I am in the UK now. Prior to that I had not left Singapore for almost three years so I had observed all sorts of things through what was an incredibly depressing recession.
My wife flies around internationally and my job has been to look after our 6-year old boy and get him started in UK state school – my parents are retired and wish to look after him, as we can’t get cheap speech therapy in Singapore.
I tend to do contract work and so my life is a little more flexible than the wife. Plus we got through three maids (one a fundamentalist, one wanted to go back and have a baby, one resigned and returned to Indonesia because she hated Singapore).
Wife is Malay-Chinese mix yet staunchly Christian, and I am Caucasian. I am ex-Navy so bobbed in and out of Sembawang for years. Surviving in banking as Malay-mix has been difficult and she now works for an online firm doing banking. If you are a Malay-speaker brush up on conversational Mandarin to get on well (this is true – majority Chinese are fully entitled to chit-chat over a cigarette in Mandarin!)…
The decade before last we regretfully decided to withdraw CPF regarding the wife, and give up citizenship, but giving up a passport does not mean giving up friends, places, former jobs, schools and colleges in Singapore. Everything is intact.
The vetting of an ex-Citizen on returning (the wife) is rightly significant, but she is treated like any other accepted National by MOM. We are 100% politically neutral as we have no stake in Singapore politics. We just happen to be in Singapore, and as she is an amazing professional she has created lots of jobs on the projects she has ran. As this has been a sharp-V recession there are now lots of jobs for Singaporeans abroad who wish to return (last 6 months have been an amazing turnaround after the traditionally quiet Christmas and Chinese New Year on the jobs front).
This is a personal view, but it also includes those who may have taken on a new Citizenship abroad who wish to return (MOM is very accommodating, but full history and payslips, and letter explaining reasons for renunciation, will be required) provided they have been productive and bring in the Singaporean ethos combined with overseas “benefits and value gained from firms”. May be worth applying from abroad first for ex-Citizen and getting sponsored by a firm – this is how the wife did it…
I think to be frank even people who were simply born in Singapore are part of a greater team of people who have some link, some association, some connection with Singapore.
Dare I say also, a hell of a lot of retired Royal Navy personnel for whom their time in Singapore was a cherished leg of the project which is “life”. Just Sunday night, another ex-Navy conversation in a pub, where the conversation turns to Sembawang and HMS Terror, almost immediately.
I hope you find my honesty OK as the economy is returning to normal, and I appreciate people like you, through to the civil servants in the MOM who provide excellent information on who’s hiring (there are some good PDFs on their site), for simply contributing to motivating those who may have been losing hope.
Kind regards,
Henry (not his real name)
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“Wife is Malay-Chinese mix who is a staunch Christian” – Honestly, if she’s not from Indonesia, I question the veracity of your wife’s claims.
“we can’t get cheap speech therapy in Singapore” – It is a question of perception of quality. Singapore do have speech therapy centres that do not charge high prices. But I noticed, people who have an ‘elite’ attitude tend to snub such centres.
“Plus we got through three maids (one a fundamentalist” – I suspect you mean a Muslim.
“I hope you find my honesty OK” – I find your lack of truthfulness troubling.
@Sharky,
Why don’t you shut the f@#k up and read and enjoy what this Britisher has to say?
who gives a crap about what you and your wife do? I make more money than you and got through 3 fancy cars. BMW 530, Jaguar XJ8, Benz S350