Zing's love affair with London

Okay I hope you've all read Zing's open letter to Singapore here. As the guy from Ang Mo Kio who has settled in London, I am going to offer some thoughts to what she has written. It is a well written short story - she clearly is an excellent writer and I'm guessing that she is a student from Singapore probably at one of the better universities in London. I shall break this down into just five points.

What is it about London that has seduced our friend Zing?

Loving only one city?

Now this letter is address to Singapore as if Singapore is a former lover, an ex about to be dumped for a new beau. Let me tell you why I have a problem with that - I don't think we have to love the one city we live in, that's a very Singaporean attitude IMHO. Rather, you can love many cities around the world for all these cities are all equally charming. Here are a list of my favourite cities in the world: Paris, Barcelona, Istanbul, St Petersburg, Stockholm, Marrakech, Seoul, London, New York, Prague, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Brussels, Nice and yes Singapore as well.

Maybe you can only love one person at a time, but when it comes to cities - heck, there are so many wonderful cities around the world worthy of my love. In any case, in choosing to 'dump' Singapore for London - Zing paints the picture that there is something wrong with the party who is being dumped and Zing focussed on the things she doesn't like about Singapore. Rather, I see it as a mixed bag - each city brings with it different features: so whilst I hate the weather in Singapore, I adore the food. It's the complete opposite in London: I adore the weather, I hate the food. The cities are very different in nature and it all boils down to which one suits you better.

How does London compare to Singapore?

My mother has a very typical Singaporean attitude - she thinks that Singapore is the best city in the world and every other city totally sucks. I don't think that's true - rather, with my mother's limited language skills, education and social skills, Singapore is the most suitable place for her to be given how she would totally struggle once taken out of her comfort zone. Thus she was horrified when I moved to Paris in 1999 as an exchange student - she thought I would hate Paris (she has never set foot in France before) and the thought of being in a country where people speak French (and not English) scared the hell out of her.

I kept calling her, "Please come and visit me, it's such a beautiful city. I love Paris, I feel so at home here. Come and visit please, I will be your guide - you will love Paris." She refused. She simply couldn't believe how I could possibly like living in Paris. Even after my sisters visited and told my mother, "yes Paris is really wonderful", she still refused to visit me there. Ah well. Her loss - I had so many friends visit me and stay with me when I had my little flat in Paris.

My mum couldn't believe just how much I enjoyed living in Paris.

What if Zing visited Paris and fell in love with Paris too? Would she have to 'dump' London before she allowed herself to love Paris? Perhaps she'll do what I do and not practice monogamy when it comes to loving my cities.

Office drones in London?

The next point I want to deal with is Zing's assumption that one would be an office drone in Singapore and that could be avoided in London. Hey Zing, I was an office drone in London from 2000 to 2004 - it nearly drove me nuts. From 2004 to 2008, I worked part time as a consultant in finance whilst trying to pursue an alternative career in media. In 2008 - 2009, I took the brave step to leave finance altogether to try to make a living in media - it didn't work out. So I returned to finance part time with my current employer (a fund manager) and yeah, I am happy enough doing what I do for now. I am still balancing a career in finance whilst still doing a number of projects in the media world.

Zing does not want to become an office drone.

Now the question is: do you think it would be possible to do what I do in Singapore? I don't think so - not if I worked for a typical local Singaporean boss anyway. My bosses may work in fund management, but they're anything but your typical bankers. One boss is obsessed with martial arts and always look as if he has just been beaten up - like he would turn up for a meeting with a black eye and the client would be like, "are you alright? You eye looks swollen..." The other is a rock musician (plays bass guitar) covered in tattoos and gives all our clients a copy of his band's CD. That's why they both think it is fascinating that I have a life in media on top of what I do for them - when I tell my boss, "I'm shooting a music video tomorrow," he says, "Hey maybe you can do a music video for my band sometime!"

