I am back, but only just for a short while. I have to make the BIGGEST decision of my life of which I have only two options: I leave Singapore or I stay on. But the former is a more attractive option.
What can be so wrong with Singapore and Asia that I have to leave it and seek greener pastures in the Euro-American continents? For starters, it is unbelievable the way we run things here. It is no wonder then that Europeans are wary of Asians whom they label as slit-eyed, cunning and imitative.
Every industry I encounter, from education to real estate, has commercialised and stupefied so much that it is more than ridiculous. Real estate valuation must be so skewed that the value appraisers must be wearing a "one-eye" Jack patch or they seriously must be cock-eyed. A 20 year old dilapidated, spalling and uninhabitable apartment actually fetches a value above $150K while somewhere a decent one is valued similarly. Where is the defining difference between the two?
The valuers by the way come straight from the real estate agencies themselves and they are either jacking up or down the prices according to their whims and fancies.
I cannot imagine the scramble these people get themselves into, killing the market, themselves, us and the industry over their price wars. The professionalism is dead. The conduct and etiquette wanting. All over existentialism and money.
Scandinavian Europe with its population of 4 to 5 million spread over hundreds of thousands of square kilometre and thus a population density of only about 15 per square kilometre must definitely be a paradise of sorts. Singapore is the second most densely populated with about six thousand per square kilometre.
Our living conditions are just better and cleaner than Hongkong. But not any less dense or smaller.
Besides, they accord civil unions (though they don't recognise gay-marriages but as I have always envisaged, the pomb and ceremony could be had in private) rights to gay couples. It is 600 times bigger, forested, beautiful , has more natural and man-made attractions. Even its enterprise is welcoming and at age 65, residency and employment is not a big issue as we here in Singapore make it out to be at 40, 55 and 62.
What does this show you? A first World country with First World developed status and mentality. The Nordic countries are among the first to institute this as far back as the early nineties after Denmark in 1989.
Too bad Australia is no longer a choice migratory destination because once they opened up the immigration to Asians, the whole culture changes and life is never the same again. I cannot blame the many flammatory and discriminatory acts targeted against Asians abroad because they have businessified the whole industry so much, it is devoid of humanity, compassion and sanity anymore.
Not that I am saying the Industrial revolution wasn't the first to blaze the trail. The millions in costs to lives as immigrants slog away in sweat-shops except it seems now we have roles in reverse with Asians at the helm. No better than the whites.
Remember the Japanes occupiers, emboldened as they were from their defeat of the Russians. They were Asian colonisers who under the guise as opponents of white supremacists did no better than they. So what is the big difference? Nothing. All of us, whites, yellows or blacks are the same.
Look at the state of our commercial schools and even public schools. The real meaning of a true education has been so defiled by the kind of curriculum, assessment structure and quality of people staffing these organisations, it resembles a gulag and exhibit zoo of low-class life-forms. Garbage in, garbage out. Look at the calibre of students they churn out year in and year out.
Education has been commodified. Sure, it is to pick up a technical skill , gain employment and earn big bucks. But in Asia, a coveted education at a renowned university is a means for a good brag. There is nothing wrong if education at the same time opens up the mind, help us learn about ourselves and others, think and do things better, improve, simplify our and the community's lives. Not complexify and add on to the suffrage of mankind.
Think of all our past mistakes in ideologies, medicine, industry and governance.
Have we touched lives, minds, hearts and souls of our people? Have we created a more compassionate, loving and scientific community resulting in a quantum leap in improvement of our lives? Has our knowledge base similarly been enhanced? Do we only know money and nothing else of the world and of ourselves? Have we brought knowledge of cultures beyond ours and a truly borderless world? What of teaching logic, reasoning, common sense and judgement and transmitting values of love rather than hate, stereotypes and prejudices?
People cannot relate to people anymore. It is based on class, religion, race and language. Class came about only because of the economy. Asia is developing so we will see more of the economic class struggles, woes and pains. But Euro-America is developed, so they must be stablised to a large extent. But do watch out for the immigrants (the shabbily treated ones) and the large populaces of the countries.
I am going to be homeless in two months' time and judging by the choice of properties I am faced with, I am forced to leave. Besides if I am to be homeless here and without decent work, then I might as well go abroad, be homeless and without a decent job. Both offer the same conditions.
At least I still have a fighting chance overseas when it is so seriously overcrowded and meaningless back home.
Scandinavia here I come.
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