll get the disillusioned who returns to Singapore because Australia is not "First World" enough.

You'll get the young hippie, giggling chap driving around in his new car his friends can never afford in Singapore without going into great debts.

You'll get that retiree, who has had enough of money and exercises.

You'll get the adventurer who lust the thrill of leaping into unknown.

You'll get the rainbow chaser, who seek his patch of green grass in his delusions.

You'll get the techie nerd, who moves here to zhng his car and set up windmills around his house because he isn't allowed to back there.

You'll get the nature lover, who recognised his options are fast reducing in Singapore.

You'll get the normadic economic migrant.

You'll get the 5 flags planters.

and probably many more variations, I can go on but this is getting dry. You get the drift.

Granted that I've seen so many Singaporeans who came here for different reasons, I've known a fair share who simply hated life here with a vengeance and move back to stand up for Singapore. Needless to say, they wouldn't have a good word to say about Australia but plenty of themselves. I bet one of the ministers will eventually coined a sexy term to catogorize this bunch. 'Returners' will sound much better than 'Double-quitters' I guess. They can say or publish whatever they want but the truth remains: Migration is a more complex matter than they think.

When someone weigh the balance by dollars and cents, or figures, they demonstrate the lack of a deeper understanding of the whole purpose of migration. Beneath the warts and numbers, there are the mental and spiritual levels that is impossible to measure. That is why people who stay will never understand those who left and those who left find it difficult to proficiently explain why when asked.

If you are considering migration, give yourself an hour to write the essay "Why I am leaving Singapore for [country of choice]" Your mission statement. Be honest to yourself. You may be surprised at the result. It will reveal a lot. Your inner feelings, your misconceptions and all. Don't feel shy to share with the others. You'll probably see another side of them too. It will often make you realise migration is not for you but don't feel bad about it. It isn't meant to be for everyone. Once you sort out the 'why' however, the 'where', 'how', 'what' and 'when' will be clearer.

After living in Perth for 5 years, one thing never changed. Singapore will always have a special place in my heart. I feel bad though, because Perth has treated me rather well. To illustrate, after my last post, a petrol kiosk I drove past dropped their fuel to $0.0, free for me, as if to show me what they meant by REAL service. That was awfully amazing, I have to say I was almost swayed. Unfortunately, there was still no attendant assigned at the station to fill up for me. You know, like how they do it in Singapore, by giving our elderly the chance to exercise. When one of the uncles called out to me cheerfully and asked, "What you want to pump, Sir?" I felt upper class. Singapore just have the knack to make us feel at home.

Now that reminds me, I can't fathom why the folks employed to clear our plates in the Perth foodcourts are young and fit people. Our great leader PM Lee said Singaporeans are unwilling to take up such jobs in Singapore. As such, those vocations have been outsourced to either foreign workers or the PA Fit Club for the elderly. With a population of just 1.8 million in Perth, it is a shocker that I still see some of the local Aussies taking up these jobs. It doesn't make sense. It can only mean one thing, Australia is not as First World as Singapore.

To comfort ourselves, Singaporeans in Perth tend to seek solace in the comfort of their houses. The common 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a double garage sitting on 450 sqm of freehold land on the median price of $500,000 seems more than adequate to mend the morale. Alas, after finding out this kind of money was only used to build a bin centre in Singapore, smaller than the garage where I park my satki Honda Jazz, I just can't feel upper class here anymore. I am contemplating moving back to live in a more expensive DBSS or EC to get the vibes back.

Winter days in Perth have been challenging. We have frost for a couple of mornings and thick fog occasionally. I debated with myself which is the greater evil. The fog in Perth and haze in Singapore. In the end, I tipped it towards the fog because for haze, I could wear a mask and pretend I cannot respond when strangers in Perth start chatting me up again. If only we have that annual haze festival in Perth. Oh well, I can't expect anywhere else to be perfect like Singapore. It is a paradise after all. Perth comes close, but not quite.

Spring is coming soon. I told Judy I would take her to view wildflower fields growing in the ... hmm ... wild. You know, those acres of land with no end in sight full of flowers. Down at Serpentine, you have a natural waterfall. Further down south, you have a Red Tingle tree forest, that holds giant vintage trees, one at 24 metres, the largest, living, girthed eucalypt known in the world. These will be fantastic to explore in early Spring, where the day temperature will be in low 20s and lots and lots more. Before I got carried away, Judy reminded me there is the billion dollar garden that has giant trees, flowers all over, an indoor waterfall all in a comfortable air conditioner setting. It costs only 1 billion dollars to built that but since it is a one-stop-for-all, Gardens by the Bay is well worth it. That way, Singaporeans can experience Perth without boarding a plane. Brilliant!

