Do you find this strange?

[Fortan]

Heard a story this past weekend about a local Singaporean Chinese family. Story goes that they just bought the second condo unit and moved into it some months ago. The other one is now rented out paying for the new one.

Pretty normal so far but this family is always hanging around the club house - all through the opening hours - day and night - apparently to use the free wi-fi. So he pays roughly SGD 2,000,000 for a unit but goes to the club house to use free wi-fi orivded.... don't know about you folks but I find this kind of behavior a little bit odd. Why go through all that trouble to connect to the internet. The family clearly has enough money to get a connection at home -or perhaps behavior like this is why they have money, I don't know.... Just find it strange....

[PrimroseHill]

Not strange at all. There are a lot of people that are like that. Rather frugal as my boss would say. However, you have to wonder, what do they actually save or rather how much do they truly save?

When I first landed in London, my aunt would "encouraged" me to make my own bread. I ended making 2 loaves of bread every Fri/Sat, all in the name of saving money. To be perfectly honest, how much money did I save taking in the raw ingredients and the electricity?

[bgd]

Like the drivers who park just before the ERP waiting for the clock to click over so they can save 0.50c

[Fortan]

Like the drivers who park just before the ERP waiting for the clock to click over so they can save 0.50c

Even better, the ones that drive an alternate route, perhaps 10km to avoid the ERP..... and end up spending more in gasoline than they save

[the lynx]

This family is probably the same family that will use the water from pool shower rooms to do laundry and cleaning.

[Wd40]

Heard a story this past weekend about a local Singaporean Chinese family. Story goes that they just bought the second condo unit and moved into it some months ago. The other one is now rented out paying for the new one.

Pretty normal so far but this family is always hanging around the club house - all through the opening hours - day and night - apparently to use the free wi-fi. So he pays roughly SGD 2,000,000 for a unit but goes to the club house to use free wi-fi orivded.... don't know about you folks but I find this kind of behavior a little bit odd. Why go through all that trouble to connect to the internet. The family clearly has enough money to get a connection at home -or perhaps behavior like this is why they have money, I don't know.... Just find it strange....

Sounds crazy. Cant be true. I have heard cases where locals hang out in malls because of the free aircon. That is more reasonable. Besides, I feel there is one more driver behind it. Here locals have absolutely no privacy at home. They stay with their parents. They rent out rooms to strangers and so I am not surprised that they spend whole day in malls with their friends/girlfriends.

But the case you pointed out cant be true. Even if it is true, there could be other drivers behind it other than the wifi and you will never know it unless you know the family well.

[bgd]

Sounds crazy.

I've lived in Asia long enough to be surprised by almost nothing. Crazy to you and I will be perfectly normal to others here.

[Mi Amigo]

Indeed. There's an underlying meanness* to this place, which you can kind of get used to, but it still makes you go (but not necessarily in that order).

* Obviously I'm making a hugely sweeping generalisation here and I'm not really intending to imply that every person and every organisation is like that. Just that many are.

[JR8]

or perhaps behavior like this is why they have money, I don't know.... Just find it strange....

It is an everyday error of the indolent, to consider that 'the rich' somehow became wealthy by accident (hence the often parallel disdain at the 'unfairness' of it all).

[x9200]

We used to live in a condo where sending the elderly to take a shower by the pool was pretty common. Occasionally some dishes were also done this way.

[JR8]

We used to live in a condo where sending the elderly to take a shower by the pool was pretty common. Occasionally some dishes were also done this way.

I think some people get hard-wired (via poverty, war, or deprivation) to act like this, and they're like it for life.

My father has mellowed in latter years, but 30 years I could see him advocating doing 'the dishes' at the pool-side shower

[Wd40]

We used to live in a condo where sending the elderly to take a shower by the pool was pretty common. Occasionally some dishes were also done this way.

Sending elderly, i.e. others, to shower by the pool side, is one thing. But bearing the brunt yourself is another. OP is talking about all family members spending time in club just for the internet, inspite of the riches. That is hard to digest. I mentioned in another thread about Singaporeans crazy about needless spending on shopping and other discretionary stuff, so in the light of that, this behaviour is unusual, for someone with those riches.

[JR8]

Sending elderly, i.e. others, to shower by the pool side, is one thing. But bearing the brunt yourself is another. OP is talking about all family members spending time in club just for the internet, inspite of the riches. That is hard to digest. I mentioned in another thread about Singaporeans crazy about needless spending on shopping and other discretionary stuff, so in the light of that, this behaviour is unusual, for someone with those riches.

There's no 'sending'. If anything they'd refuse and demand to 'do their daily routine' unmolested

We are very different from antecedents who survived on a bowl of rice a day. They might wish us to be like them, with little luck these days I imagine, but they sure as hell are never going to morph into consumerists like us.

[zzm9980]

So he pays roughly SGD 2,000,000 for a unit but goes to the club house to use free wi-fi

You should look inside some of those units that the frugal Chinese live in. You'll see most rooms completely bare of furnishings, except the most basic and ugly hand-me-down furniture and/or cheap Ikea. Really all you have to do is look at ads of units for rent that come "furnished" and find some of the ones with photos. Thirty year old HDB or $2 million condo at Reflections, and they all look furnished the same on the inside.

[x9200]

Sending elderly, i.e. others, to shower by the pool side, is one thing. But bearing the brunt yourself is another. OP is talking about all family members spending time in club just for the internet, inspite of the riches. That is hard to digest. I mentioned in another thread about Singaporeans crazy about needless spending on shopping and other discretionary stuff, so in the light of that, this behaviour is unusual, for someone with those riches.

Maybe there were the whole families? I am not sure. You know, older uncles and aunties do not go so often to the pool so they are more easy to be notice.