My rock musician boss would take me out for ice cream - he would rather go get drunk but since I am a teetotal, ice cream is the next best thing! I was the one who introduced him to the wonders of green tea ice cream - my idea of the perfect desert. I remember once after a very long meeting with a difficult client in Singapore, we each got ourselves this super huge cones with 4 scoops of ice cream and this kid (about 5 or 6 years old) just looked at the ice cream with his mouth wide open, rooted to the ground. His mother had to literally drag him away in embarrassment as we both started laughing - yeah it's moments like that when you bond with your boss.

I bonded with my boss over ice cream. 

I am not saying that you won't be able to get such eccentric, fun-loving bosses in Singapore - but statistically speaking, I think you're far more likely to get a boss like that in Europe than in Asia. I guess I am very lucky to work for these two rather unusual bosses - the fact is, I had a French boss in my previous company whom I wasn't close to at all. I kept a far more formal relationship with him, it was not like we would ever say, "hey let's go for lunch" or "let's grab a coffee together". Oh no, if we wanted to talk, I'll go to his office and we'll sit down and talk that way.That's just the way he is - so you can get European bosses who keep very distant relationships with their employees as well. In fact, since I've left that company, I never spoke to him again - I did see him and his wife last year on Oxford Street and what did I do? I crossed the road to avoid speaking to him - I think he saw me but I pretended not to see him.

So there you go - when you look for a job, you really don't know what kind of relationship you will have with your future boss as it always starts off very formal. Will he be the kind of boss you go get green tea ice cream with (did I mention that his wife sends me jokes on my work email?) or will he be the one who will only speak to you in the office? I don't think you can tell until you start working at the company and whichever way he turns out - you just have to go with the flow and hope for the best.

What kind of relationship do you have with your managers and colleagues?

The darker side of London

Yes there is a darker side of London but perhaps Zing didn't quite do it justice in her piece? You wanna talk about the darker side of London - where do I begin? Muggings, crime, murders, drug dealers, homeless people, pimps, prostitutes, whores, pickpockets, conmen, swindlers, knife crime and a huge riot last summer - need I go on? This did alarm a lot of Singaporeans when they read the story about the Malaysian student Ashraf Rossli who was attacked during the riot last year. Allow me to share another side of the story that the journalists did not report. When the riots broke out, most of us stayed home, well away from the trouble.  I even joked with my Singaporean friends, "if you know there's a riot, what do you do? Do you go and join in the fun, 去凑凑热闹, take pictures for your Facebook page? Or do you stay away and keep out of trouble? That's why I was not affected, duh."

On the day Rossli was attacked, he spoke to his other Malaysian friends in London who told him that he should be alone during the riots and that he should go to their house so they could ride out the storm together. He accepted their invitation, got on his bike and cycled towards their house - right into the worst of the riots. Cue palm to forehead. Duh. Rossli, alamak, tolong lah, what were you thinking? Did you not check where the riots were before getting on your bike? Did you not plan your route? This guy is supposed to be a Malaysian scholar - yet he seems to be unable to apply some very basic common sense in this situation. Like dude, if you were fleeing a fire, you do run away from the flames or directly into the fire? Even a dog or a cat would be able to exercise a greater sense of self-preservation in a crisis. Duh. Remember, this guy is a scholar. Lagi brilliant scholar, eh?

Do I run towards the danger or away from it? It's so confusing?!!?!

As with any big city, yes there is crime but by the same token, as long as you apply a decent amount of common sense, you would be able avoid being a victim of crime. Let's take muggings for example - the victims are often those who have placed themselves in a vulnerable situation, such as by walking down a dark alley alone late at night, or those who become so drunk they identify themselves as an easy target when they are unable to even stand up straight. A simple solution would be to make sure you're never alone if you're even worried - I would often escort my female friends to the train station or bus stop and wait with them until the bus arrives, just to make sure they are alright. Is it necessary? Probably not, but it's a simple act that I would always offer my female friends. Likewise, if I have a friend who gets drunk, I would always take care of them.

