Who Moved My Singapore Cheese

I was reading a blog post on "Diary of A Singaporean Mind" called "Humiliation of the poor", when I came across an interesting (though a bit lengthy) remark posted by an ex-Singaporean which I'll like to share here.

Testimony of an ex-Singaporean who has a special need child:


In Singapore, one can go bankrupt if there is a major illness in the family and need to be hospitalized.


As we ward our daughter,all hell broke loose. We did not have CPF medisafe bec. we were self-employed, then no insurance. I remember vividly standing at the registration counter of the SGH LIMITED.. since I did not have all the usual coverage, she asked for my credit card and got me to sign on the BLANK copy and told me they will charge me later. I was signing a "BLANK CHEQUE"! Can you imagine how heavy my heart was when I was walking back to admit my daughter!


Not long after we landed in Canada, we received a letter (I kept it till today so that I will show my great grandchildren later) from the University of Alberta Hospital. It gave us two full-days of schedule with all those professors and sepcialists...from heart, hearing, speech, ear etc..you name it we have it there...to check on my 3 year old Singapore-born daughter. Again (like the same scene in the SGH) on the day of the medical check-ups I went over to the registration desk. After the white receptionist helped me to fill up all the forms, I sheepishly asked her: "How much must I pay for all these professors and specialists check-up on my daughter?" Listen, listen listen to the answer, ready?: "Sir it is FREE. It is under Alberta Health Care."
What!!? I could not believe her...I have not even paid my first Alberta Health Care premium (that time we need to pay about Can $100 per month for a family) and not a single cent of tax and yet we got FREE real professional check-ups for my daughter! I almost cried! The receptionist did not ask for my credit card. It was/is FREE!!!!!


Same daughter, same illness but in a different country and heaven and hell difference. Lucky we mmigrated to Canada. Lucky. Pure luck.


At kindergrader her class had only 7 special needs kids but they were taken care of by a full-time teacher, an assistant and watch over by a nurse and a specialist for special needs kid!


Fast forward. On reaching 18, she is given a monthly inflation-indexed allowance of Sin $1,500 (C$1+S$1.3), free medical and drugs, free dentistry and glasses (Sin $ 400 every 2 yrs). She can enroll for all kinds of studies and even dance, swim or social dance ... all paid for..yea FREE. Monthly bus is half price at Sin$45 per month ...unlimted bus and train travel.


If she is out of job, the social service will immediately find her a suitable job. Now she works 1 to 2 days a week in the Dollar Shop to do stuffing and packing...earning about sin$400 per month...no tax and no crawl back as it too low an income. So total monthly allowance+income about Sin$2,000.


I always tell Singaporeans that it takes alot of courage to emigrate out of Singapore but it takes even more courage to live in Singapore!


Canada is not a perfect place but you know for sure that it is not Singapore where if you do not die in the hospital, you will die of shock by just looking at the hospital bill!


Open to the idea of emigrating out of Singapore. We are not taking about politics here, we are talking about happy laughter of our children and grandchildren playing in the snow. We are talking about focusing on how to have our children get well in the hospital without worrying over the hospital bills.


The name of the writer is kept confidential to protect the rights of the child. This is a true case as I know the writer personally.


By WingLeeCheong, at 24/12/09 07:54

First day has passed.

I touched down to the strangely familiar cold yet sunny winter of Sydney this morning at 630am. People were friendly in the way everyone dealt with each other, even on the simplest things like asking how you are, asking if you need help with this and that...I totally felt the sensation of having arrived in a non-asian culture environment. Grass is greener, literally, sun is shinier, heck even the air smells more invigorating.

Yet somehow, the lens through which I now assess my new habitat is different than that of a 20 odd years old student, or a tourist, or any other forms of a temporary resident; I took on the lens of someone intent on making this place my home for the next many many years to come. And it had an effect.

It's the first time I have ever experienced the sensation of everything feeling right superficially and yet wrong on a spiritual level. Scorn, laugh, critic all you want, but this is truely how I felt throughout the course of the day. I actually felt like the nice feeling was not deserving. I see my dad and my mum's and my in-law's faces a lot as I coursed through the day. Family somehow became something that I couldn't shake off my mind. Shirley, yes, but that I can discern the whys and hows.

This is not the way I pictured it to turn out and I already feel like a mega-self-sabotaguer on the first day. I hope the next few days will somehow bring about a more crystalized conclusion for me on the whys, hows and whats.

It's difficult to really write anything concrete about finally leaving Singapore today. Mixed feelings of anticipation, apprehension, excitement, fear, all rolled into one, and the magnitude is also muted by the fact that I'll be returning for a week in 3 weeks' time for my wedding =)

Something slightly amusing happened when I was applying for my Exit Permit from the Singapore Armed Forces. At the end of the whole process, they had a question for me....

They asked:
Please select the reasons below for your decision to go overseas for studies, in order of priority.

I guess I still feel a little indignant about how things are in Singapore and so I was glad to have the chance to provide some form of feedback to our leaders (since this was obviously not a SAF question).

