I had a pretty sick pregnancy, and even til the 9th month, I had massive morning sickness all the time. It came to the point that while my tummy was growing, the rest of my body parts were shrinking. After giving birth I was lighter then the weight I was BEFORE I fell pregnant. At some point in the pregnancy, I couldn't eat meat, it made me sicker. All this while finishing the last semester of university. All I wanted to do, was to go back to Singapore and see my mum & dad, and be around friends and be back in my bedroom. But I knew nothing would be the same again, I was married to an Australian, and about to have a baby. I convinced my husband to uproot his whole life to move back to Singapore for me. And so sometime after Jacob's 1st birthday, we packed up our lives and shifted back here. Mind you I was in the middle of a very difficult & expensive PR application. Which I redrew the moment we knew we were going back to Singapore. On hindsight, I should have stuck it out a few more months and sorted that shit out. But then I found out my grandmother had passed away, and I was done done done. Home was all I wanted.
So here we are back in Singapore. And again with the visa issues, but for my husband this time. I have been working as a business development manager for a good friend's Digital Marketing company. Til my last day last friday. Come 1st July, I will be Director of Digital Marketing for a french start up. Also digital marketing but leaning more in augmented reality and specialized apps. Pay is much better, and holidays are better, and I'm definitely blessed to have been given this job. But I'm really tired. To be honest, pre-jacob, I was a producer for Moving Bits, and the working hours were insane. But I loved it. So I figure I never really thought about how hard I was working. Only now, back here, being a working mother, I realize, there is absolutely no work life balance. I answer phone calls from clients on the weekends and find myself doing proposals at 1am in the morning. It was a big reality check when I found myself constantly telling jacob: Not now, mummy's busy.
Coming back to Singapore, I see busy office/bank/business folks, busy busy busy working all night. I assistance produced corporate video for a huge company and we wrapped about 9pm. I asked a gorgeous american lady in her fancy D&G shoes if she was heading home, but no, she was due to receive a skype call from a client in the USA at 10pm. She predicted she'd be home about 1am. I asked if she stays so late very often, she said yes. The office was amazing, it's the kind of office on one of the high floors of raffles city, overlooking fantastic views, with glass offices, fancy pantry, delivered office lunches for everyone. The kind of office I'd love to work in. But after speaking to this beautiful american lady. Definitely not the type of lifestyle I want. Day after day, I go to retail stores, I visit takeaway places and restaurants, supermarkets, and I never fail to notice how nobody takes pride, nobody is happy. Even down to the smallest thing. Like dispensing an ice cream in macdonalds. Here they mostly do a half ass job, and shove it at you. (Yes there are exceptions, yes there are some very lovely happy people working in mcD, thats's why i used the word MOSTLY) Yesterday night my mcflurry was all piled to one side, the other side was empty. But in Aussie they do it fast and they fill it properly, and they give it to you with a smile. And do you know why? Because they are actually paid decently in Australia (thank you minimum wage). Working in Mcds in Oz is not a dead end job, like it is here in Singapore. Here working in Macdonalds or any fast food place or even a cashier in the supermarket is considered a dead end job, and the pay is rubbish. That's why there is no pride, because they are not happy! How we can be the most expensive country in the world and have no minimum wage is beyond me. How we can have the highest paid PM in the world but we have so many struggling singaporeans is beyond me. How we can be expected to pay so much for "subsidised government housing" for a 99 year lease in a shoebox, when I can pay the same for a lovely 3 bedroom house in Australia, is well and truly beyond me.
My heart breaks for the old aunties & uncles who are still plodding along every day, working at 70 because they cant afford not to. Those still having to push a cart around a hawker centre, cleaning tables. I tend to return my dishes to them after I finish eating and tell them thank you, and I've always felt sorry for them, but one particular old lady, looked a whole lot like my grandmother, and I can't even imagine my little old granny pushing a cart around collecting dishes to survive.
Yes I am proud of my country, yes it has so much to offer, but it's becoming a rich man's playground, and a tourist hub. Everything is too expensive. My 2 year old's school fees are over a thousand dollars a month.
So now it's all about saving, and this time I'll use a immigration specialist to apply for my visa for me. And once my visa comes through, I'll go back to Australia. No I would never give up my Singapore citizenship, I will always be Singaporean. My family is here, my roots are here, my childhood memories are here. But for us, Australia will be the better place.
Australia will be home.
