Discourse

Last night we had nasi lemak and mee siam at our Singaporean friends' house. Lai and Heok are as warm and friendly as anyone can get. I have seldom met folks who would embrace complete strangers into their home and lives as this family has done. And all because we are Singaporeans in a far away place. They also invited Nick and Keng, another Singapore couple who have been here forever. Nic and Keng were the ones who hosted dinner on Chinese New Year and cooked the most marvellous meal with as much CNY tradition as you can expect in a non-Chinese country. All four came here to study and just stayed on, a loss to Singapore but they are happy they stayed. Heok and Lai actually went back to Singapore for 5 years, decided they could not fit and returned. So while they all retained strong links to families back home, they themselves could never go back to the land of their birth. Why you ask.

For one, life is not as rushed here. There is so much more space, one can breathe easier because people are not constantly in one's face in the MRT, buses, shopping center, food courts or even walking on the road. Yes, California houses are getting expensive but they are still cheaper than in Singapore although before the current property madness in Singapore, they were getting comparable. But for the price Ming paid for his semi-d, he could have bought a 4,000 sq ft house with a beautiful interior to die for on at least 20,000 sq ft of land and in expensive San Ramon too. Elsewhere in the US, folks would faint at California house prices so you can just imagine what you can get for that kind of money in other states.

I just cannot imagine what life would be like with 6.5 million people squeezed onto the 600+ sq km of land. Please please do not become like Hong Kong (the place not the person) where people are so desensitized because of the lack of personal space and the incessant need to compete with one another for material things.

For another, the kids here are much less pressured so they can enjoy their growing up years. Yes, there is competition (and trust me, it can be keen), but the system as a whole is so much more humane. There are the superkids of course. Kids who take on a full load of honors or advanced placement courses (as many as they can cope like 6 AP!) and still find time to play in a symphonic band and play a sport. These kids are sought out and get courted by the Ivy Leagues of the likes of Harvard, Stanford and MIT, even before they pass out of junior years (equivalent to JC1). But not everyone is born that way and as long as a kid here is willing to put in the effort it takes, there will always be a place in a college somewhere for them whether it is at the state level or at the community level. Even those who can only make B's or C's. And it does not matter how long they take to find their way or niche. As long as they have the desire and will put in the required efforts which by the way are less demanding than in the current British-based system we have in Singapore. Mistakes one makes on the journey called life are tolerated and forgiven much more easily. Late bloomers are given time to bloom. One of my colleagues has an autistic child and the amount of medical and counseling help given to the family is heart warming - the family has only a single source of income and could not have afford the kind of help they are getting otherwise. One can argue of course that someone has to pay for it so taxes are high. Yes, but that is a choice society as a whole makes because of the values it places on the hierarchy of wants and needs of its members. Singapore is also a high tax country in many ways but not so transparently - look at car taxes, COEs, ERP, car park charges in HDB neighbourhoods, ...

You can argue this picture is too rosy and it is. It is a generalization. There are a lot of inequalities but which society does not have them? There are wide income gaps and bad neighbourhoods where one fears to go and even college campuses can be frightening places at certain hours (just as UBC near Wreck Beach can be). But the point is, there is more compassion and grace so people can have second and third or even fourth chances, maybe because there is more room to breathe.

Back to our Singapore friends here. Despite the almost nil possibility of them or their kids ever going back to Singapore, they warmly embraced us because, you guessed it, they do miss talking Singlish and being able to say, buay tahan, pengsan and alamak with someone who would know exactly what they are saying and share NS stories and talk about HDB flats and hawker foods. Ahh, the little quirks in this journey called life.

And as an aside, aren't these flowers pretty? They are blooming like crazy in the backyard. Spring is just so refreshing after the long cold winter. And the rose is the second bloom.

And the one and a half man just came back from a failed golf trip. The weather forecast was for a 70% probability of rain but the boy had a golf lesson booked and they were planning to play a game after that. Well, it started raining 15 mins ago and they are back. Hope we get a make up golf lesson next week.