There were 10 concrete reasons + 1 "others (please elaborate)" choices.
I chose, in order of priority:
1) I was unable to gain admission into the local education program I was interested in.
2) Others: I have been unemployed for a while now and when I was employed, I was unable to afford my desired standard of living. Housing is too expensive (then the allowed number of words was used up and I couldn't write anymore, otherwise I might have written a blog entry to SAF.)
3) I intend to migrate.

Ok, time to go wrap up the packing...

Straits Times featured a write up on our newly minted NMPs today. A lot of bloggers in Singapore has written and read about the fact that Mr Siew Kum Hong did not successfully obtain a second term as an NMP, despite garnering a lot of support for his outspoken and vocal style when it came time to bring up real-life Singaporean issues in Parliament.

The reason Mr Siew had so much support from the people is that he was willing to voice out our concerns in order to effect changes the people want. As such, I paid special attention to the portion of the report on what these newly PAP-selected NMPs said they would like to change in Singapore.

One thing about Singapore that I would like to change:

Teo Siong Seng, 54, Managing Director of Pacific International Lines
"The weather, so that we can have four seasons. Here, it's either hot or hotter."

Paulin Tay Straughan, 46, sociologist, Vice-Dean of NUS Arts and Social Science
"I think we are way too focused on academic excellence. I don't remember being so intense when I was in school. But now, I find that our kids are really being pushed very hard. It will really be good if we can strive for a middle ground where there is better balance in work and leisure."

Lawrence Wee, 63, Executive Director of Presbyterian Community Services Singapore
"The pace of change. Let some parts of our heritage remain to remind the older people of landmarks they grew up with or they may become a bit lost. Don't change too fast or we'll be just a land of glass and steel."

Viswa Sadasivan, 49, Chief executive of Strategic Moves, a media training and consultancy firm
"To change the worship of academic excellence and the way people put so much importance on paper qualifications."

Calvin Cheng, 33, Media Entrepreneur
"Our self-image. We may be a young nation, but our constituent cultures are ancient. As a cosmopolitan city, we need to welcome foreigners and make sure we attract the best talent. But this does not mean we always have to look to the outside to define ourselves."

Audrey Wong Wai Yen, 41, Artistic co-director of The Substation arts venue
"I would like us to be a more gracious society and that we can improve on our civic responsibilities."

Terry Lee Kok Hua, 57, a veteran unionist
"That we are not too kiasu, care and share more for others in order to achieve happiness for all."

Mildred Tan-Sim Beng Mei, 50, Managing Director of Ernst & Young Advisory
"This is not so much change as something we could become better in. I was struck by Hong Kong's response to severe acute respiratory syndrome. They were hit worse but could come out and rebuild and adapt. Its ability to change and respond is something we could learn from."

Joscelin Yeo Wei Ling, 30, former national swimmer, owner of swimming school
"The traditional mindset that it is not possible to succeed in academics and sports at the same time, and that you have to give up one for the other."

My question to you, the Singaporean on the street, is, what are the changes you want to see in Singapore and do these NMPs sound like they will be represententative of you?

A friend asked me this recently, "What are the 3 things you will change about the way Singapore is run if you were, um...you know, the Prime Minister?" (Note: this is entirely for the sake of discussion over a kopitiam session and not meant to be provocative)

..and my answers were...

1) I will not peg our politicians' salaries to that of the private sector.
My reason is that, beyond a comfortable amount of salary, it does not take even more money to get a civic-minded person to run our country. Even if we need a top-notch banker to be Minister of Finance for example, the true test of whether he will do a good job for the country, is not in his ability to fetch a higher salary in the private sector, but that he was able to fetch that salary in the private sector and yet willing to take a pay cut to serve the people. I mean, it's like passion over money. If a vet chooses to become a vet instead of being a doctor in Singapore simply because he would earn more money and not out of love for animals, then I doubt he will be all that great a vet. Fact is the high salary creates the problem that it will attract the wrong crowd...
Corruption prevention was another reason for the high salaries; but really let's look at the alternative...you see, drug trafficking is prevented by capital punishment in Singapore...punitive rather than rewarding. It sure works doesn't it?

2) I will enact a minimum wage law
Minister Lim Swee Say recently said during the 2009 tripartism forum that the absence of a minimum wage law allowed many employers to cut wages during the crisis and hence saved jobs. I beg to differ because a minimum wage law can protect Singaporeans at the very bottom of the labour food chain. The jobs that suffered a wage cut (hence saved) would not even be anywhere near a minimum wage of say, $4 or $5 an hour, jobs that a security guard, a cleaner auntie etc would fetch. This would would prevent employers from resorting to unfairly cheaper foreign labour that costs even lesser. $4 x 10hrs/day x 30 days = $1200. At least we give a Singaporean senior the opportunity to work to the bones and fetch an income to live like a human proper. A minimum wage law is the least our now arguably 1st world nation can do to save, protect and bring along our ultra low income fellow Singaporeans in the quest for further economic success. It is well documented that the capitalistic nature of the modern world creates a widening gap between the rich and poor. Without a salary floor to protect these Singaporeans as our cost of living continues to balloon, we are not bringing everyone along as we 'progress'. Yes it might be expensive, it might be a social cost, a dead weight loss or whatever you call it, but should we not govern with a bit more conscience?




