Tag Archives: Singapore

In My Hands Today…

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In the Wake of Terror – Rosaly Puthucheary

In the Wake of Terror is a thought-provoking narrative of a 25-year-old immigrant, Li Mei, a medical doctor and writer, in search of a new identity in a politically awakened Singapore in the fifties.

The novel dramatises the crucial years before the People’s Action Party comes into power, and examines how a doctor, wife of a police officer, is forced to become aware of the unnamed feelings in the substratum of her being in the city. The story is woven into the fabric of a society suffering from the aftermath of terror.

In My Hands Today…

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Match Fixer – Neil Humphreys

Match fixing is destroying The Beautiful Game in Asia, and corruption has spread its tentacles into ‘squeaky-clean’ Singapore. Feeding off the insatiable gambling habits of the local population, illegal football betting has made a select few bookies – particularly one named Tiger – very rich and far too powerful.

Against such a backdrop, Chris Osborne, a young handsome striker from the West Ham United academy, arrives on the Singapore football scene. A series of unexpected events at West Ham and Melbourne Victory has seen Chris – once tipped to play for England – end up at an S-League club in a desperate bid to get his faltering career back on track. However, not even a boyhood spent growing up in London’s East End prepares him for the bent bookies, dubious team-mates, the underground party drugs scene and a seductively beautiful journalist that welcome him to life in paradise.

Renewal of Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) Work Permit

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Warning, long and possibly irrelevant post ahead!!

This post is going to be of no relevance to anyone except for someone from Singapore and who employs a foreign domestic worker. I am writing this one so that it serves as a guide for me for the future and if, in the process, it helps anyone else, it’s even better!

Backstory

In November, I got a letter from the Ministry of Manpower letting me know that her two year contract with me was coming to an end around the end of the year. I had to renew her contract or send her back home. Both my V and me were keen to renew the contract, but I did not want to involve the agent who had initially placed her with me as I was not happy with the after sales service that was given to me when V and me had differences over the last two years. Ironically at this same time the agent did get in touch with me to check if I was going to renew the contract. Then she went behind my back and spoke to V directly asking her to renew the contract using her services. When V checked with me, I was ambivalent about it but let V know that if she did use the agent, she will have to bear any extra costs herself as I was not interested in paying her any commission. Later V also realized that using the agent would probably mean that she may have to hand over one or more months salary as commission. So we decided to do it on our own.

I checked an online forum I visit and found out the process. It’s fairly simple actually.

Insurance

You need to get the insurance and bond first before you do anything else. I used NTUC Income, package MI3E which cost me S$ 256.80 for a 26 months insurance. The insurance cannot be done online, so give them a call with the MOM letter in hand. They take your credit card number and process the payment immediately. You can then do the renewal the next day at the MOM website.

Actual Renewal Process

At the MOM website, the renewal process is very simple. Using your SingPass, you log in and do the renewal. A form letter is generated which you have to print to bring with you to the Work Pass Services Office to process the new work permit. This letter will give you the date when you need to be there. Along with the form letter, you also need to print out and fill up a kind of guarantee letter, which basically tells MOM that you, as the employer are guaranteeing the cost of the stay of the FDW.

Work Pass Services Centre

On the date mentioned in your form letter, make your way to the Work Pass Service Centre at Tajong Pagar. This was very close to my office and so took me less than 10 minutes to reach by taxi. The WPSC is located very close to the Keppel Shipyard. There, make your way to the room indicated in the letter and take a queue number. When I went there, it was very quiet, maybe because it was around 3 on a Friday afternoon, but the queue number that I got was called within five minutes. They check the FDW’s passport, old work permit, documents and your identity card. Then you can asked to take the form and go to another room where you can pick up the new work permit. There, the wait was around 10 minutes and I got the new work permit for my helper and that was it! I was in and out of the place in less than 20 minutes.

Wonder why I was so scared of the process. But this bodes well for any future renewals.

You know you are Singaporean when….

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I am not a local. S was born in Singapore and due to this fact; BB & GG also are locals. I am the only non-local. Sometimes it’s quite tiring straddling two countries, but the fact is that over the last decade plus, I consider Singapore to be home. I feel a huge relief when I land at Changi airport after a trip and understanding local lingo is a piece of cake for me. Contrast this to the first time I landed here, I desperately wanted to go back home to Mumbai!

I love Mumbai, but each time I go back, it’s changed a little bit more and a time will come, in the not too distant future, when I will be unable to recognize it at all.

So in recognition of the fact that I am half Singaporean, I came across this old entry from Talking Cock. Below are my favourites, so please click the link above to see the whole list. I also have taken some more from this list and some are my own!

