Domestics in Singapore

I am doing more and more thinking about this. I went to the night safari last night ( Saturday) and the Botanic Gardens today ( Sunday) and you cannot help but notice the number of domestics who are living and working in Singapore. I am not exactly sure I would call it living though. Let me give you the scenario that I got from various domestics when they shared their picnics with me ( a little too spicy, but good nevertheless). They typically work 15 days in a row, can never go out after work because there is no "after" work and they get about two days off a month. On these days they rush to the Lucky Plaza or Botanic Gardens if they are Indonesian or Filipinos and Golden Mile Plaza if they are Thai. Here they have their picnics, right on the road or in the Botanic Gardens, talk, play cards, interact with their friends and then hurry back to their houses for 7 or 8 pm..their curfew.

They earn $350 dollars a month plus room and board and certain benefits but generally they pay their agency for the privilege of the agency finding them a job. Of the $350 they generally send most of it to their parents, children and so on. They are making such tremendous sacrifices that I find it almost difficult to believe. Like Jamaican domestic workers in Canada, they left their families behind and do what they have to do to make a living.

When they try to get a job or two on Sunday cleaning houses,if they get caught they get fined by the government or even thrown out of the country. Their most cherished possession is the type of pass they can get from the government to get to stay in this paradise.

Another thing that continues to baffle me is the difference between Malaysia, 45 minutes to the north or Indonesia 45 minutes to the east that are literally in poverty. You can see Singapore from their shores but although moments away they are literally light years from the wealth you find here, in terms of government practices, infrastructure and educational benefits. What is the key to Singapore's success? Strong leadership, good education, immigrant workers small geographic area...who knows, it is a tough one. One that I am going to do a lot of thinking about over the course of this year. Of course, if you speak to a Singaporean, they will tell you it is because of their own hard work, but surely it is not that easy. I am quite confident they work just as hard in the neighbouring countries.

By the way, I went to the Night Safari on Saturday and because they are celebrating Halloween all month, it was a disaster for me. Ghouls and Goblins jumping out of trees to scare you but I did not have to spend $40 for that. Daniel, if you are here on a week-end we will give this a pass.

The Botanic Gardens were more my style where I could leisurely speak with people, take time to smell the flowers and walk in peace without fearing someone jumping out at me in some crazy costume.

By the way, when I left the subway I went left instead of right and discovered a great swimming pool. It will cost me 60 cents a time but I cannot wait to go. Instead of taking about 10 strokes to reach the end of my pool in the condo, I can actually swim in an Olympic size pool..hurray!

Singapore from the River

After finally learning the MRT and buses I decided to try to take a river cruise on the Singapore River to see another view of the "same old, same old" and I am glad I did.Now I have an idea of what Singapore looks like from the "other side". Singapore Inc. is certainly alive and well as you can see in the pictures of the business district which rivals any city I would think. Actually, it reminds me a lot of Toronto. Where it is different is some of the spectacular buildings like the Esplanade and the Marina Sands hotel which I keep showing you in pictures which is quite distinct really ( especially the casino with it's $25 minimum!)

I guess what is really distinct about Singapore is the melange of people. One thing I found quite interesting today was an Indian shopkeeper in Chinatown of all places. I can't remember whether I told you before, but in the public housing, there is a quota on every floor of Indians, Eurasians, Chinese and Tamils. It makes for an interesting social experiment I would think. Most people in Singapore live in these public housing flats but today they buy them so it is not like what we think of public housing in North America. In fact, the market is super hot to buy the 99 year leases and the government is trying to cool the market.

In every flat, which might house thousands of people, there is veritable marketplace on the ground level. Today, for example, I had my choice of about three barbers to take a haircut, 5 or 6 clinics, bikeshops, every kind of good and service. I settled on a barbershop in the flats across the street. You are never far from food in Asia as there are dozens if not hundreds of little restaurants in these ground floors.

After getting out of the boat at the Esplanade, quite a different story than the ground floor of the public housing units, I had a brownie for $10 and saw quite an interesting children's performance. I then finished off the day in Chinatown which is still kind of fun, even though the mid-Autumn festival and the lights are no longer burning. It is still a hub of excitement. In the next couple of weeks I am looking forward to the Hindu festival of Deepavali which should be fun.

Every week-end I keep meaning to visit the bird sanctuary. Maybe next week-end???

A week-end in Singapore

Let me tell you two stories which I think are quite telling about life in Singapore. Saturday, I played golf with a French guy who runs Channel in Asia and an Indian business person that travels 200 days of the year. We played at the public course in Marina Bay which is where the big race is to-night. They both thought the course was fantastic, but it was so Singaporean I could not believe it.

First of all, I think it was something like $250 to play a public course. I think that there was a mistake or my partners payed for me because I only paid $90. You had to take a cart and at the bottom of the screen it told you how many minutes you were behind and since we started a few minutes late we never seemed to catch up. They also had paid advertising on the screen so you never felt you were on a golf course in the middle of nowhere. In fact, you knew you were not in the middle of nowhere because from the first tee you could see the whole course it was that small. Land is valuable in Singapore and time is money, both characteristics in full disclosure on this course.

There were marshals everywhere. Whenever you got too near a green or bunker, the screen told you to back off and a marshal was not far behind. I really felt like I was in the middle of the F1 race. First of all, you could hear the engines roaring literally roaring around the course just beyond and secondly there was construction everywhere. You were never out of eye-site of either a construction zone, cars, or buildings. The exact opposite of the ocean course I use to play in Costa Rica where every hole was surrounded by ocean.