3) I will report the country's progress not in GDP terms, but in GDP net of inflation for the average Singaporean. I may even go one step further and measure the happiness quotient, or attempt to reflect the happiness of Singaporeans, perhaps with a study into how many Singaporeans are thinking of leaving our shores, or are leaving our shores. Basically I propose a less materialistic and more humanistic approach. (This seems to resonate with what some of our NMPs are suggesting...)
We all know statistics is a tricky subject. GDP does not measure true benefits to our people, as it can be very unevenly distributed (go wiki Singapore's GINI coefficient), or that inflation can have it all taken away.


Anyway, the list goes on...

A friend asked this question early this morning, "Is the racism still bad in syd?".
Being highly concerned with this question myself, I have done a bit of snooping prior and found that there has been a recent increase in racism across various countries which primarily stems from the unemployment and a sudden spike in Asian immigrants, most of which are from China and India due to their rise in spending power. Indians, in particular, have been having a really bad time in Australia in the past months, culminating in public protests and undue tension.

Not unlike what we have in Singapore, there is a growing disgruntle to Kevin Rudd's continued policy of leveraging skilled immigration to bolster the economy, one that was really the works of John Howard. Australia is more multicultural than Singapore, and has been so for a long period of time. Kevin Rudd made headlines with his 2008 public apology made to the aboriginals. There is no denying that racism exists in Australia just like anywhere else but how much it affects you in your quality of life as a migrant is going to be for yours truly to find out. One interesting statistic I found though, is that 60% of Sydneysiders are not born in Australia.

On a personal note, I feel that as long as Australia's immigration laws do not veer to the extremes of that like we have in Singapore, balance and harmony will be achieved, without incurring too much wrath on the ground. Why? If you have ever tried your hand at figuring out your migration eligibility to Australia, you will find that the biggest impediment at the end of the day is in securing a job there, which is no easy feat if you do not first secure a permanent residency. Now try reading this article to compare the difference with our system here in Singapore.

My Australian student visa has arrived! Despite all the hesitations and hem-hawings in the past months, I can now feel the first drips of adrenalin and excitement about all the possible events that will take shape in the next few years.

Suffering from yet another bout of self-induced doubt and panic yesterday, I went back to the drawing block and re-examined my choice; which is to study IT in Australia, as opposed to a Finance Masters in Chicago, as opposed to a, till-now non-existent, job offer to go work in Hongkong. For my own benefit of not having to go through another round of panic I've decided to list down my findings this time...

Jobs

I spent a few hours poring through job websites in both Chicago and Sydney. I spoke to a pal in Chicago who alerted me to the dire employment situation there; he forwarded me the USCIS link to see how the 65000 H1B visa annual quota in USA used to be 'over-subscribed' on the very first day of release on the 1st of April every year and yet up till now (3rd July, 2009) there has only been about 45000 filings.

That thereabout dashed all naive hopes of thinking Shirley (my spouse) can land a visa sponsorship for a job there on goodwill, good faith, good connections or good whatever; and the high possibilities of myself failing to do so after my program (despite the constant thought that Chicago should be the natural career destination given its status as the mecca of capital markets and the birthplace of futures).

Looking to the job market in Sydney, using http://www.seek.com.au/ , I found a great deal of interesting jobs in the finance + IT hybrid domain. On top of that, Shirley will have the legal rights to seek full and meaningful employment in Sydney, a land where bakers, office administrative workers, lawyers, accountants and all the rest all start on rather equal footing.

Life

I'm already established by all that know me well to be a fairly materialistic being. And so I went looking in http://www.property.com.au/ , zoomed in on a few decent, fairly close to CBD suburb neighbourhoods and started looking for housing under $500k; loved the sunny, bright, well-sized apartments/townhouses/houses I found.

I also checked with many many forums of people who lived in both cities/countries and were making comparisons. Sydneysiders really had a lot of good things being said about them. Something about people not caring for what you earned, or that you work to live not live to work etc...Racism is still something I keep thinking about, but according to my Chicago pal, its pretty much the same over his side of the world...and I thought about it, yeah it's true, caucasians have it better even in Singapore! So there really isn't much of a change to adapt to there.

All in all, I'm getting incrementally psyched about the big move!

The New Paper published this article yesterday...

