The Singaporean emigration debate

In this article, I shall be responding to an article by Joyce Hooi which has appeared in the New Paper as well as the Business Times in Singapore. Ms Hooi was in turn responding to a Mindshare survey carried out on about 2000 Singaporeans on the issue of emigration. So whilst my reader Chin Lam Toh has pointed out that, "If we take it point by point, Joyce Hooi’s article does make sense, but it just doesn’t hang together" - I am very aware that I am going to be guilty of falling into the same trap in responding to Ms Hooi's article!  Like Ms Hooi, I'm not writing a piece from scratch, I am merely responding to some points another person has made. So there you go, that's the disclaimer... what follows will be a collection of various (very loosely connected) points in response to Ms Hooi's article.

Let's start off with the basic concept of emigration - moving from your country of original to settle in another. How one views this prospects depends greatly on one's perspective of "the alternative path". When you are from Singapore, you have a pretty good idea what to expect as you observe older siblings, cousins and friends. Whereas moving to another country, adapting to a new culture, lifestyle and language is a huge change and you are venturing into the unknown. This will vary from person to person of course, some of you may have had friends & relatives who have emigrated and have shared stories with you, some of you may not. Now it takes a certain kind of individual (like myself I guess) to grab the bull by its horns and say, "yeah this sounds really fun, I'm sure it'll be an adventure."

How far will you go in search of greener pastures? 

You may argue that there's nothing all that wrong with being risk averse, by valuing certainty, having routine & structure in one's life - but let me show you how it can work against you. My sister (haha, I know you're going to read this!) has visited me in London many times and each time, she stays at the same hotel and every time, she would complain non-stop about it. Yes this rather old hotel in Bloomsbury claims to be a 4-star hotel but oh boy, the staff must suck as my sister would always have something to complain each time she is there. I tell her, look either stay with me (I have received guests who have made themselves very comfortable in my living room) or at least let me find you a better hotel. But no, she tells me that she likes the location (very convenient) and she is a creature of habit. She knows her way from the hotel: turn left for the tube station, turn right for the bus stop - walk down the road to head into the West End and there is the Tesco Metro supermarket around the corner for the late night snack raids.

Each time she books that hotel again she would assure me, "it's not so bad lah, the location is great - I don't wanna be staying out in the middle of nowhere, I'd hate to get lost. What if I end up somewhere even worse?" But there you go - the last time she was in London she came with her friend and she convinced her friend that the hotel was great. Oh boy. They both had a miserable time there and I was like, it's bad enough if you subject yourself to that place - but to get your friend to stay there with you? Good grief. Aiyoh.

There's a panda in my bed ....

Heading into the unknown can be scary - the same way my sister was painting a worst case scenario about an even worse hotel in London. I'm sure worse hotels do exist in London - but in refusing to even consider a different hotel, she is forgoing the opportunity to stay at a better hotel. Likewise by the same token, sure there are some Singaporeans who are awfully pissed off with life in Singapore - but they pick and choose certain items of bad news from around the world (terrorist attacks, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, drought, war etc) to convince themselves that things could be far worse and they use the worst case scenario to be content with their lot. A typical statement they would come up with would be, "Yes whilst life in Singapore may be bad, but at least we don't have earthquakes."

Actually the Bogeyman that Singaporeans are obsessed with is racism - people like my dad are convinced that all white people inherently hate all Asian people (mostly because he hates white people and he assumes the hate goes both ways). It's ridiculous - yes all forms of bigotry does exist in the west: racism, sexism, homophobia, etc - but you're just as likely to suffer some kind of discrimination in Singapore! Heck, remember this? Two Chinese Singaporeans are more than happy to attack each other publicly without racism being a factor - ha! My dad hates white people (and doesn't speak English), he spends his days amongst other Chinese-speaking Singaporeans - so is he well loved and cherished by his fellow Chinese Singaporeans? No such luck dad, he gets into his fair share of arguments with his equally Chinese friends and relatives. Oh and he freaking hates PRCs on top of that! He has the same attitude as my sister when it comes to her choice of hotels in London: yes I may argue, quarrel and fight with my Chinese-Singaporean friends & family all the time here, but things could be far worse if I moved to another country.