My friend Faruk told me he felt more racism during his days in Singapore than Melbourne, where he is living now. How is that possible? I wonder what Faruk have been smoking. Just the other day, the courier driver I met exclaimed, "Your English is really good mate! Where are you from?" So racist. Can't a non-white be decent at speaking English? Last week my Aussie neighbour knocked on my door with a wide grin and introduced himself. He told me he was sweeping up sand on the street abutting our houses and offered to sweep the sand on my side too. So racist. Did he think I was a sick man of south-east Asia? I told him I would join him to clean the street up to challenge his white superiority. I ended the clear winner with 3 wheelbarrows to 1. Take that. Now who is the hard Yakka, mate? Back in Singapore, I never feel any racism before as a Chinese and we have racial harmony day in schools.

Ever since the AUD began to fall, I haven't slept well for months. At this rate, I won't even be able to afford to send my parents to JB when the time comes. Since Marilyn is stuck in Singapore, I have to eat out and boy, the meals in Perth are bloody expensive! Gone were the good ol' days where I could sing my favourite national day song Count Money, Singapore. That feeling when the cute Indian girl in front turned around when I belted out the "Count money to buy the best of all!" part was unforgettable. She looked kinda annoyed, I still wonder why.

Oddly enough, the Aussie blokes never panic about anything. "No worries, mate!" they said. Really? Not even when more Singaporeans are flooding into Australia every year? The nerve. They wear the same kind of work wear everyday and don't give a shit about what bling watch I wear or the brand of my shoes. They bring their lunch boxes to work and wolf it up during the 30 minutes lunch break, work hard and knock off on the dot. They don't give a shit how much my daughter scored in her Mathematics exams too, because there are no exams in Primary Schools here. I almost feel absolutely no pressure to keep up with the Jones here but as a Singaporean, I have to make sure the spurs are continuously stuck into my hide so as not to let my countrymen and our founding father down. I love these Aussie blokes but business is business mate.

Last week, the HR manager came up to me and told me, "Hey, you've gotta clear up some leave y'know." Talking about that, during my job interview I was told by my boss I was entitled "1 month's annual leave." Needless to say, I was delighted. So, imagine how cheated I felt when I found out it actually meant 20 days of annual leave instead of 30 days because "I only work 20 days a month." That was pure dishonesty. Also, I was told that sick leave is termed "personal leave" here. We can take personal leave as sick leave, as well as attending to other family related reasons, such as taking kids to the doctor, accompanying the wife to the gynae or taking her car to the mechanic. My company told me we are not required to produce an MC for a 1 day sickie. Some companies are okay with no MC for 2 days. That sounds okay to me, until I found that we are only given 10 days of personal leave. Compared to 14 days of sick leave in Singapore, that is robbery!

A few years ago, my friend Grace, who is a nurse, bid me goodbye before she went on a long holiday. I asked her, "How the heck can you go away for an entire month?" She told me it was her long service award and explained to me under the Long Service Leave Act in WA, an employee working in the same business for 10 years of continuous employment will be entitled 8 weeks paid leave. For every 5 years of continuous employment working in the same business after the initial 10 years, she will be entitled 4 paid leave. All these are too confusing to me. I prefer the down-to-earth approach in Singapore of 14 days AL and 14 days MC, never mind how often it took me more than 2 hours in a polyclinic to get my MC, leaving me just half a day to nurse that raging fever. They were already nagging at me to clear my annual leave, imagine the noise if I make it to long service leave. I don't just need a mask, get me some ear plugs too.

When I was unemployed for 8 months in Singapore, I sat along Clarke Quay one day watching the Singapore River. The river was constantly flowing and reflected the morning sun beautifully back at me. I wondered if I would ever find something better than that. The Swan River of Perth is a long one that divides Perth by the north and south, leading to the Indian Ocean at the mouth. According to Patrick who jogs along the river in his earlier years here, dolphins can be spotted swimming along as he jogs and gave full praise. Oh come on, we can see dolphins at the amazing Universal Studios in Singapore, captive and available any time. Nobody has time to wait for random dolphins wading by. Besides, I have yet to see a single tourist boat or Duck Ride along Swan River. It is breathtakingly peaceful but where is the vibrancy? You know, the waving tourists used to cheer me up a little during my unemployment in Singapore. They should spend 3 million dollars to rename Singapore River as The River of Hope.