S'pore's the place to live in
By Larry Haverkamp (Doc Money)

OUR gross domestic product averages $53,000 per person, which makes us one of the wealthiest nations.
The International Monetary Fund ranks us number 22 among 180 countries. The World Bank puts us at number 19.
Did that just happen? How did it come about? Many of us take life in Singapore for granted, probably because we've never lived anywhere else.
I made a comparison, which will save you the trouble of moving overseas to find out for yourself!
Here are five advantages of life in Singapore.
1) Low taxes. Our tax rates are 0 per cent for the first $20,000, which makes life easier for low-income earners.
For the rich, taxes top out at 20 per cent for incomes over $320,000. It attracts high-income workers who appreciate not having to pay most of their income to the Government.
In comparison, countries charging the most taxes are Denmark (59 per cent) and Sweden (56 per cent), reported Telegraph.co.uk last year.
Companies here also enjoy low tax rates. They pay a top rate of 18 per cent on incomes over $300,000, which will drop to 17 per cent next year.
When it comes to investing, we offer the undisputed best deal. Our taxes on interest, dividends, capital gains and inheritance are all 0 per cent. You can't get lower than that.
2) Simple taxes. In the US, H&R Block is a US$4-billion ($5.8b) company that prepares income tax returns.
The US tax system is complicated. It has many loopholes and no one wants to miss any. So, 21 million US taxpayers pay an average of US$175 to 137,000 H&R Block tax experts to file taxes for them.
We don't have such an industry since our tax code is simple. It takes less than an hour to complete taxes online, which was the preferred way of filing for 90 per cent of taxpayers this year.
3) Low interest rates. We don't think about interest rates much, but they have a lot to do with our success.
Low interest rates make homes affordable. Our family, for example, pays only 1.6 per cent interest on our mortgage.
In the US and most of Europe you can't find a 3-year variable rate home loan for less than 4 per cent, and that is already an all-time low.
Businesses also benefit. Low interest rates make it easier for our local companies to keep costs down and compete internationally.
4) Good location. We are lucky. We don't sit on an earthquake fault like Sumatra and are not in hurricane alley like Hong Kong, the Philippines or Bangladesh.
We are located at a natural transit point that has made Singapore a logical port.
Our Port of Singapore Authority has made the most of this advantage. Today, Singapore is the most efficient and widely used port in the world.
5) Low crime. I have a friend from Germany who told me: 'Singapore is a very good place for good people and a very bad place for bad people.'
In many countries, parks are not crowded at night because people don't dare to walk through them. The chance of being robbed is too high.
We tend to take safety for granted. Our yearly murder rate is only 5 per one million residents.
That comes to about 25 murders per year, which is about one every two weeks. That may sound like a lot, but it ranks us among the four safest countries among 79 surveyed by the United Nations.
World's most dangerous and safe countries
*Annual murders per 1 million persons
Most Dangerous
1) Columbia: 618*
2) South Africa: 500
3) Jamaica: 324
4) Venezuela: 316
Most Safe
76) Singapore: 5
77) Japan: 5
78) Morocco: 5
79) Saudi Arabia: 4
* Source: The Ninth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends
This article was first published in The New Paper.

My 2 cents:
"Low interest rates make homes affordable. Our family, for example, pays only 1.6 per cent interest on our mortgage.In the US and most of Europe you can't find a 3-year variable rate home loan for less than 4 per cent, and that is already an all-time low."

This is misleading, as the 1.6% he is paying is also near an all-time low, and is a variable depending on the SIBOR. American's higher mortgage interest rates means their savings (e.g. Fixed Deposit) interest rates are also higher. Our CPF interest rate at 2.5% is nothing to shout about either.

The fact is our GDP figures are skewed, as shown by our GINI coefficient. We attract high income citizens like Jim Rogers and Jet Li and Gongli and all that yes. So??? Jim Rogers is not really in Singapore most of the time anyway. Let's watch, if Jim Rogers' or Jet Li's kids will one day end up serving 2 yrs of NS in Singapore.

The citizenship is to park his money in a tax haven that's about it. Does it really make a difference to the lives of Singaporeans if Jim Rogers lived here? The answer is no. Oh no maybe there will be some economic effects from >> Jim Rogers buy a Lambo >> Lambo dealer gets big pay >> Lambo dealer go KTV >> foreign 'social' worker gets a big one >> foreign social worker invests in Singapore Condo >> Property price increase in Singapore >>End result: We are 'successful' and hence 'happy'. Or are we??

Jokes aside, the fact that Scandinavians are among the happiest people in the world is proof enough we don't need a low tax rate to be happy, nor another billionaire migrant. The key here is, beyond a 3rd world level of GDP income, what makes us happy is not what our media keeps wanting to have us believe. Maybe we should model ourselves after happy countries, not high GDP countries? Maybe PAP, as an elected government, should seriously take what the citizens want as what is good for us; and dispense with the tiring practice of showing up nearing the elections with freebies and handouts. Yes, humans are creatures with short term memories, but the internet and blogosphere has seriously changed that. Politicians need to play a new game.

I am tired of hearing on TV while on a crowded and slow moving bus ride, from yet another news anchor announcing another wave of fanatic property hunters swarming over an already expensive housing launch as if it is the best thing in the world. What happened to inflation control? Hmm, seeing as our property market didn't quite go through a correction like the US or Europe, perhaps it is time to consider a monetary policy move to address asset inflation becoming a Singapore-only bubble? How embarrassing that would be if it really came to pass.

Yes, a population of 6 million will indeed drive GDP growth. If that's the case, why not go for 8, or 9, or 10 million? We already know Singapore's natural limitations, why not address the problem now, rather than later on when over and above problems of growth, there is also over-crowdedness to deal with. What we need is a sustainable, organic growth model. Unlike Taiwan and Hongkong and South Korea, Singapore IS the smallest and WILL BE the first to come up against the wall that is limitation in size. What then? If Mr. Lee Hsien Loong stays as PM loong enough, which is highly possible given his young age, he might actually have to face his own doing.

