How this post started...

I must have been googling something Aussie, but an aussie expatriate wife's blog came up in the results.

I read, I laughed, I nearly cried.

Like any newbie foreigner, she came with a sense of adventure. 3 months into it, she was starting to get the uneasy feeling that this adventure is going to be long. What was fun probably turned into 'foreign', something not quite understandable, and in polite parlance 'takes a little bit of getting used to'. She was not whinging, but made some really funny observations about Singapore.

1) The air con has to be perpetually turned on, for it is an eternal summer with slight variations.
2) Signalling on the roads is optional, 101 lane changes is expected
3) Bread has to be white, and preferably with sugar added
4) The waiting time to see a GP in Singapore is counted by minutes, not days.
5) Travelling in a cab would not break your bank
6) When filling in any forms, there's a section on 'race'.

I caught myself laughing and doing some mental high fives with this lady. We could have been sisters for the moment, but we were not. In a way, I wasn't supposed to laugh. I am not a foreigner, yet I felt that same foreignness. If I identified with her too brightly, I might be accused of trying to be an 'ah moh wannabe', which I am not consciously aspiring.

Where does that leave me? Would my girlfriend who went to school with me in Singapore feel the same way? Would she relate to these observations?

Yet I am in no way hanging out with these foreigners. In many instances, when I initially returned, I was chided by the drink-store-aunty, the fishball-noodle-uncle and even the SBS bus driver for not speaking the right lingo or failing to recognise the ezlink card 'low value' beep. Yet I look just like your average Singapore, and what excuse do I have to say "oops.. sorry, I didn't know this is the way it is done in Singapore'.

It is a little disconcerting, and instead of doing my almost daily rants to my Singapore friends who don't think that much of 'which planet did she arrive from', I decided to just chronical my life in Singapore here - as the prodigal Singaporean.

The First Post

It was a few nights ago. I caught an SBS bus home together with the peak hour crowd.

Something caught my eye. I was eyeing at a girl sitting in front of me playing Candy Crush. Next to her was another man, unrelated to her, playing Candy Crush. Hang on, the person standing next to me was playing Candy Crush, and so were the two middle aged couple sitting behind. I was statistically outflanked!

So this is Singapore. A crowded bus full of Candy Crushers.

I spent the last 9 years in Melbourne, Australia. Armed with 40kgs, I came back not only with 80kg, but traded my Singaporean worldview for Australia's. Hardly the world's view if you combine this continent with an island, but good enough for my rojak identity.

It is going to be one heck of a ride!