Perth gives me weird vibes and that begins on television. Where are the weight-loss or hair growth advertisements? I've yet to see a single one in 5 years. Where are the bright kids who scored 298 for PSLE after drinking some chicken essence introduced to every Singaporean in the bus stops? As I learn about Perth, I found more shocking facts about the people here. When they buy their cars, boats, outdoor pizza stoves, they do not post pictures on Facebook! If people do not worry about their appearance, brag about their kids and material gains to friends, how do you feel the prosperity and progress of our society? All they have left is happiness, which is just not good enough.

With my life expectancy projected by the Singapore government, I should be still alive by the time we celebrate SG100. I wouldn't miss that for anything. In fact, I will be spending the next 49 years in Perth creating 100 handcrafted limited edition SG100 tissue paper so that I can bring them along with me, with my DIY wheelchair built with the tools I got from Bunnings. I'll be careful to set aside the nominal fee of $866.00 (corrected for 49 years of inflation) for my annual licence to sell tissue paper on the street.

I know exactly where I would like to peddle my exquisite SG100 tissue paper - at the River of Hope, where the river always flow.

I am a living Singaporean in Perth. There you are, getting all ready to celebrate SG51 back home. That makes me miss home so much. Home, like they say, is the sweetest. Especially when I have a home like Singapore, where the river always flow and the place I won't be alone. I miss strangers rubbing shoulders with me virtually every second once I get out from my cosy HDB flat, which I spent $50,000 on renovations but none of my friends were too keen to visit me as often as I prefer, much to my annoyance.

In Perth, I hardly see anyone out there. And when I do, they greet me most of the time. Yes strangers! Doing that to me. How creepy. It is tiring how I have to analyse their agendas that I have yet to find. I wish they will leave me alone. I don't have the chance to display my Singaporean graciousness by giving up seats in the morning train because there are enough for everyone. When there isn't, someone will do it faster than me. Damn these Aussies, aren't they supposed to be slow and slack?

Unlike life in Singapore, I have to do everything myself here. How hateful. How can they call themselves a "first world" where we virtually have no access to a full time, live-in ~~slave~~ ~~maid~~ helper. A day time helper will have cost me a bomb, much less a stay-in one. I miss Marilyn. I wish I can bring her over to Perth, to cook, clean and take care of my kids for me. Like the good ol' days in Singapore. Or even better, I can tell her she don't even need the off day each month here, since there are not much humans to meet up with. She can help me tend to my garden during her off day. I can't understand why Australia must implement the minimum wage laws. Like what PM Lee said, minimum wage hurts the economy. Look how Australia is suffering now and people like me are suffering too. If there is no way I can hire someone for $450 a month here, how can I feel upper class?

One of the things that is starting irk me is car ownership. I have a Honda Jazz that I bought for $3900 at 110k mileage. I thought it looked great when I bought it and it runs really well. I used to drive a Renault Kangoo in Singapore and thought a Honda Jazz would be a decent upgrade. Oppa upper class now, bro! Unfortunately, all the Singaporeans I met drive better cars than me. ALL of them. One of them, Micky of Southern River, just came over last weekend and showed me his brand new Subaru Outback. My neighbour Patrick and Stephen Thng of Aubin Grove both drive brand new Volkswagen Golfs, which they paid 6 times more than my car. Thus, nobody gives a shit about my Honda Jazz. To make things worse, we are not required to scrap them by their 10th year. So those cars will be ours to keep for life, if they last that long. I sure hope my friends' car don't. Imagine the lifetime humiliation I have to suffer.

I hate the fact I have to fuel up on my own at petrol kiosk. There are no attendants to do it for me like how it was in Singapore. Not a single kiosk in Perth understands customer service. Never mind the last tank I filled with unleaded 95 was $1.01/L. I rather pay $1.90/L for real service.

Perth's less haste, more speed situation on the highway is hazardous. Driving at a constant 100km/h to work every morning is dangerous. One mistake and I will never be able to return home to Stand Up for Singapore. I miss the days when we were travelling at 30km/h on the AYE. It was an every day business to honk at each other, our own endearing way to acknowledge one another for being upper class. Look at the atmosphere on the MRT every morning. Everyone looks like a dead man walking, except for the days when the Transport Minister decided to take the train. The Minister set a good example and lifts morale like a shiny beacon but common Singaporeans just cannot emulate that when the Minister stops taking train the next day. Classic meritocracy in action. We have to keep working hard and we will get there.