If you check wikipedia, you'll find that Singapore's GDP per capita is higher than that of Australia's. Does this imply that the average Singaporean has it better than that of an average Australian? If yes, why are our average Singaporeans old folks still slogging away at the age of >55, and maybe selling the tail end of his flat for some retirement money, when the average Australian retiree is sitting in a cafe enjoying a book in the morning. Maybe the Singaporean lau uncle is taking his cue from Mr Lee Kuan Yew, whose advice is to "keep on working beyond retirement if you don't want to die, because people die soon after they retire"*. Exemplary are his tiring duties of flying around countries to meet interesting people.

I don't really know what is wrong, but I know something is wrong. I hope one day things will change drastically in Singapore, for I still wish to be able to live with my aging parents in a country they call home.

I reference this link for those of you keen to read more:

http://www.littlespeck.com/content/people/CTrendsPeople-080906.htm

*not a word for word quote

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong made a comment in the straits times today (See below for article) on the alarming number of Singaporeans leaving for greener pastures.

June 28, 2009
Strong wings, deep roots
SM Goh urges schools to help students retain their emotional bonds to Singapore
By Goh Chin Lian
MORE than one in five of the top students from the 1996-1999 A level graduating cohorts are not working in Singapore today. And of those from the same batches who went on to universities overseas without a scholarship bond, more than one in three are today carving out careers outside the country.

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong gave these statistics on Saturday to illustrate the urgency of getting young Singaporeans to sink roots here even as they become more entrepreneurial and break out into the global economy.

'If more and more of our bright students do not return, this begs the question whether our success in giving them wings to fly far and high will result in our eventual decline as a nation, especially as we are not even reproducing ourselves.

'No nation will be able to sustain its growth and prosperity without sufficient talent, much less a small country like Singapore without natural resources,' said Mr Goh.

He was speaking to more than 1,000 guests at the 70th anniversary dinner of Chung Cheng High School last night. He urged schools to help students retain their emotional bonds to Singapore, 'so that they think of Singapore as the home which nurtured them, and want to contribute in some ways to the country of their birth'.

To do this, he suggested that schools inculcate in the young certain values, such as being appreciative of those who help them advance in life; and not taking for granted the academic, sports and arts programmes they can enjoy here and abroad, when many children elsewhere cannot.

Mr Goh hoped that the end result of such teaching would be students who have strong links with their schools, close ties with their friends and a strong sense of responsibility to their families - even if they choose to live, work and even settle down overseas.

Switching to Mandarin, Mr Goh said: 'I hope Chung Cheng and our schools will give two lasting bequests to our children. One is strong wings; the other, deep roots.

'Like wild geese that migrate each fall, young Singaporeans should be equipped with the courage, strength and adaptability to venture to distant lands in search of opportunities. But when spring returns, they will come back, as this is their home.'

Indeed, Mr Goh further argued in English, helping young Singaporeans stay rooted here was the most important challenge facing the Education Ministry. This is because the number of young Singaporeans working overseas will grow, given that the education system is producing more and more students equipped with the right skills to go global.

Read the full story in Sunday's edition of The Straits Times

chinlian@sph.com.sg

My 2 cents:

PAP succeeded in developing Singapore from a fishing village to an almost-first-world city. I don't know if this is indeed what drives us out of Singapore one by one, but at least among my circles and myself included, there is a gap between what our generation expects out of life and what our govt thinks we want out of life. Our handsome GDP growth can be achieved without a good distribution of income. Our richer capitalist/businessman citizens and high wage expats can love their lives in low tax Singapore. What about the rest-of-us?

How do you give the rest-of-us a fair chance at climbing the financial ladder in Singapore's high asset inflation environment? Our local university degrees (unlike that of our better off classmates whose parents had the money to send them overseas to study Law or Medicine and then returning to yet another generation of success in their family), are worth as much as what our hordes of 3rd world country classmates are willing to take for their salary. Take it as a challenge, I hear you say, but look, you simply cannot compete when people think SGD2000 = 10,000 xxx currency back home. A Singaporean lad is thinking, "hey how the heck am I ever going to get out of this poor-heartlander vicious cycle? "

That's not gripe and careless complaints my friends, that is reality that can bite our families one day when the aged falls ill and medical treatment is depleting family savings with or without insurance coverage, and that'll probably come, what, when the lad is in his 40s and nobody wanna hire him for his expected pay anymore? This is different in USA, this is different in Australia, this is different in Canada. Minimum wage laws, public medical health care, local work experience bias in the workplace, but to name a few.

We are a small island country without resources, but we do have world's best (if pay is indicative) leaders. Please solve these problems. The kids SM Goh is targetting might become the world's most appreciative citizens, but financial realities will eventually hit them when they come of age. When that time comes, the end will be the same, appreciative or not. But then again, I suspect the leaders won't hear these words or agree with these words from where they are.

