Lisafuller wrote: ↑Wed, 27 Apr 2022 11:58 pm
smoulder wrote: ↑Tue, 26 Apr 2022 11:54 pm
^what I believe is that there are many common folks who don't mind that kind of arrangement. A case where the government policy reflects the attitude of the society.
You could feel it in people's attitudes before the pandemic. You need the labor because they build stuff, clean stuff and so on. But come Sunday and people don't really want to see the workers. They wish that the workers would become invisible. In fact, if you ask me, workers living in segregated dorms is a bit more than a matter of ensuring that they get low cost boarding. I believe it is to ensure that they are also kept "out of sight", as far as possible anyway.
My question now is much like that of the chicken and the egg - what came first, xenophobic people or a xenophobic gov?
It's definitely the people. At the company my partner and I formed, we learned very quickly that, as ang mo, we would be treated nicely but would never, ever get the local contract. We even had our proposals that we submitted to a potential client handed over to a local competitor who then turned in the identical proposal, and of course, won the bid.
My neighbor for 5 years in Watten Estates came over on the final day I lived in my house, and said, "I am very sorry that I never made any attempt to be friends. We thought foreigners would be unfriendly." The last day.
My wife wanted to go back home, in part because she said we would never be accepted into society in Singapore... we would always be the ang mo, the foreigner.
I judge that part of this is history and close knit tongs and communities. Part of it is racism. And part of it is that without doing NS, us foreigners never could be part of a universal community (for males, anyway) in Singapore.
I now counsel folks against trying to live in Singapore. It's a great opportunity for a few years if your company will transfer you in, but no foreigner should contemplate making it a place to retire and die. SMS may be the exception. Otherwise, there is too much uncertainty as the government can pull the rug out from under you with no notice, and you will never be part of the community.
I contrast this to Houston, Texas, my home town, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the USA. Houston really is multi-cultural, and folks are readily assimilated into life.