By the same token, Singapore isn't exactly crime free either, is it? Like many of my readers, I have suffered from crime when I was living in Singapore - burglaries, thefts, pickpockets and I have friends who have suffered from far more serious crimes in Singapore. Whilst the crime rate may be lower, you would still exercise the same kind of common sense when it comes to protecting yourself and your belongings. Hence Singapore isn't different from London, Shanghai, New York, Berlin or any other big city in the world. The only place you can really let down your guard is if you were living in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, where you had no other people around for many miles.

Do you know how to take care of yourself in a big city?

On fitting in 

In her letter, Zing wrote, "In London, I can be a saint or a sinner. I can be City boy, goth girl, punk kid; I can be in with the media, in with the cool kids, I can drop rhymes in East End ghettos and I can drop cash in Mahiki on cocktails. I can be posh, poor, upmarket, downmarket, chav, toff, hippie, indie. I can be gay or straight, man or woman. I can make myself up, make myself down. And London will still embrace me, and I will always find somewhere that will take me in, and raise no eyebrows should I wear hoop skirts and pierce my lip and call myself Bettie Page."

Well, sorry Zing, it is not that simple. Yes whilst London is a city of great diversity that is made up of all those very diverse groups that you have mentioned above, but every single community in your list above does have their own sub-culture.  In order to gain entry into any community, you would need to fit into the culture of this community in order to be accepted by others within that community. You can't run away from the fact that at some level, you still need to fit in to the community you wish to be a part of. Is this any different from Singapore, really?

London is home to many different communities who do not mix & mingle easily.

Now technically speaking, you could probably be yourself in a place like London because there will be a community which will suit your personality and character  but London is a huge city of 8.2 million people (14 million people if you include all the London Metropolitan Area). It's not one big happy family - but rather all those very different communities (as mentioned in Zing's piece above) living together in the same city but still very much keeping to those within their own communities. In North London, the two stations of Hampstead Heath and Gospel Oak are about 0.75 km apart on the London Overground Railway - it takes about 90 seconds for the train to travel between the stations. The difference between the two stations couldn't be more stark. At Hampstead Heath, you have some of the most highly prized properties in London - celebrities like  Emma Thompson, Michael McIntyre, Liam Gallagher, Denise Van Outen, Nicole Appleton and Richard Wilson. We're talking about beautiful, grand houses on the fringe of Hampstead Heath's beautiful parkland, worth several million pounds each. Ooh la la.

Just 0.75 km away in Gospel Oak, you have one of the most notorious housing estates in all of Britain - that whole area south of Mansfield Road is a no-go zone (awak faham Ashraf Rossli? Jangan pergi ke sana, okay?) as that area is so full of drug dealers.  Denton Estate in Malden Road is known locally as the “Shooting Gallery” (ie. where drug addicts shoot up). The drugs market had struck fear into the heart of the community, with needles, crack pipes, blood-stained tissues and other equipment for drug use littering the community’s open spaces. There is a potent mix of murders, gang violence and drug deals going on in these estates - anyone who can afford to move away would have long gotten out of that area. Life is grim and downright dangerous in those estates overrun by drugs and crime.

Do you understand how British society is structured? 

Do you think the residents from Denton Estate would stroll over to Hampstead Village, a short walk down the road, to have brunch in the same chic café as Liam Gallagher or Emma Thompson? No, probably because brunch at one of those cafés would be so expensive that anyone from Denton Estate could never afford it - the celebrities are happy to pay those kind of prices as long as it meant that the poor people would never be sitting in the same room as them and the café is kept very exclusive. They may live so close to each other (less than 1 km separating the two communities) - but there may as well be a Berlin Wall dividing the residents of Hampstead and Gospel Oak. It boils down to social class - please have a read of this piece I wrote earlier on the issue.