I still don't understand my sister's choice of hotels in London...

Who knows. That is an unknown entity that my dad has not and will not contemplate - but my point is simple. Simply refusing to entertain the possibility of an alternative doesn't make your current lot any more desirable nor will it solve the problems you have to deal with. Sometimes people call it the "sour grapes" mentality - well, it may not even be that. It may simply be a potent mix of stubbornness + resistance to change (even for the better) + a big dose of pessimism. The "sour grapes" justification is just an afterthought to justify one's choices in this context.

The fact is many Singaporeans allow this stubbornness, resistance to change and pessimism to cloud their judgement, hence they reject the possibility that they could end up in a much happier place somewhere else in this world. It's a risk you have to take when moving to another country and often, those who do decide to take the plunge infuse so much of their optimism and determination to make things work that they usually do end up successful and happy in their new countries. Those who are pessimistic would never even leave. It is ironic of course, that my dad did move countries - albeit a short distance from Malaysia to Singapore - but he did move countries nonetheless. Yet his justification was simple back then - in Singapore, Chinese people are in the majority, but in Malaysia, particularly in his hometown, there were very few Chinese people. It freaks him out that I am now a citizen of a country where Chinese people number just 0.5% - yup, not even 1%. I don't see that as a problem at all but my dad does.

One of the points raised in the article was, "the emotional ties to family". I think there is a lot of wrongful assumptions - now I grew up in a stereotypically Chinese-Singaporean family where I had a very difficult relationship with my parents, particularly my mother whom I just didn't get along with for much of my teenage years. I was convinced that she really hated me (don't get me started on that on) and I must have driven her half insane the way I simply stopped trusting her by the age of 14. Look, sometimes parents and children just don't get along - it was only moving away from Singapore that gave me the time and space to think about where we went oh so terribly wrong that allowed me to reconnect with my mother again. We're okay now I think, our relationship has improved a lot of late. I recognize the immense effort she is putting into caring for her disabled grandson and in some way, that is her redemption, her raison d'être.

Do you get along with all your family members? 

I couldn't wait to get out of Singapore, away from my family. Look, I hate it when people assume that we all want to be close to our parents - I was keen to prove to my family that I was independent enough to make it on my own without their help in another country. There must be some Singaporean adults who have had a difficult (or downright terrible) relationship with their parents. It would be wrong to assume that all 100% of Singaporeans have blissful, wonderful relationship with their parents. Gosh, I remember how a classmate of mine in JC ran away from home quite a few times during her two years at VJC and her parents would come all guns ablazing to the school, screaming their heads off, looking for her. A few of us would make sure my friend had time to hide whilst we grabbed an understanding teacher to try to reason with her crazy parents. Goodness me, so much drama! Sigh, my old classmate had an even worse relationship with her parents than I did. Eventually, my friend married an Englishman - I went to her wedding in the Midlands and that's where she is living today with her lovely husband. I am so glad she is happy today.

My dad also had a terrible relationship with his own parents - that's why he moved from his home town in Malaysia to Singapore to get away from them. Oh - and this sounds like a good point to tell you why I have a Hanyupinyin surname. No, I am not from China! My dad's from Malaysia, my mum's Singaporean and my dad's original surname was not in Hanyupinyin. at all. However, when he took on Singaporean nationality, not only did he change his given name - he even changed his surname. That was a big FUCK YOU to his parents, for they had this big Chinese thing about carrying on the family name. In changing his surname, that one gesture meant that even if he did have a son (ie. me), I would not be carrying on their family surname, but I would instead have a different surname. Hence my Hanyupinyin surname - et voila. So no, Limpeh is not PRC despite my Hanyupinyin surname.

My dad was determined for me not to carry on his family name. 

