Fuckity bye then Singapore

[fbsg]

We are going home, woohoo!

I want to do a facebook post to tell everyone we’re on our way back, but whenever I start composing one, instead of the super gushy ones I’ve seen others do, ‘what a wonderful adventure, I’m going to miss our SG family sooooo much’ etc., I just want to say, ‘fuckity bye Singapore!’

And that would probably be a bit offensive to the people I have on FB from my time here, so I’m just going to have stick to saying it here instead...

So the OP is glad to be leaving Singapore? So fucking what?!

You can criticise a country that you live in!

The people I know who are from the likes of Australia slate the U.K. for its weather and are desperate to escape. So what?!

When did everyone get so easily offended?!

I liked Singapore when I visited but the ex-pat culture wouldn’t be my cup of tea either. Welcome back OP!

We have lived abroad before and made some wonderful friends that we are still in touch with and it was a great experience for the children. We did miss home too and were glad to be back. I'm very interested in hearing the alternative to the commonly shared public comments as Singapore might also be an option for a few years. So I want to think it through carefully and pay sufficient attention to the bad as well as the good.

Different is not always better but better is always different.

Holly isn’t it a bit strange that local singaporeans aren’t allowed to be helpers? Foreign domestic workers account for 5% of Singapore’s population, foreign construction workers another 5%. That’s an awful lot of people living in a country with drastically reduced employment rights compared to the rest of the population.

I don't think it's "strange" as such, no. It's not ideal obviously. However I know a man who worked as a driver in UAE who university educated four kids and built a home in his home country from the money he earned living and working there. I have heard many such stories in my time there. Labour comes from elsewhere to fill the shortfall and there's always going to be shit people that take advantage but my initial point was it's not awful to employ people when that is the culturally acceptable norm in the locale you move in to.

That’s an awful lot of people living in a country with drastically reduced employment rights compared to the rest of the population
When were in Singapore we were imported labour and hemce did not have the same rights as Singaporeans.
Is it not the same for you OP?

If you had got pregnant would you have got maternity leave or would you have been deported?

When we arrived in Mexico I said I wasn't having a maid it would be too weird having a stranger living in the house. Mexicans explained that it was the responsibility of those with money to hire those without it and that we would not be thought of well if we shirked that responsibility. We had two during our time there, the first was fine and we had her for a year, the second was truly lovely and we all cried when we had to leave she really was a valued part of our life.

Actually in my time there was no maternity entitlement. I was employed as a single and would have had to have had my employers consent to marry

So yes in all probability I'd have lost my job and gone home if I got pregnant because i wasn't able to give birth in Singapore unmarried and I wasn't able to marry without my employers consent. They did not employ married women.

sunnnyscotland indeed my grandmother said the same to me, that in her country there’s no welfare system so hiring domestic staff is the best they have. Many of my grandmother’s staff’s children were supported by her financially and sometimes even with a place to stay and tutoring through education to have better lives.

I know plenty of expats in the UK who openly can't wait to say fuckity bye Britain! It's part of being an expat. You love some places, loath others and it's mostly due to circumstances and personality. Don't take it personally. And the people who don't get that are all the whiners complaining about citizens of nowhere who've never left their own towns and can't cope that opinions differ.

I couldn't wait to say fuckity bye to Switzerland, but love visiting my close friends there who think it's Eden

Actually OP I do kind of get where you're coming from. Singapore wasn't the first country I've lived in as a trailing spouse/economic migrant/expat but I certainly found it the hardest for a variety, none of the which were the people (local or foreign). It's fine to not get on somewhere. I'd live in Switzerland again in a heartbeat and Vietnam, but Singapore was a challenge.

Good luck with your next steps.

Jesus OP, you should have worked much harder and been the King Of Singapore and stayed there forever! You clearly didn’t apply yourself.

I lived in the US and AP. Loved it a bit, then realised you’re living almost exactly your Uk life eg sleep, get up, work, sort kids, fix car, go to bed etc as you do anywhere. If yourre a trailing spouse some of those places are easier to do those things than others.

In SG the climate alone would kill me. In the US it’s other things.

One thing is true, when you’re going home it’s like when you decide to move house. You just can’t wait for it to be done and fuckity bye is about right.

Be glad to try new things and have the courage not to waste the best years of your life somewhere fuckity. The world has so many places to offer and you won’t be suited to them all. Most of our expat friends are happy to be home in the end.

No reflection on Singapore btw just people have different tastes

Well I guess Singapore says fuckity bye back. Nothing wrong with not liking the place you have moved to and wanting to go back home. I am an immigrant in the UK. My feelings for Britain are mostly positive but it is becoming increasingly difficult to live here. The quality of life is just not what I am used to. If it got to a pint where I didn't like it here I would just live like you have. My parents on the otherhand were immigrants too but they love their new home (they went from a communist state to one of the freest and wealthiest countries in the world so no surprises). Its difficult to like a place if you are used to a very different life and you like that life. You sound like you gave Singapore a good go and at least now that you have realised you can't stand it you have decided to leave instead of becoming one of those immigrants that try to recreate their life abroad in their host country (fucking move!).

It's easy IMO when you're from the UK to feel uncomfortable about having much domestic help. I know I did at first (Middle East not Asia) and always felt I should be 'doing something useful' when he was there (always a man, provided by dh's co., we never had a live in).

But I soon learned a) that it made him uncomfortable if I started doing something he felt he ought to do, and b) that he was only too glad of the job and the money.
The last one we had was with us for several years and was almost like one of the family. We had often paid him extra for this and that, and I would bring him presents of clothes after leave in the UK. He cried when we finally left.