So there you go, London is made of all these many communities co-existing in such close proximity to each other but not really interacting with each other. It's not like they don't get along with each other per se, rather, they just seem to effectively ignore each other by mutual agreement. As an outsider from Singapore who came to London, I had to pick and choose which community I wanted to be a part of in London, whom my friends were going to be, whom I identified with and where I could seek out like minded individuals.

As an immigrant, I had to pick and choose which communities I identified with. 

This is a complex process because there is an element of simply expressing what I already liked and there's also an element of aspiration - what kind of man would I like to be? So the end result is a mixture of the two: I have been doing gymnastics all my life - I started as a young child in Singapore and when I arrived in London, I continued doing gymnastics and am still training today. I know that when I go to my gymnastics club, I will automatically meet a group of like-minded individuals who share my interest in the sport and it is an easy way for me to make good friends. In fact, if you were to look amongst my friends on Facebook - I have plenty of friends who are either my gymnastics friends from London or my gymnastics friends from Singapore. Birds of a feather flock together - such is the way communities form.

As I entered the working world, I also aspired to work in banking - now that's not something I was familiar with but something I wanted to learn about. So I made a genuine effort to learn about those working in financial services and like all young people entering a new industry, I learnt the rules of the game in order to fit into that community.

By that token, is this any different from Singapore? Like London, Singapore is just another big city with loads of communities co-existing in the same place but not really interacting with each other. For those of you in Singapore, just ask yourself this: how many of your neighbours do you actually know well? I'm not just talking about saying hello when you run into them - how many of them are you actually friends with? Don't you simply just ignore the vast majority of them and stick to the friends in the communities you have chosen to identify with?  By that token, Singapore is no different from London or any other big city in the world.

London's Soft Power

I can see why a young person like Zing can fall in love with a city like London - it is London's soft power that makes the UK the most influential country in the world. Now we're not talking about economic strength - our economy is alright but pales in comparison with Singapore. The GNP of Singapore is nearly double that of the UK ($59,790 vs £36,970) and in terms of military might - the UK is nothing compared to much bigger counties like Russia, China and America. What we're good at however, is the culture of influence and the 2012 Olympics gave us a chance to remind the world why the Brits are so good at influencing the world through soft power.

In the Olympic Park this summer in Stratford, East London

I remember being in a taxi in Croatia and the driver barely spoke English - yet he was listening to British music on the radio and could even sing along to the songs of Spandau Ballet, Queen, Pet Shop Boys, Take That and of course, the Beatles. How many British taxi drivers would be able to name a single singer from Croatia - never mind know the lyrics of their songs well enough to sing along to them?

Britain's greatest export to the world is cultural and it begins with the English language. Since the world has adopted English as a de facto lingua franca, it makes it a lot easier for the British to project their culture onto the world. It is a lot harder say for Hungarian, Turkish or Vietnamese people to try to project their culture onto a world stage if there is an obvious language barrier. Ironically, the ground work for Britain's soft power was laid back in the days of the British empire and this British soft power is but the legacy of a grand empire that used to cover a lot of the world.

This British soft power extends far beyond pop music, TV and movies - you could turn up in a small village in Russia, Thailand or Brazil and ask them if they know about Shakespeare, Charles Dickens or JK Rowling and there will be an instant flicker of recognition. Try name dropping Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or Harry Potter and even if the person didn't speak a word of English, s/he would instantly know who these people were. How many characters from Chinese literature are instantly recognizable in the West? Virtually none - so whilst China may wield economic and military power in 2012, when it comes to soft power, the UK is still clearly number one by a very long way - even ahead of America.

By that token, is that any wonder that our friend Zing was seduced by London's glitz and glamour? Even when I was a child in Singapore, I remember how our local culture was unimportant, irrelevant and uninteresting and that the really exciting events took place in London - where the big stars would grace the red carpets in Leicester Square, where biggest stars in the world would give interviews and meet fans and it was stuff I would only read about my magazines and newspapers. It was all so exciting and oh so far away from Ang Mo Kio.

