Reader’s Mail: Emigration and foreign talents

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Hi Gilbert

I want to discuss more with you with regard to Singaporeans who have left the country when they are young and return to serve their national service obligation. This is a huge group considering that at least 5000 Singaporeans left the country yearly. I am sure that many are from families whose children have national service obligation.

In fact, when my son was in the army, there were 5 others like him who left Singapore in their teens for overseas studies who were jeered at for being stupid to return for NS when they could have easily escaped National Slavery. Both my husband and I saw many Singaporeans with sons who chose not to return for NS boasting about this but what we had wanted for our son is to learn about obligation, fulfill what is required of him and then decide for himself where he wants to stay and work. We thought that it was the right thing to do for him.

Currently, the environment here is terrible so much so that I limit my activitiesto between my home and my mum’s. I rarely eat out nor shop because everywhere I go, there are all these so called ‘foreign talents’ spitting, speaking loudly, putting up their feet on bus and MRT seats, giving lousy service, etc. You get the picture.

Then there is of course the fact that the HR and senior management are all these foreign ‘talents’ recruiting their own kind. If you look at the NUS website, you will notice that the departments are all filled with foreign names so what happens to locally born and bred Singaporeans?

Recently, there was an article about a Burmese Accounts Executive on S-Pass wanting to learn English. On the net, there were lots of criticisms and vitriolic backlash from the Burmese community deriding our Singlish and the fact that this country is the pits as they are only here to make money and not to stay. So much for our government’s push to keep and retain foreign talents here but my fear is that we are taken for a ride.

Thanks and take care.

Pauline (name changed)

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