2 days ago, I accompanied a good friend to an emigration agency in Havelock road (Singapore) for a first session of consultancy. It was an interesting first encounter and I'll like to share with the readers of this blog some of my revelations.

1)
They charge $6500 to assist my friend with applications, which is not inclusive of around $3000 in fees paid to the Australian official bodies.

2)
There has been a rising trend of "first generation Singaporeans (FGS)" (e.g. PRC Chinese, India Indians, Philipinos etc) in Singapore seeking consultation to move on to Australia.

3)
"Original Singaporeans (OS)" seeking migration to Australia has been the agency's bread and butter source of revenue for many years.

Have you wondered how many of your fellow Singaporean friends are thinking of becoming a "quitter"? Having openly declared to his colleagues his quest to leave Singapore citing several reasons such as the rat race lifestyle/mentality, the high cost of living, and last but certainly not least on his list, the overcrowdedness, many of them gave him comparison rebuttals such as "Japan is more crowded!".

I admit my friend gets easily exasperated when his views are not shared by the majority of his audience, as if his views should hold universal logic and hence uniform consensus. Out of pure curiosity, I've started what might not be a very original, but certainly up-to-date, poll that will run from today up to this year's National day, 9th August 2009. Please do forward this link to more of your Singaporean friends and visit back in a couple of months for results!

Do you think you are a good person? Think about it. From the time you developed any form of cognitive ability, in how many instances have you truly and utterly felt guilty without a shred of doubt and without the need to seek redress from your inner voice because even that voice is experiencing the same guilt. Of late, in a rather strange and unfamiliar way, I have been becoming increasingly aware of my flawed and self-centered character.

My plans to pursue a postgraduate degree in the States was kickstarted by what some might deem as lofty career goals, and then driven on by my selfish wanderlust, my dream of living a more "full" life. The little bits of preparation like getting my GRE done and pulling together application material such as recommendation letters has come full circle and I may be able to leave for Chicago soon.

My family has been supportive of my endeavours, but their very same act gnaw away at me. If their kindness gnaws, my fiancee's imminent sacrifice in this next episode of my life tears my conscience to shreds. Maybe Singapore's family campaign ad, Funeral, is getting to me subconsciously.

I am not the world's most decisive man, she will tell you. I will attempt at making life changing decisions only to change my mind again before she can even finish ridiculing me out of mock fun for the last stupid call I made. Her funny and light-hearted takes on our big decisions (which are going to inadvertently affect her with the strongest impact) is the reason my guilt is crystalizing. You see, she cannot work in USA with a spouse visa, not even after I have moved from school to the workplace. She is to remain economically redundant as an individual for several years till we receive a green card. Why have I not thought of all these before? Why the guilt now? Maybe it is fear, I don't know. I knew she was screaming out in silence and yet I pushed on with it till it is this close to D-day.

Today, I am close to another major change of decision and this time, I realized a couple of things. First of all, one should not feel obligated to stick to bad decisions, instead one should strive to avert bad decisions even at the last minute. Our lives can be defined equally by good decisions made as bad decisions pulled. Second, I realized the source and weight of my guilt from finally lifting it - my solution is Australia, a country where she is not restricted for work as a spouse, a country where she can maybe toy with her baking ambitions and come out happier for it.

As the Australian tourism TVC so fittingly puts it, "sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself".

Being unemployed gives you a lot of time to ponder, surf the net, and then ponder some more. I came across a blog discussion by a Singaporean gal, Peishan, back in 2006. See below for the piece or the link here to the original source.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Where is home?"A worrying trend: More Singaporeans are viewing themselves as 'citizens of the world'. A blog discussion.Mar 23, 2006

Home is where the heart is?By Peishan, a Singaporean in Chicago.March 18th, 2006

Stripping away the lyrics from one of Singapore's many trite National Day songs, "This is home, truly, where I know I must be, where my dreams wait for me, where the river always flows…" Where's home? What's home?
Perhaps, if you've lived in one place all your life, the answer should come easily, instantaneously. Where else, otherwise, could you call home, if you've never experienced something different?
But it's a question that has been put to me rather frequently of late; by my friends, myself, and most importantly, my parents.
To my friends, I tell them blithely, "I'm a citizen of the world"; to myself, I scratch my head and try to banish the question into the depths of my mind; to my parents, well, I make non-committal, guilty noises.
Tonight, I asked my aunt, "Where is home for you?" Her answer was quick, immediate, "Why, right now, it's in DC of course."
"How about in the future? Where would you finally call home?" I pressed on, eager to hear from someone who's lived away from home in various stages of her life.
"Wherever Sam [my uncle] wants to go, [and that'll probably be Melbourne]."
"But won't Gong [Grandpa] be upset that you don't call Singapore home, don't call where he is home?"
Difficult questions, even more difficult answers.
How to tell my parents that Singapore isn't really my home anymore? I mean, yes, they are back there, I grew up there, they took care of me there, but how do you call home a place where you haven't lived in years, and do not intend to live in for the next few years?
How do you call home a place where the only constants are your parents - a place where the landscape is always changing, a place where your friends are moving on, have moved on, and are living their own separate lives?
My aunt's answer was a guilt-free one - home is where her husband is.
My answer on the other hand, is a guilty one. If family is the one thing home is defined by, then of course, home is in Singapore. But it is not. Again I ask, what is it you call home?
Let me let you in on a secret though: Chicago is not home either. Yes, it is where I stay now, where I work, where I lead my life. But how do you call home a place that you do not own, but rent?
(I think the Singapore government got it right when they said that people feel like they belong when they can assign ownership to something concrete…)
How do you call home a room you stacked with furniture you did not lovingly procure, but hastily assembled together from the amongst the cheapest you could find?
To answer the question my mum posited me just now, yes, I can just as easily pack up and leave. Move to another city, another state, another country, stay there, and perhaps be just as happy. "I'm a citizen of the world."
Is it that important to have a home? To feel like we belong to somewhere, to someone, to something? Ah rhetorical question it might be, but it leads me no closer to what I could call home… You?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