So there you go - it's not just people from my generation who have had bad relationships with my parents, even people from our parents' generation have had bad relationships with their parents and the generation before that and so on. Do you know why? Parenting is a fine art - some people get it right, some people just fumble along and some people get it very wrong. There isn't an instruction manual, there aren't any training courses - parents just try their best and sometimes, even with the best of intentions, they still get things badly wrong. So whilst a loving family may be a reason to make you want to remain in Singapore, a difficult relationship with one's family may be a reason to make you wanna get the hell out of Singapore ASAP. It works both ways. In reality, most people are probably somewhere between the two extremes. They may not have a particularly good relationship with their families, but their not exactly fighting all the time either: they're simply not that close and the individual may be a lot closer to his/her good friends or spouse. This simply means that the emotional ties to one's family simply isn't as strong as Prof Yeoh  describes. Think about it: how many of you have a family member you're not particularly close to? Do you have a sibling you often argue with?

Expanding on that point, if one has been treated well by the 'Singapore system' (or 'motherland Singapore'), then one can feel a certain sense of loyalty to the system that has been good to them. I was actually treated remarkably well by the 'Singapore system' as a student - by the time I reached JC, I already had two scholarships (MOE Humanities & Singapore Sports Council), was enjoying a great education whilst being on the national gymnastics team. The scholarship money gave me a new sense of independence. Life was very good and then I went from one extreme to the other. Life became really bad in NS, I had an awful time in my first year during my national service. I was shocked at how the same system can treat me so well in one year and then be so cruel to me in the next. Go figure. I didn't want to take my chances and let the rather fickle system decide if it wanted to love me or abuse me - hence I left. Please note that I didn't leave because I had a hard time in NS per se, but I left because the Singaporean system turned out to be a very fickle, unreliable lover that I simply didn't trust any more and I was willing to try my luck elsewhere.

How were you treated by the Singaporean system? 

The other issue touched on in the article was the question of whether life is more relaxed in the west. The writer even suggested that this was a fallacy - but having worked in Asia, Middle East and in Europe, let me compare & contrast the situation. The people who work the longest hours are the Koreans. Hands down. Coming close behind them are the people in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. PRCs have some way to go to catch up but they are not far behind. Americans tend to work really long hours too. In terms of the Europeans though, the Eastern Europeans tend to be the hardest working, whilst everyone lags behind. The best of the rest are the British and the Germans, whilst the rest - groan. Oh boy. Take your pick, they're all too busy taking it easy to notice that most of continental Europe is in such deep shit at the moment and they are counting on the Germans to bail them out. The Aussies and Kiwis are equally laid back too as are many Middle Eastern people.

Having said that, it's not like there's a one size fits all rule - there are some Singaporeans who do choose to take things easy, on their own terms. This includes people who are self-employed and are not obliged to obey the orders of a demanding boss. Likewise, there are people in Europe who do put in 75, even 80 hours a week working ridiculously hard. The fact is, you don't need to move to Australia or Sweden to reduce the number of hours you work a week - you simply need to make the necessary adjustments in Singapore, for example, by becoming self-employed rather than functioning as a small cog in a big machine. So yes whilst there is obviously a cultural bias in terms of the work cultures of these various countries, it's not as if one gets no choice whatsoever when it comes to one's career choices in any of these countries. We still get to make many fundamental decisions when it comes to our careers and lifestyles.

How many hours a week do you expect to work?

At the end of the day, there are no short cuts in life. Those of us who choose to work shorter hours and have more time doing the fun things in life tend to earn less money - it is a trade off for a better life style. By the same token, those of us who do choose to put in longer hours and work much harder tend to be rewarded with greater success and higher pay - it is not rocket science. You reap what you sow, or as we say in Chinese: 一份耕耘,一份收获, it's pretty obvious really. If you're looking for a job where you can work very short hours but earn a lot of money, then dream on. Get real. If you think you can earn more money (or the same amount of money) whilst working less hours simply by moving to say Australia or New Zealand, then you're really barking up the wrong tree. You really should be thinking about how to improve your productivity to earn more money, rather than dreaming about short cuts like that!

There is a point though, which I felt the writer Joyce Hooi didn't address. Okay, I know she was not responsible for the survey's questions, but this is what she wrote, "For the first time in the history of Singapore, a whole generation of wage earners face the chilling possibility that their lives are going to be worse than their parents'." And I'm like, what has this got to do with emigration? If you're not able to become more successful and richer than your parents on home turf, in the country where you grew up - what are the chances of you achieving that in a far away foreign country? Granted that even if this assertion is true, how is emigration going to be the answer to it?

