My citizenship journey

[smoulder]

Update - 23rd Oct 2022

The trip to BLS - it ended up being what I feared it would be. I feared that there would be room for uncertainty and I was proved right.

Long story short - whover is reading this, make sure that you bring along the ICA letter confirming that you have completed stage 2 of the SC Journey. They do not consider the in principle approval letter. This is the stage where you would have completed all 3 tasks (e learning, Singapore experiential visit and community sharing session) and completed the online surveys. Additionally, you would have also uploaded a photo and made a payment for your pink IC. This will auto generate a letter stating that you have an appointment for oath taking. The letter you need to bring along. Finally, the date on this letter must match the date of obtaining Singapore citizenship in the online form that you submit to the Indian passport site. If it is different, then you will have to redo that online submission and print it out again.

So anyway, I managed to get things done after a few nervous moments and about 4 hours at BLS. They now have my Indian passport which will be couriered to me in approximately one to two weeks confirming that I am no longer an Indian citizen. In time for my Singapore oath taking.

Also, this is the frustrating thing about BLS - even though I had an appointment, I still had to queue up with everyone else who did not! I have no freaking idea if that appointment made even the slightest difference.

And general rant about BLS - I wasn't the only one who had to spend a really long time there - pretty much everyone else had to as well. I could hear grumbles about things not clearly stated in the website. Many of those present were non indian citizens trying to get visas - many had to wait as long as I had to. If this is their first impression of the country before they even get on the flight, then they already have a sour taste in the mouth.

[thomasanoop76]

Hi!

I have completed the citizenship journey, uploaded the photo, paid the fee, got the autogenerated letter. Appt is in late Nov. I have rescheduled that to Feb 2023 using the e appointment system.(I have to travel in December) I have a printout of the new appointment. Your post mentions that "date of getting citizenship on the online BLS form must be the same as that in the ICA letter". This is not going to happen in my case.. Is this going to be a problem? Any solutions? I'll call BLS tmrw anyways.... Looking forward to your reply
. Thks

[smoulder]

Hi!

I have completed the citizenship journey, uploaded the photo, paid the fee, got the autogenerated letter. Appt is in late Nov. I have rescheduled that to Feb 2023 using the e appointment system.(I have to travel in December) I have a printout of the new appointment. Your post mentions that "date of getting citizenship on the online BLS form must be the same as that in the ICA letter". This is not going to happen in my case.. Is this going to be a problem? Any solutions? I'll call BLS tmrw anyways.... Looking forward to your reply
. Thks

Firstly, it's not a BLS form. It is the Indian passport website. Secondly, the particular field you are asking about - they are looking for the date on this letter (highlighted in your post). Make sure you bring along a copy of this letter to BLS.

Finally, I'm not sure how long it would take for you to get your Singapore passport, so traveling using that in December - too many uncertainties in that plan.

[thomasanoop76]

Understand... Its the Indian passport renunciation form... I'll be going to BLS in January while the letter from ICA says to take the oath in November.... That's the issue.

I plan to travel to India on Indian passport

[smoulder]

Understand... Its the Indian passport renunciation form... I'll be going to BLS in January while the letter from ICA says to take the oath in November.... That's the issue.

I plan to travel to India on Indian passport

I don't think that's going to work - the ICA requires you to have renounced your Indian citizenship when you take the oath which is what your appointment is for.

[thomasanoop76]

ICA date Nov ( postponed to Feb 2023)
Travel to India December... Returning Jan 2nd.
Appt and visit to BLS First/ second week of Jan.
Should be able to get renunciation letter and cancelled passport in time for ICA appt seconds week of Feb??

[smoulder]

OK you are quite confusing with the sequence so far. But I get it now. Probably should be OK because you have not yet renounced your citizenship.

[smoulder]

If I were you, I would still call up the ICA to double check.

[Lisafuller]

Thanks for sharing smoulder. I never would have guessed you would do all of those things.

It also makes me think, after living more than half of my life here, shouldn’t I be considering it at some point? Definitely not the right time now, but under the right circumstances in the future… who knows. Just have to take life step by step.

As you know, up to around 4 years ago, it has always been the furthest thing on my mind. Until a death in my family caused me to lose my retirement home. Now, with the only paid for property being here in Singapore, I've been giving it more and more thought the past couple of years. I hear you, Mal.

Out of curiosity, how often do Americans give up their citizenship to become Singaporeans? I seldom hear of such cases and only the founder of Botak Jones comes to mind.

I'd say it's pretty rare, none of the Americans in my circle have renounced, and some of them have been here for decades. The furthest they've gone is applying for PR.

[Lisafuller]

Not very often, I'm afraid. The IRS makes it extremely difficult to renounce your US citizenship by making the tax clearance very onerous and difficult. You have to be a virtual pauper like me in order to do it reasonably easy.

Robert Chandran (Indian born US naturalized in 1981 and gave it up for SGC in 2007 - He is the founder of Chemoil which he also moved to Singapore from the US.

Eduardo Luiz Saverin Co-founder of FB relinquished his US citizenship but is only a PR in Sg as he still retain his Brazilian citizenship.

Financial guru Jim Rogers, while he has lived here since 2007, he is not a citizen but still retains his US citizenship. Not sure if he is a PR or EP holder here. I'm guessing a PR under the Global Investment Scheme.

Other that those, don't actually know of any, besides the above noted Bernie Utchenik, original founder of Botak Jones restaurants fame here.

My daughter is friends with Jim's oldest Hilton. Her and sister Bee grew up in Singapore and speak incredible Mandarin. I don't think they're citizens though.