For me, that answer will always be Singapore even though I am unable to see my immediate future here. I was schooled here, I formed all my lifelong friendships here, all the good and bad moments of my life etched in the memory bank were here, heck I met my love of my life here.

When I returned to Singapore in 2007 after spending about 2 years away in Arizona, the first whiff of Singapore air as I emerged from Changi airport smelt distinctively like home. My good friend came to fetch me and as I sat in the car heading for Jurong via the PIE, the radio station Class 95fm love songs played in the background. I remembered remarking aloud how great it felt to be home, how comforting it was to hear the familiar voices of our Singaporean DJs.

Singapore is to me decidedly home, albeit it housing the system I desperately wish to get away from.

As my family gathered around the table today for a family bonding steamboat lunch at home to celebrate both mother's day and my dad's birthday, our casual intermittent topics of everything under the sky suddenly took a turn towards the topic of quality of life in Australia (as opposed to Singapore's).

You see, my Malaysian cousin (let's call him MC), who studied in Australia, is here working in Singapore and living with us while he awaits his Australian PR application to go through. He was quizzed on his concurrent application for both Singapore and Australian PRs, his ultimate intention of migration, his reasons, and so on and so forth.

Below's re-enactment is not 100% accurately replicated but the gist of it is there...

Fievel: Hey, are you going to choose Australia or Singapore if you get both the PRs? Btw is it easy for you to get PR here?

MC: It's damn easy to get here! Heard that 3 months I can get already. Australian PR takes qualifying and then about 12 to 18 months to get processed, but I'll probably choose Aus anyway.

Fievel: Why?

MC: Work-life balance is non-existent here. My friends there pretty much close shop at the office by around 4pm, here I don't see the daylight.

Fievel: Yeah, plus I heard you get a lot more for your money on housing, like 5 times bigger in size for housing of comparable distance from downtown, yea?

MC: Ya, but taxes are higher there also lah

Fievel: But I hear you get your medical care nearly all paid for and taken care of, no worries on that...

MC: Yup. The govt takes care of it. Hey, your brother is studying there now, he can apply for PR and sponsor you and your family to move over....

....At this point my dad joined in the conversation and got all excited about the possibility of us living in a country that takes care of his medical expenses if he is Australian and one where he can buy a car for a few grand and swap his HDB for a landed and have change to spare which basically adds up to a pretty decent retirement dreamland...

Now it is not my intention to bore anyone with what transpired during my family's steamboat lunch. Afterwards, I decided to do a bit of googling on health care policies in Australia and Singapore and I was real lucky to find a comprehensive and objective study as linked here.

This report was published in Hongkong in 2006 and it was a research on health care policies in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. As they always seem to be the case, public policies are never easy to slice, dice and analyse, much less criticise; (good rhymes!) BUT I'll like to think that I prefer the Australian version to ours here in Singapore. Below are some excerpts but I plead that you read the full paper as it is not my intention to mislead by selective omission.

Excerpts

...The guiding principles of health care policies in the selected places all ensure that their citizens will not be denied health care services. However, they adopt somewhat different philosophical bases. Both Australia and New Zealand emphasize collective responsibility to ensure individuals’ accessibility to health care services. On the other hand, Singapore emphasizes individual responsibility for accessing health care services and the government is the last resort for those who are unable to pay...

...Both Australians and New Zealanders are eligible for receiving public hospital services free of charge if they do not choose doctors in receiving treatment. Singaporeans bear at least 20% of the cost because the maximum government subsidy for the lowest-class public hospital wards is 80% of the cost. Patients may have to resort to out-of-pocket payments, savings in the Medisave Accounts and approved health insurance plans or a combination of them to cover their share of hospital expenses...

...In Australia and Singapore, patients who choose their preferred doctors can still receive some subsidy from the government. For Australians choosing to be treated as private patients in either public or private hospitals, Medicare pays 75% of the Medicare Benefits Schedule fee for services and procedures provided by the treating doctor. In Singapore, the government subsidizes 20% of the cost of B1-class hospital wards, with B1-class patients being able to choose doctors...