Trying to outdo your parents? It is not a level playing field. 

Sorry but I am going to be blunt (or even downright cruel). Some people will earn more than their parents, some won't. If your dad is Richard Branson or Sir Alan Sugar, then you will probably have a hard time trying to outdo him. But if your dad isn't earning much at all, then the bar is set pretty low to begin with. This is hardly a fair race to begin with - children are born with different IQs, different talents (or lack of) and different bodies. Given all these random factors thrown into the mix, how can one assume that it is somehow the fault of the state if you don't end up earning more than your parents? How about some personal responsibility?

Moving on to the issue of how how this changing nature of emigration in Singapore, allow me to quote from the article:

The World Bank has higher figures, with almost 300,000 Singaporeans considered migrants in 2010. "The way I teach migration now has changed. I don't teach it as uprooting and settling (but) as a fluid to-ing and fro-ing," says Prof Yeoh. It is a comforting thought that more people are not necessarily leaving for good, but what happens when the people you govern are no longer exclusively yours?

Well, isn't this a good thing? Citizens should never be "exclusively yours" in any country - I'd like to think about the relationship more like a marriage. When two people get married, they take their vows - whilst many couples choose to write their own vows these days, let's have a look at a far more traditional wedding vow:

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded(husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

Shouldn't the relationship between a state and a citizen be in the same spirit? However, what if one party decides to be a bit of a bastard - say if a husband becomes unfaithful, starts having affairs behind his wife's back, comes home late at night drunk and beats her up - what should the wife do in that case? Should she:

a) shut the hell up and put up with the abuse?

b) demand a divorce at once and leave the abusive husband? 

Should they remain married regardless of how badly the other party behaves?

Well, I do believe that the wife should always choose option b) for the simple reason that this was not what she signed up for - when she took her vows, they were vows based on a loving relationship, where her husband would be good to her. It seems obvious in the case of a husband and a wife, but what if we were to transfer that to the relationship between a state and the citizen? I say, loyalty - or more appropriately, patriotism - is a two way street. A state has got to earn that from the citizen by treating the citizen well, inspiring those feelings of patriotism - rather than demanding it on the basis of, "you were born here so you have to be patriotic otherwise I will call you a traitor and a quitter". Quite simply, if a state treats its citizens badly, the citizens will simply leave. 

Now in the context of Singapore today - well educated, economically mobile Singaporeans are realizing that they are able to get good jobs in many countries around the world. Maybe some of them decide to leave for good at the very start whilst others may simply be following a job offer with no long term plans - either way, it leads them to spread their wings and the experience of living in another country does open their eyes an alternative to the Singaporean system. 

Heck, do I really have to explain all this to you Singaporeans? How did you think our ancestors ended up in Singapore in the first place? They all had left their countries (China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia etc) to come to Singapore for a better life. You know that story already. The only difference is the advancement in technology which allows a Singaporean to be in London after a 13 hour direct flight, whilst a hundred years ago, a voyage from Xiamen to Singapore by boat could take many days, with many stops along the way. Furthermore, I can probably get a cheap LHR-SIN-LHR return flight for about £450/S$900 or so - it is remarkably affordable. Whilst that same journey from Xiamen to Singapore a hundred years ago would have been ridiculously expensive for those who made that journey. This means that migration has become a far more reversible process, unlike our forefathers who left their homelands and probably never ever saw their home towns ever again after they settled in Singapore. The technology involved may be different, the costs have gone down but the motivations for emigrating are still much the same. 

Singapore Airlines - making the rest of the world a lot more accessible. 

Lastly, I want to respond to this point that Joyce Hooi made, "And the perception of job scarcity is bemusing, given that Singapore has a lower unemployment rate than the countries Singaporeans are moving to."

Groan. She just doesn't get it does she? Duh. Double duh. Let's take a look at some unemployment figures in the countries that do receive migrants from Singapore.