And...it rains intermittently in Singapore almost every day (and this is the the dry season!) so we had our rain for about three holes which made it miserable, in my opinion. The Singaporeans simply put on their raincoats, pulled out their umbrellas and carried on.

To-day, Sunday, I went down to Orchard Road and stumbled into Lucky Plaza. It looked like a typical Bangkok mall except for one thing. There were more Philipinas than in Manila. The Philipina domestic workers have Sunday off and they all congregate in this mall to send money home, buy air tickets home and eat typical Philipino fare. There had to be ten of thousands of Philliipinos on six floors. I could not believe the line-ups around the hallway to send money home. I am just reading Ayaan Hirsi's latest book and she makes the point that immigrants who constantly send money home consign themselves to a life of poverty and the cycle continues for generations. She suggests they save and change their lives being in Holland, United States or Singapore.

I keep wanting to get to the Bird Park and other 'tourist' places, but people places are just so much more interesting.

The Attributes of city-state life

In Costa Rica, when the week-end arrived I had virtually three choices...beach, beach, or beach. This week-end, my first real week-end in Singapore, I had so many choices I hardly left the house because I would have had to make a decision about where to go!

On Saturday, I headed for the Jurong Bird Farm but the stop before got off at a place called the Chinese Garden. What the heck...I am going to be here all year, may as well see everything. This week is the mid-Autumn Moon Festival so the gardens were really dressed up and later that evening thousands of party-goers were going to descend to see fireworks and play games. At school, some of the teachers and I are dancing for parents and kids, on Tuesday I believe. There are eight of us and we have a choreographed dance. Unfortunately, we have to do some dance steps and at the same time twirl a red sash we are wearing around our waist in four different directions. What I have found is that I can do the dance steps or twirl the sash, but not both at the same time. I think I will go for the sash!

To-day our kids were in a soap box derby at Marina Bay so I went to watch. Marina Sands Hotel just happened to be across the street and wouldn't you know it, a casino right next store. Singaporeans have to spend $100 to get into the casino, before they bet a cent. There are 4 floors of tremendous games and according to a pit boss, every table and machine is always busy. I can't believe it. The minimum bet is mostly $50. They won't be taking my money any time soon, when I can bet in Costa Rica for $2 minimum. Mind you, it would take me $2000 to get there!

What is great about city life is there are an endless variety of things to do and on the way home went to a drumming concert in the cutest little amphitheatre just outside a subway stop. They were absolutely great. If I was not so exhausted, I could also go out to-night and find loads to do. Maybe I will just go and eat supper. My apartment is across the road from the equivalent of Yorkville, with the exception of the hawker stand I usually eat at. It is the only thing in Singapore that is cheap, relatively speaking. I can eat dinner for $5 Singapore dollars.

Have a good week and again, happy New Year. In Singapore with all the ethnicity's and religions, someone is always celebrating something.

Sir, you will need a passport for that!

Sir, you will need a passport for that!

Some of my favourite stories so far. The first day I went into a 7/11 and asked if they had any gum. With a mixture of shock and disgust, the woman told me I had to go to a special store and show my passport. I have not found that special store yet, and come to think of it, I have no idea where my passport is!

I just got back from the bank where I set up an account. It was a three hour ideal with signatures, paperwork and forms galore. To get into the Internet to do your banking you have to use four levels. Your name and password and telephone number and a special code which changes by the moment. I have a gadget that I must keep and press for a number when I want to get into my account. However, that is not the story. I was waiting for the woman to meet with me to do the paperwork and old Chinese guy with one tooth and a great smile sat down beside me. As we were talking he said; “ Enjoy your youth while you have it!” Nothing like an experience like that to make me feel younger.

Last week-end I went to Little India and was quite impressed with the sounds and smells, which I imagine might actually be like India. What surprised me the most were the” authentic” Thai massage places. Authentic in the sense that you get a traditional Thai massage for $40 that would cost you $10 in Thailand but given by trained Thai masseuses. Like my first Thai massage many years ago, my masseuse could not believe how inflexible I was and kept calling through the curtain to the other massage lady telling her about me and laughing her head off. My body parts simply refused to be coerced to go in the directions she was pushing and pulling them. I could not move my neck all week and my legs were stiff for about three days.
I did buy a phone and the first night dutifully charged it, all night. Actually, the light from the telephone kept flashing all night and kept me up. When I got to school, I asked a colleague how it worked because I could not turn it on. He fiddled with it for about five minutes and he could not get it to work either. I did not feel so stupid until he took the back off and saw why it was not working…no battery. I had no idea I even had to put in a battery!

The first night I was in the new apartment , it is two bedroom with two en suites if anyone wants to visit,I took a bath, which was fairly uneventful. When I got out of the bathtub I was shocked that the floor of the bathroom was covered in water up to my ankles. I called a guy to fix it and found out the problem. There is one drain, for the toilet, sink, bath and so on and it could not drain fast enough when I let the water out of the tub. The poor guy had no tools, which I found dubious but he had no trouble fixing it. He simply opened up the drain and spent the next thirty minutes dredging up the gunk that had accumulated over the years and was blocking the free flow of water. His arm was so black he could not even wash it off. Now I can’t wash the gunk out of the sink.

Talking about black…I was fingerprinted. No, not before they put me in jail. To get an apartment, or work for that matter, you have to get an employment pass. I was shocked when I was told to put my thumb on this machine. I do have a good looking thumb, mind you.

Who knows what adventure will happen to me this week-end. Happy New Year to you.