...With respect to private health insurance, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development study entitled Private Health Insurance in Australia: A Case Study suggests that the insured benefits from the Australian system as they can choose between private and public hospitals. In addition, they benefit from the timeliness of hospital care offered in private hospitals, in particular elective surgery, as the waiting list for such services in the public sector is long...

I have read other blogs and forums where Singaporeans differ on their views on social welfare systems suitable for Singapore. I just want to say my piece here. The bulk of Singaporeans can be considered as belonging to the middle class, whatever that means. If you are one day (touch-wood) struck with stage 2 cancer, your critical illness private insurance is not going to cover your expenses because it is not stage 3 yet. Do you go to Mount Elizabeth (private) or do you wait in line for your NUH appointment (public)? The medisave and medishield amount to nothing when you have cancer. Using individual saving (medisave) for medical expenses is ridiculous.

Yes I read that we have Medifund - that will provide us with access to medical care if we are truly unable to afford it. That means you have to go from middle-class to flat broke while dragging your family down with you with medical expenses before you get to the handout. In Singapore when a retiree gets cancer, the children (and grand-children) put their house on mortgage to pay the treatment; indeed it does not cost much to the state. In 2002-3, Singapore's govt spent 3.7% of our GDP on health care as opposed to Australia's 9.7% and NZ's 8.7%. It doesn't matter if our taxation is direct or indirect, our GDP lends weight to our public revenue. Why not spend more on our sick and needy fellow citizens? Ask yourself, could your life become a mess all of a sudden when your dad suffers a stroke and requires ongoing nursing care, or your mum gets struck with kidney failure and requires huge sums for dialysis. Would you be more concerned only then?

I guess my point is, I prefer to pay more taxes but know that there is lesser suffering going on in my country. No body nor family has to go through hell just to stay alive. Leave no one behind. Retire in peace. I think it is better that way.

Fievel is not my real name. Fievel is the mouse in my childhood's favorite cartoon, An American Tail, a story about a young Russian mouse on his way to America, a land he thinks is without cats. Just thought it to be real smart-ass to play the pun.

I started this blog to document my constant thoughts on leaving Singapore, as well as my possible move to the States by the end of this year.

A bit of background...

My family was from Malaysia but we migrated to Singapore when I was in Primary 3 for three reasons. First was for a better income. Blue-collars earned more in Singapore than in Malaysia 20 years ago as is still the case now. Second reason was my dad didn't want to live as a second class citizen in his own country anymore. Third was for my receiving a better education in Singapore.

I was actually separated from my parents from Primary 1 to 3, as they first moved out here while I stayed behind with my relatives in Malaysia. The day when I finally moved to Singapore was possibly the happiest day in my childhood memories. Saying this really adds a ton of irony to this whole endeavor of leaving at the golden age of 30.

My parents toiled really long hours and we stayed in a one room rental hdb flat - meaning a studio apartment but not to be mistaken with the modern day parquet floored studio apartments, it was a shithole. I was a kid, I was happy nonetheless. I liked to play badminton, and asking for any new gadget such as a badminton racket back then meant I had to achieve something such as scoring As for my exams. This "study hard and you will get what you want" thinking was drilled into me. Eventually, I got into RI, and my "Singapore Cheese" started to curdle.

Fast forward to 2009.

I am 30, I have an Engineering degree from NTU, and after trying really hard to switch into Finance after getting blindsided by the lousy engineering career prospects in Singapore, I had about 2 good years of income as a banker behind me. As a bachelor I was not qualified to purchase HDBs, and I couldn't afford the expensive condominium driven up by our free-for-all open door policy to FTs. Disclaimer - I am not against FT policy, but I think we have a problem when we turn a blind eye to our inflation figures and focus entirely on gross GDP. Going back to the job front, I had a professional disagreement with a newly appointed FT boss (who doesn't even know how to use MS Excel but that's besides the point i guess in measuring one's talent) and hence I had to leave and am currently unemployed. I am getting married with my fiancee this year, and we are staring at the sky high HDB prices whose valuations have mysteriously stayed up despite the recession, and I am thinking, no I am not going to fall into this endless rat race. If I pay the current HDB prices, I will be like going to the next level of the Singapore rat race. It's called the you-can-never-catch-me level.

An aunt of mine commited suicide 2 years ago. Why? Because she had developed a medical condition which might require heavy medical fees which she didn't think her family was capable of affording. Depression took her for a month before she took herself. I wonder why world's best paid politicians have yet to devise the world's best welfare system to take care of the lower income families. My entire family still mourns quietly till today, but I want to rant. Why are there so many foreign students given a better tertiary tuition package (subsidized tuition + monthly allowance) in Singapore? My aunt's kids could have used that money. It would have made their situation a whole lot easier. But alas, it is too late. Oh and don't say the foreign students are better academically, because there will be countless counters Singaporeans can come up with like the usuals; we served NS, we should be run like a country and not like a corporate yadayada. Countless overseas Singaporean students who were earlier rejected by local universities are later approached by our govt to return to Singapore.... WHY?


My Singapore Cheese has gotten so far away from me this time I am thinking of not going after it anymore.