Ian Fitzgerald wrote:So your mother comes into town on a social visit and makes you dinner. The Singaporean authorities then deport her for depriving a maid of work?
If I sit in a park and play chess with people, is that depriving a chess coach of work?
I understand the point about under the table work. I'm not asking where I can get a job. Everyone who is telling me I can't participate in things on a social pass is missing the point.
How's this, does anyone want to go for a run? How's that? Simple and innocuous enough? Am I allowed to run with someone web denizens?
Well, you need to slow down a bit.
Your mom cooks for you while she is on holiday, nobody cares
if your mom cooks for the neighbor hood, well, somebody may infer she isn't doing it free of charge, and in the past, a lot of people have claimed to be doing stuff free of charge but immigration has found they were not, and in the process, they have violated one too many laws.
An example, girls hanging around bars, and claiming to just helping the bar owner or friends, and serving drinks etc., and all knows they are not doing it free of charge, and when there is an inspection, the 'friends doing favour' also get hauled, and given warning.
So much so, except in those bars where they take risks, most bars will not let customers carry their own drink to the table, lest somebody reports it as illegal employment.
And if your mom is on social visit, people get jittery, and if anybody reports to ICA, ICA is not gonna deport her, but when she comes back again, they are gonna wonder what her intentions are for visiting Singapore
If you have travelled in this region, you can hear all kinds of stories, from people who try to get to SG or MY.
In Singapore, you can hear people telling immigration officers, that they want to learn the culture . and the immigration officer goes, you already did spend a month here, what culture are you going to learn for more than a month ?
Singapore is a magnet for young males and females and also older people who want to make 'pocket money' and earning in Singapore $ is great, vs the currency and earning potential of the neighboring countries, if you have travelled around here.
btw, If your mom was on a long term pass, and made friends and cooks for a friend, not likely that the friend may start suspecting about her intentions ..
Since you talk of chess etc, did you try to go and make friends in the American Club, or some other organisations like Junior Chamber etc ?
they may not have need for your talent but .. you can kill time, if that's what you want to do.
Or .. well, as I suggested, try taking a short holiday on the cheap to Thailand, or Philippines or Indonesia, to see if you can keep your experience current
The idea Is, in Singapore, err on the side of caution, that push your luck.