The education system here is dire. Most of the public schools have only 2 classes per level. There are not morning assembly like how we do it in Singapore, to fortify our national pride by having the discipline master make us sing the Nation Anthem until we did it loud enough. Schools here, in contrast, feel sparse and cold. It feels so quiet that I don't even know it is a school day. Damn. That can get me fined for driving more than 40km/h along school zones. As I mentioned earlier, it is dangerous to drive in Perth. As long as you live within the school zones of public schools, they have to create a class for your kids if their current classes are full. Without the balloting process we do to get our kids into schools in Singapore, it feels so empty when we get enrolled. The other parents are almost zombie-like, with the bo chup attitude. In all fairness, I cannot blame them. The euphoria and adrenaline rush that the balloting system brings is missing.

One thing I can never get over with is that the Aussies make their kids go to bed at 7.30pm! Even on television programs, they play "Good night! See you in the morning!" skits at 7pm everyday to convenience the parents to shoo their kids to bed. Incredulous. How can kids learn anything by sleeping so early? Don't they have homework to do? It is no wonder our education system is far superior than the Australian one. Our children are far ahead because we work our kids overtime every day, preparing them for the real working world out there, where it is common to work more than 12 hours a day. Aussie kids are in for a shocker when they start to work. Hmm. Come to think of it, we don't work overtime here and knock off on time nearly all the time. Perhaps not.

Without Marilyn, it is impossible to keep our houses here spick and span. I don't understand why Singaporeans are so obsessed with landed properties. For the price of a 5 room flat in Sinapore, we get a good size freehold landed property here. It feels good for a day until I realise the amount of gardening, weeding and cleaning I have to do. It is atrocious. It is far easier to pay conservancy rates and get our foreign workers to sweep up the corridor of our HDB flats. No hussy fussy. The easy access to a double garage where I park my satki Honda Jazz makes me put on weight. Yeah, on the bright side, I enjoy free parking here but I would rather pay $120 a month to park my car on the top level of my MSCP so that I get my daily exercise by walking up many flights of stairs to the top. The morning exercise used to wake my mind up and kept me sharp for the day. The reason why my car was parked at the top was that there were no parking lots by the time I got back from work, which worked well for me.

I kinda miss those iconic ERP gantries along any route I chose to go to work. Yeah, I don't enjoy paying fees but that is the only way to filter out the pretenders. Making it expensive will weed out the undeserving car owners in Singapore. I will vote for ERP gantries in Perth if I have the chance. That will also slow the cars down a little, which makes the roads safer, since we tend to do that when we ensure our cashcard is firmly slotted in.

Perth will never feel like home because of the four seasons we have to deal with through the year. Singapore offers security and stability in every sense. Our government makes sure of that. Their prowess probably ensure we have a consistent climate throughout the year too. We have sunny, rainy and fear. It is predictable and safe unlike in Perth. Just a couple of weeks ago, we experienced the coldest day in 4 years at 0.7°C in the wee hours. In Autumn, we have low 20s in the afternoon. The only time I can make use of my expensive air conditioner to cool the house is that miserable 3 months of Summer, when it feels more like home.

The sky is blue all the time here. There is not much variation. Pretty cool ocean with clear panoramic views and not a single ship in the horizon but there are sharks. At least I wouldn't lose a leg by wading through the murky waters along Singapore coastline. There are so many unknown beaches where I found myself having an entire white beach for myself here. Where is the vibrancy? Why aren't they attracting tourists to litter the place so that more jobs can be created?

I can't imagine why there are BBQ pits in almost every park in Perth, free for the public to use. No bookings are required because, perhaps, of the very low population density. That may be why Singaporeans find Perth boring. You can never get the same vibrancy and vibes of a world class city like Singapore without human beings. Why are the BBQ pits free to use? Is that where my high tax goes to? Free medical, family tax benefits, societal safety nets, countless of National Parks, open spaces and BBQ pits?

The other day when I reached home at 4pm from work, I thought it was a little early to brood in the house. So I took a short walk around my neighbourhood and passed by one of the small construction sites, where workers were laying bricks to build a house. "Hey mate!" called out one of the dudes. Damn, can't they leave me alone? "Hiya mate, not knocking off soon?" I replied.

"Yeah, right now, it's Friiiiidaaay!!!" he exclaimed, with fist raised to the sky. So drama.

Told ya, strangers talking to strangers anytime, anywhere. Oddity.

This is why Perth will never feel like home, where my dreams wait for me, where the river always flows. In Perth, I don't need dreams waiting for me. I am living them.

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