I remember how I was on the MRT one day after school in 1990 and my friend pointed out to me, "hey, you see that woman there? I swear I've seen her on TV." I looked in the direction he was pointing - yeah sure enough, there was a middle aged woman who had done some SBC/TCS Channel 8 Chinese drama series. Her name escaped me and I said, "yeah, I think I've seen her on TV before, who is she?" My friend couldn't remember her name and just as we were trying to remember what programme she did, she got off the train. I really couldn't be bothered, that episode pretty much summarized how I felt about local Singaporean media/culture. Yes I was aware of it, it was all around me but it was simply not something that captured neither my interest nor my attention.

Since I started working in media in 2004, I could write a long list of famous people I've either met or worked with in the last 8 years and I don't think I could've/would've met any of them had I lived in Singapore. Such is the soft power of London - sure Singapore has far more economic power than London, but there simply isn't a Singaporean celebrity who is well-known worldwide. Oh and Gong Li doesn't count - she's from China and achieved fame before moving to Singapore. The Olympian Feng Tianwei? And don't say Vanessa-Mae, she moved to London at the age of 4. Fann Wong... perhaps? Our local star Xiaxue? Of course, there's our very own superstar porn star Annabel Chong...

Even our local stars like Xiaxue are not well known internationally.

Here's a story that illustrates just what happens in London. Now I live in Soho and next to my block is the big multi-storey car park (the NCP in Brewer Street). Normally, it's just an overpriced car park (try finding a parking space in the West End of London, it's a nightmare) - but it is actually a grade 2 listed building. That means it is a protected building because of it's an old building of architectural value, it will be preserved as an example of a certain kind of architectural period. By that token, there's something quaint and quirky about that building. It is a big space in the middle of the West End and if you're looking for a location to host a special event, it is possible to rent the car park for the day or evening and just turn it into your ultimate Soho party venue. This often happens during London Fashion Week, where there will be all a long queue of limousines dropping off celebrities to the VIP events.

This was a few years ago - I was just on my way home from the supermarket and saw that there was a usual queue of limousines waiting to drop their passengers off at the back entrance on Peter Street. Hopkins Street and Peter Street are narrow, one way streets not designed for heavy traffic, so it can become totally grid lock there when a confused driver decides to go the wrong way. Apparently, the queue was a bit too much for one celebrity so she jumped out of the limousine and I thought, woah! That woman looks like Victoria Beckham. Sure enough, David Beckham came out of the limousine along with a body guard and what do you know, there was David and Victoria Beckham - walking towards me on the pavement. And there I was, with my bags of grocery shopping from my local supermarket, staring at utter disbelief. Mrs Beckham even said, "excuse me," as she brushed pass me. This was about 20 metres from the entrance to my block - yeah how about that eh? Pretty cool eh?

Yeah just ran into them on my street, y'know...

Now I think about my parents' house in Ang Mo Kio - what are the chances of my dad running into David and Victoria Beckham whilst going to the local supermarket? What are the chances of the Beckhams attending an event held in the nearest public car park to where my parents live eh? (I can think of the usual 歌台 which is indeed held there during the Hungry Ghost Festival - doubt the Beckhams will come though.) The fact is, even Singaporeans in Ang Mo Kio are far more interested in running into the Beckhams than their local 歌台 stars like 王雷, 明珠姐妹, 刘玲玲 and 庄清玉 - such is the strength of London's soft power - something Singapore desperately lacks.

Can you see why Zing is seduced by London's soft power? Only in London, can I run into the Beckhams just like that, on the way home from the local supermarket. If Zing is a young person into pop culture, then of course, London is the place for her. I note that on most Wikipedia pages on towns & cities, there would usually be a section where they boast "famous people from (insert name of town/city)" - however, I note that on the Wikipedia page for Ang Mo Kio, nobody has bothered doing it. Are there simply no famous people from my beloved home town? Oh dear.

So there you go, that's my response to Zing's love letter. What do you think? Have I left anything out? What do you think of Zing's piece? Feel free to leave a comment below, thanks!