[Lisafuller]

It's true. Especially in the vast rural areas, about a 30 to 60 minutes drive away, they could be speaking a different dialect which sometimes is not mutually intelligible with dialects of the neighboring regions.

Would you say that most people in India speak English now? I wouldn't expect those in rural areas to, but in cases like this, where they don't speak the same language, how does anyone communicate?

Definitely, there are many parts of India where English isn't much of a spoken language - while most people might be able to speak "some" English, you wouldn't expect many of them to be comfortable enough to turn it into a second language to communicate with the others who don't speak their own language or dialect. That's where languages like Hindi (mostly in the northern states) and the other 22 official languages come in (typically spoken state wide).

Got it. India really amazes me. A true example of the kind of diversity a country that big can produce.

[Lisafuller]

Update - 7th Oct 2022
Have been a bit lazy and didn't update for a while. On the 27th of September, I completed the last of 3 tasks required to complete stage 2 of the SC Journey. This was the Singapore experiential visit aka SEV. I had mine scheduled at the Singapore Discovery Center at 510 Jurong Road, just a short walk from Joo Koon mrt.

After the gaffe involving wearing shorts to the CSS, this time I wore a collared t shirt, jeans and closed shoes.

So the group of 80 people was divided up into two sub groups. Each had a guide assigned. They further divided up each of the groups of 40 into 8 groups of 5. I ended up with 3 others from India including a couple in their late 40s and one Malaysian in his late 30s.

We then had to do 4 activities.
1. They gave 2 printed cards to each group of 5. Each card contained a question and a photo. The aim was to go through the audio visual gallery set up which contained snippets of Singapore history, match the photos with the relevant events and answer the question on the 2 cards. One card had a photo of LKY sprinkling flowers over a grave - the question was "what is LKY doing and what is the significance of the event". The other had an almost caricature like depiction of a red haired Caucasian man with the question "who is this man who transformed Singapore into a modern city".

The first card was a 1973 photo of LKY sprinkling flowers over the graves of the Indonesian men who were executed by Singapore for the Macdonald house bomb blast. This was supposedly a symbolic gesture of diplomacy to make peace with Indonesia and bury the past.

The next card - no surprises. Sir Raffles.

2. The 2nd activity was just going back through the same gallery, this time guided.

3. After a short break we started the 3rd part which consisted of the following -
A. Kahoot quiz consisting of 7 questions. Apart from answering correctly, you also get more points for answering as fast as possible. No prize, but I won the quiz, answering all 7 questions correctly.
B. They showed us a typical SAF back pack and it's contents.
C. Then they gave us a chance to taste a SAF packaged food supply. It was basically a slightly pasty chicken rice with pieces of potatoes. Not high on flavor - just a little bit of ginger taste in it. Not too bad in my opinion for a vacuum sealed food supply intended for a war like situation. My dad was a naval officer, his father was in the air force and my mother's father was in the navy as well. Additionally, we had a relative who was a chief of army staff - so I have quite a lot of exposure to the Indian armed forces. My dad used to always say that the Indian army is probably the only one in the world that has cooks preparing hot and spicy food whereever they go, even at 20k feet in the Himalayan mountains! That said, I thought the SAF food was quite palatable, despite what the Malaysian guy in our group thought.
D. Then they gave each group a box of Lego and asked us to get creative and make something that we felt was representative of Singapore. We made something that looked like MBS, complete with the Sky pool and with Gardens by the Bay on the side.

4. Finally, to cap it off, we got into a bus and they took us around the SAF training institute aka SAFTI on a guided tour. Again a bit of a special moment for me because my dad had done his fair share of conducting officer training in India so that was something I grew up with.

So after each of the 3 assignments in Stage 2 of the SC Journey, you take a survey. After all that is done, within a few hours they auto generated an ICA letter and create an appointment for oath taking at the ICA Building. Mine was auto generated on the 3rd of January. However, I managed to reschedule online to the 8th of November.

So now the next thing I have to do is to schedule an appointment around 2 weeks prior to the 8th of November at BLS international to submit an application for renunciation of my Indian citizenship. Thanks to Gold spot and Jalan Jalan for answering my queries on this in another thread. So anyway, I am patiently waiting to apply for an appointment with BLS which apparently can only be done up to 5 days ahead of the day on which you plan to submit your application. And yes, there is a high possibility that I will be stateless for a few days prior to oath taking. Slightly unnerving to be honest.

LOL, the activities sound like a school field trip.

[Lisafuller]

Thanks for sharing smoulder. I never would have guessed you would do all of those things.

It also makes me think, after living more than half of my life here, shouldn’t I be considering it at some point? Definitely not the right time now, but under the right circumstances in the future… who knows. Just have to take life step by step.

I recall you mentioning that you plan to return to the US when your daughter goes to college? If that's the case, why would you bother seeking citizenship?

[Lisafuller]

I've sampled the SAF food packs years ago when hubby was doing reservist - they were quite tasty actually. Better than some airplane food I've had.

I've never tried the local military rations, closest I've come was the prima claypot rice that comes in a pouch, and that was terrible. Incredibly disappointing considering how tasty their laksa la mian is.

[gold.spot]

I've sampled the SAF food packs years ago when hubby was doing reservist - they were quite tasty actually. Better than some airplane food I've had.

I've never tried the local military rations, closest I've come was the prima claypot rice that comes in a pouch, and that was terrible. Incredibly disappointing considering how tasty their laksa la mian is.

It's constipation inducing. Especially when you're on it for 3 days. Tastes okay when heated, but there's no fiber.