Australia: 5.2%

America: 7.8%

Canada: 7.3%

New Zealand: 6.8%

UK: 8.1% 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate

So let's take the UK for example, given that it has the highest unemployment rate amongst those countries. I will round 8.1% down to 8% for simplicity. This means out of 100 adults of working age, 92 are in employment and 8 are unemployed. Mind you, this statistic does not take into account those who are employed but hate their jobs or feel that they are overworked and underpaid. Now, here's a multiple choice for my lovely readers. Of the following people, who do you think is most likely to be one who is amongst the 8% who are unemployed? 

a) The head teacher with 20 years experience and a great track record

b) The head nurse with 20 years experience and a great track record

c) The brain surgeon who is a leading expert in his field

d) The award winning architect who is a leading expert in his field

e) The superstar lawyer who has yet to lose a case after 20 years

f) The uneducated, lazy, unskilled, barely literate young person with an attitude problem (see below)

Yes we have a higher rate of unemployment, but it is the less educated, less skilled and less experienced at the bottom end of the food chain who are the ones most likely to end up unemployed. In any case, in the West, the bar is set very high (unlike Singapore! PRCs who don't even speak a word of English - need I go on?)  There is a points-based system in countries like Australia, Canada and the UK which evaluates each potential migrant on the basis of their skills, earning potential, personal wealth, education, language skills etc. You need to earn enough points in order to qualify as a migrant - hence by that token, all these PRCs who don't speak English would instantly be rejected by all these countries in the west for they would never score enough points to get in. 

Therefore those Singaporeans who do meet these high standards and can gain entry as a skilled migrant into these countries are so highly skilled they will have little difficulty finding work anyway. Frankly, these unemployment statistics affect those much lower down the food chain far more directly. I am talking those who are barely employable, who have so little skills and so little to offer - they are the ones who are on the verge of being thrown on the scrapheap of society. Now they are the ones who are the first to get chucked onto that scrapheap of unemployment when unemployment rises from say 6% to 8%. When times are hard and budgets are tight, the first workers you shed are the dead weight (or deadbeats) you can do without and you keep the far more productive, highly skilled workers. 

How do your colleagues perceive you at work?

Now these dead weight deadbeats have virtually nothing in common with the highly skilled migrants who are so much higher up the food chain. They move in completely different circles! At the end of the day, it is your social class and where you are in this food chain - that determines how vulnerable you are to the threat of unemployment. I'm not saying that highly skilled professionals don't become unemployed from time to time - but the fact is they are in a much better position to find another good job than someone who isn't as highly skilled. It is sickening how Singaporeans love gloating over unemployment statistics in the West without actually understand what it means in practice and how it disproportionately affects those much lower down the food chain.

Hence when a Singaporean looks towards countries like Australia, the UK or America for employment opportunities, there are so many reasons why s/he is contemplating that option. Assuming that the Singaporean is only looking abroad just because s/he cannot find work back home is a complete fallacy utter bullshit. This is such a fucking stupid lie told over and over again by fucking stupid Singaporeans that it winds me up each time I hear it repeated by more fucking idiots. I have addressed the issue of why one should consider working abroad - there are so many good reasons why someone who is gainfully employed in Singapore should consider venturing abroad to spread his wings, embrace new experiences and broaden his horizons.

Working abroad enables you to access opportunities not available in Singapore. 

So there you go - one thing that Joyce Hooi assumed was that those who did want to leave are in some way pissed off with life in Singapore, when there could be those who may be perfectly happy with life in Singapore but are still looking to expand their range of experiences around the world. After all, haven't you been on holiday to a beautiful place and thought, "wow, I could live here, I totally love this place." Anyone who has done O level geography will know that we can break emigration motivations into two categories: pull factors & push factors. So far, Joyce Hooi has focussed almost entirely on push factors and has barely touched on pull factors. It's time to look at the other side of the equation, ie. "yeah Singapore's great, but wow (insert name of country) is a really awesome place too!" 

So there you go, that's my take on the issue. What do you guys think? Are you a Singaporean looking to move abroad? Are you a Singaporean already working abroad? What are the push & pull factors affecting your decision? What are your motivations, ambitions and concerns? You know the drill guys - please leave a comment below and let's talk about it! Let me know what you think. Thank you for reading, as always.

Update: Follow the discussion here for more on Singaporeans & FTs http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/salah-salah-salah-lagi-salah-lah.html