You know you are a Singaporean when:

  1. When speaking to foreigners, you somehow feel a need to adopt an accent. (If you’re a DJ, this happens even when you’re not speaking to foreigners.)
  2. You won’t raise your voice to protest policies, but you’ll raise your fists to whack someone over Hello Kitty.
  3. You’re forever talking about businesses you want to set up but will probably never get around to starting.
  4. You’re never completely sure how many times you’ve sung the second verse of the National Anthem.
  5. You’ve sung the Majulah Singapura every single day since the day you’ve been in Primary 1, but you still don’t know the meanings of the lyrics.
  6. You move to where you want your child to go to school.
  7. You feel you can’t walk around naked in your own flat.
  8. You force your children to take Speech & Drama classes, but pray they won’t wind up in Arts later on.
  9. If you’re a guy, whenever you get together with your guy friends, you invariably trade army stories.
  10. If you’re a girl, whenever you get together with your girl friends, you invariably trade stories about how your stupid guy friends are forever trading army stories.
  11. You think the most important sporting event in Singapore this year was David Beckham switching from Manchester United to Real Madrid.
  12. It actually makes a difference to you being called an ‘NSMan’ rather than a ‘Reservist’.
  13. You’ve eaten more times at the Esplanade than you’ve actually seen shows there.
  14. You need campaigns to tell you how to be courteous, to flush toilets, have sex, etc.
  15. You feel the urge to add the suffix ‘-polis’ to everything, viz. Biopolis, Airtropolis, Fusionopolis, Entrepolis, etc.
  16. You’ll gladly spend $50,000 on a car, but will go to great lengths to save a few bucks on ERP charges or even a few cents on a parking coupon.
  17. If you’re pregnant, you have the strange ability to make people on the MRT fall asleep instantly.
  18. You copy down licence plate numbers of cars involved in accidents.
  19. No matter how old you are, you keep associating people with their secondary schools. (alternative: No matter how old you are, you secretly need to know what other people got for their PSLE, O levels and A levels.)
  20. You ‘chope’ a seat by placing a packet of tissues on the chair.
  21. You’re very forthright with your criticisms of the Gahmen, unless there’s a chance they might actually hear you.
  22. You think we’re living in a modern, sophisticated country even when our leaders still insist on wearing their school uniforms.
  23. You can never quite remember what “the core values” of Singaporeans are.
  24. You know all these acronyms and have no issues using them altogether in a sentence –NUS; NTU; ERP; SDU; PAP; MRT; LKY; GCT; PRC; TIBS; SBS; SMS; JB; JBJ; AMK; AYE; PIE; ECP; ISD; ISA; 5 C’s; CPF; CHIJMES; SPG; CWO.
  25. You think there’s nothing wrong with putting chili sauce on everything you eat.
  26. “Crossing the country” means taking the MRT tothe end of the line.
  27. You join queues without knowing or caring what the queue is for.
  28. You see nothing unusual about an organization of trade unions spending more time owning and operating supermarkets, parks, drugstores, amusement nightclubs, and financial services than planning the next strike.
  29. You get irritated if you don’t see a sign telling you how long your wait’s going to be for a bus, a train, or the expressway to take you where you want to go
  30. When you cross the border into Malaysia, you automatically and deeply fear for your life and your wallet. Especially your wallet!!
  31. You buy loads of chewing gum when you go overseas and try to smuggle it in.
So does this apply to me? Some of them does, but I’ll leave it to you to figure out which ones….

Shall I??

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On Tuesday evening after dinner, we went to visit my in-laws who live a 10-15 minute walk/5 minute drive. My Father In Law (FIL) has just been diagnosed with Lung Cancer and so we wanted to go meet him.

While coming back home, somehow, the topic of discussion went to the question of citizenship. S and the kids are all Singaporeans while I still retain my Indian passport. I really don’t know why I still have not taken the final step to get my red passport (A Singapore passport is red in colour, hence the line). BB & GG had a lot of questions as to why I did not change allegiances. Actually there is no great reason except for the fact when I could first do it, I was not ready mentally, maybe for sentimental reasons and so put it off. Now my re-entry permit expires in 2017 and so have time till then to swing either way. Actually, these days, I identify myself more Singaporean than Indian as the India I grew up in is not really in existence now. I just need to get a few things clarified the next time I go to Mumbai (legal stuff) and then I can take the final step towards renouncing my citizenship.

Like I told BB & GG, I am Singaporean in my heart – I stand up when Majulah Singapura is played (the Singapore national anthem) and recite the pledge with my right hand over my heart like the millions of Singaporeans and so it’s just formalities now.

In fact, here’s a short anecdote to illustrate this. Earlier this week, I was at an international school for an event. The chief guest was an Member of Parliament and while we were waiting, the school’s PA system asked the school to stand for the national anthem. I looked around and found everyone still sitting, so I got up and asked “Shouldn’t we stand” and then everyone stood up!

GG very categorically told me that I should become a Singaporean very soon just like her, BB and Daddy as we’re one family and everyone should be the same! So yeah, in the next two years, that’s a goal to reach!

One benefit of having a Singapore passport is leaving behind all the visa hassles I’ve had to undergo since coming here. Singapore citizens can travel visa free to many countries in the world, while Indians need a visa for practically every country. So this means impromptu trips will be more of a norm, rather than what we are doing now – which is planning and getting my visas everywhere we need to go!