Tag Archives: Singapore

Do you know what they are saying?

Posted on by
Reply

Don’t you hate it when people around you, knowing that you do not know the language they are speaking in, continue to talk in that said language, thus excluding you from the conversation and leaving you to wonder what they were talking about and whether they were talking about you?

Singapore, where we live, is a multi-racial and multi-lingual society. In fact, although English is the most used and working language of the country, there are a total of four official languages – English, Chinese (or Mandarin to be exact), Malay and Tamil. But given that the Chinese make up the largest percentage of the population (about 80%), it is inevitable that you get to hear a whole lot of Chinese spoken in the island.

But what gets my goat is this – when almost every citizen below  the age of 50 has been educated completely in English, you still have people who go around talking in one language when there are people of other races around you, who you know can’t speak or understand the language! How rude and insensitive is this? This happens all over the country and the biggest culprits are the Chinese (since they are the majority population). But I find this happening with Indians (speaking the language of their specific community), Malays and others too.

My master plan for GG & BB to avoid this is to have them take Chinese in school. Given that they will be spending their lives in this country (or not), it’s always better for them to know the language. Even if they do not learn it thoroughly, they should still learn enough to be able to carry on a conversation and in a sneaky way know what others are talking about them! What do you think?

Have you ever been in a situation where people around you are talking in a language you know zilch about and you go nuts trying to figure out what they are saying?

P.S: This is my 99th post and so the post tomorrow is special ‘coz it’s my 100th post! Now wait for something special to be written!

Neighbours all

Posted on by
7

For some wierd reason I feel like posting on neighbours, so please bear with me.

Housing in Singapore is of two very distinct types – public and private. We live in a Housing & Development Board (HDB) Executive Apartment type of flat. It’s not too bad and around 80% of people in Singapore live in these kinds of flats. Our previous home was also an HDB flat and when we wanted to move to a bigger flat, we decided to go to HDB again since we had not taken the subsidy they give locals and so wanted to use that before we move to private housing.

We’ve lived in our present home for the past year and a half and till  today I barely know our neighbours. The block we live in is in an L shaped arrangement with the longer side having around 7 duplex type of flats and three in the shorter side (including ours) which are all on one level.

The day we shifted, we met the other two neighbours on our side of the building. They seemed nice and we exchanged hellos when we met or when the doors opened. Then one of them moved away (we didn’t know as we were on a holiday and when we came back, the neighbour was gone!). As for the others on the floor, we do not know ANY OF THEM! Funny right?

At our previous place, since I was working full-time, we also had a hello-bye relationship with our neighbours (there were a total of 6 flats on our floor including ours). But as soon as BB & GG were born, we became very friendly with them and the 6 years we spent there after the children’s birth were fun!

Contrast this with my home in Mumbai. We live in a building with 19 flats and almost all have been there for as long our family has been there (give or take around 60 years, the age of the building). I’ve grown up there and know every single person in the building. There was no fear of the unknown and all the adults living there were surrogate uncles/aunties/grandmas and grandpas! When we were younger and my parents had to go out for the evening, we used to go to one of these neighbours homes and if it became late, even slept over and came back home in the morning. When my grandparents passed away and my parents had to go to the city they were living in, it was to this particular uncle/aunty’s care that my mom left us in. She would bring us food and make sure we went to college and later to work. It didn’t matter to them that we were adults by then, my parents had left me and my sister in their care and they were going to look after us, come what may!

I miss that sense of camaraderie that we had, here it feels like every one just lives their own lives and noone is interested in the other person’s life. But then if I want to be really honest, I am also more of a self contained person and prefer my own company and that of my family’s to others…So guess this is quid pro quid…

Traffic Travails and the need for a set of wheels

Posted on by
Reply

This post was supposed to be posted on Tuesday, but for some reason, I didn’t do it then. The traffic that day was was the worst I have seen in my 2.5 months of commute. In about 30 mins, the bus that I was on moved the distance which would not have taken 5-7 minutes to cover on a normal day! The best part, there is no reason for this heavy traffic. If there was a major accident somewhere on the route, it would seem understandable but this is ridiculous. Maybe there was an accident, but I didn’t see anything that seemed to indicate any accident on the way. I think something should be done and soon. The BKE which in normal traffic conditions take around 10 minutes and during the morning peak hours take around 15-20 minutes to cover took about 40 minutes to cover on Tuesday! Yesterday S dropped me to work since he had some work in his Head Office which is not very far from my office. It took us around 35 minutes to reach my office! It is times like this I really want to have a car. But the costs really deter me. Add to the cost of the car and the COE (Certificate of Entitlement) which is ‘Uniquely Singapore’, I also will have to pay roughly around S$3 in ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) every day. This in addition to the S$100 for carpark charges per month. I don’t think I earn that much to justify this spending. Now I am dreading the office moving to the other end of Singapore and my commute will be from one end of Singapore to the other end (the longer end as I keep reminding my colleagues).

On the work front, another of my colleagues has decided to quit. He told us in confidence yesterday that he feels the organisation is going nowhere and so he wants out before it is too late. I am really concerned about the turnover of staff in this organisation. I am not sure what to do. Maybe I should work on my CV this weekend and see if I get some interview calls in the next month or so. If I get something by early December, then it would be ideal. Since I am in my probation period right now, I need to give them only two weeks notice. So if I get a new position soon, then I quit in the first week of December and give notice before I go on my holiday and then come back and join the new company. Will this work for me? God, if you are up there, listening and reading this, please do something, willya?

Singapore in second spot in WEF Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012

Posted on by
Reply

So Singapore has jumped one spot up and is now second in the recently released World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012. Switzerland has retained it’s top spot while Sweden has moved one spot down and the USA has also fallen one place to come in at number five this year. Finland is at number four and Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and the United Kingdom round up the next five places. Japan has fallen three places since last year, but other than Singapore it’s the only Asian economy on the top ten which has been dominated by mostly European economies. China stands at number 26 while India is halfway down the list at number 56.

Well what this means to us will probably be the justification of the PAP’s foreign talent scheme and no end to our respite! This also means that more foreign talents will enter Singapore and the country and it’s resources will get more and more crowded! I am quite ambivalent about this whole thing – on one hand as someone who has majored in Economics and Finance, I know the importance of getting in foreigners who can do the tasks who can’t or won’t do, but on the other hand, I worry constantly if the country would not become so filled with Foreign Talent or FTs for short that we become a foreigner in our own land. I also worry for my children – 10-12 years down the line, when they are ready for university, will there be space for them here or do they have to become FT in another country?

Singapore has always been shaped by foreigners, most Singaporeans today are the descendents of someone who came into the fledgling country. The original inhabitants of this land – probably the Malays no longer count as the majority of the population. Hopefully the situation is not as dire as I see it – but then I have always been a worrier.