Oikono.com, 5 Aug 2009
Where are the Singaporeans Left?
It has been another two years away from Singapore. One sunny afternoon, I stopped by the Redhill Hawker Center for lunch. Two pretty Chinese ladies walk up to the table of hawkers sitting next to me. The hawkers were giving catcalls to the ladies. One of the ladies gets a hawker to buy her a meal. Walking back, she promises to introduce the hawker to a lady of the night. Talking to friends, this fascinating phenomenon seems to have been around for some time. A friend claims that sex workers from China are able to obtain visas legally since 2007. Unofficially, they have been around longer. But what I want to talk about isn’t sex (sorry to disappoint) but rather, foreigners in Singapore.
I knew it was a sign of the times when my aunt married a rich Belgian (and retired as a lady of leisure) and my brother married a Vietnamese. While travelling in China, every other Chinese I encountered seemed able to tell me that someone they know working is in Singapore. My barber in Beijing had a cousin working in a hotel here; the guy who gave me a lift in northeast China had a friend working here; the kebab guy in Dandong knew someone who is a sex worker here. When I was in South America last December, I met quite a few retrenched bankers. Some of them were planning to come to Singapore to look for jobs.
Regardless of where they come from, Singapore’s foreign crowd has gotten way bigger. The government talks about squeezing 7.8 million people on this island. How are they going to do this? [Hint: I doubt it is going to be Singapore’s low birth rate doing the job.] The foreign population has become truly obvious since I left. I spent a Friday night at Clark Quay and as I made my way back to the MRT station, I realized that everyone around me appears to be Caucasian. On some buses, I suddenly realized that the mainland Chinese accent was all around me. And that’s not to forget the Thais, Filipinos and Vietnamese.
I don’t really know what to make of this demographic change. Sometime back, I wrote about an article on income inequality in Singapore called “the Hawker and the Banker.” It struck a chord with many Singaporeans. But I now suspect that the income inequality and rising costs might have roots in our foreign resident policy. One group of workers comes from developing countries. They work in low wage jobs, live in dormitories and eat in hawker centers. The other group comes from developed countries – largely Caucasian with a sprinkling of wealthy Chinese, Indonesian, Korean or Japanese. They get salaries that are multiples of what local graduates get, live in service apartments or condominiums, and hangout in Clark Quay or the city. And never the twain shall meet.
The setting of this picture is the city-state of Singapore. And sitting in the backdrop, the question for Singaporeans must be: what do we make of this? Economically, I believe local graduate salary failed to keep pace with inflation (especially in the city area). The money brought in by the rich expatriate crowd goes into housing, entertainment and fine dining. What do new graduates feel about entertainment and housing costs soaring above their means? If I once winced at eating at Crystal Jade, I now shudder at the thought. In turn, this system requires the poor foreign worker segment, without which the average Singaporean might find Singapore quite unaffordable rather quickly.
And what does all this mean for the Singaporean identity? We asked ourselves this a long time ago, but this question is all the more urgent today. When I read former Prime Minister Goh’s comments on the urgent tasks facing Singaporeans, I wonder if our leaders are out of touch. Does his list of questions resonate with your concerns? What does all this mean for social stability? Will widening income inequality and resentment towards a rich foreign crowd make Singapore a Xinjiang? Sounds ridiculous but just mention the stereotyped rich White man and his Singaporean girlfriend to the average Singaporean male and you can see how resentment roils under the surface…
Where are the Singaporeans Left?
It has been another two years away from Singapore. One sunny afternoon, I stopped by the Redhill Hawker Center for lunch. Two pretty Chinese ladies walk up to the table of hawkers sitting next to me. The hawkers were giving catcalls to the ladies. One of the ladies gets a hawker to buy her a meal. Walking back, she promises to introduce the hawker to a lady of the night. Talking to friends, this fascinating phenomenon seems to have been around for some time. A friend claims that sex workers from China are able to obtain visas legally since 2007. Unofficially, they have been around longer. But what I want to talk about isn’t sex (sorry to disappoint) but rather, foreigners in Singapore.
I knew it was a sign of the times when my aunt married a rich Belgian (and retired as a lady of leisure) and my brother married a Vietnamese. While travelling in China, every other Chinese I encountered seemed able to tell me that someone they know working is in Singapore. My barber in Beijing had a cousin working in a hotel here; the guy who gave me a lift in northeast China had a friend working here; the kebab guy in Dandong knew someone who is a sex worker here. When I was in South America last December, I met quite a few retrenched bankers. Some of them were planning to come to Singapore to look for jobs.
Regardless of where they come from, Singapore’s foreign crowd has gotten way bigger. The government talks about squeezing 7.8 million people on this island. How are they going to do this? [Hint: I doubt it is going to be Singapore’s low birth rate doing the job.] The foreign population has become truly obvious since I left. I spent a Friday night at Clark Quay and as I made my way back to the MRT station, I realized that everyone around me appears to be Caucasian. On some buses, I suddenly realized that the mainland Chinese accent was all around me. And that’s not to forget the Thais, Filipinos and Vietnamese.
I don’t really know what to make of this demographic change. Sometime back, I wrote about an article on income inequality in Singapore called “the Hawker and the Banker.” It struck a chord with many Singaporeans. But I now suspect that the income inequality and rising costs might have roots in our foreign resident policy. One group of workers comes from developing countries. They work in low wage jobs, live in dormitories and eat in hawker centers. The other group comes from developed countries – largely Caucasian with a sprinkling of wealthy Chinese, Indonesian, Korean or Japanese. They get salaries that are multiples of what local graduates get, live in service apartments or condominiums, and hangout in Clark Quay or the city. And never the twain shall meet.
The setting of this picture is the city-state of Singapore. And sitting in the backdrop, the question for Singaporeans must be: what do we make of this? Economically, I believe local graduate salary failed to keep pace with inflation (especially in the city area). The money brought in by the rich expatriate crowd goes into housing, entertainment and fine dining. What do new graduates feel about entertainment and housing costs soaring above their means? If I once winced at eating at Crystal Jade, I now shudder at the thought. In turn, this system requires the poor foreign worker segment, without which the average Singaporean might find Singapore quite unaffordable rather quickly.
And what does all this mean for the Singaporean identity? We asked ourselves this a long time ago, but this question is all the more urgent today. When I read former Prime Minister Goh’s comments on the urgent tasks facing Singaporeans, I wonder if our leaders are out of touch. Does his list of questions resonate with your concerns? What does all this mean for social stability? Will widening income inequality and resentment towards a rich foreign crowd make Singapore a Xinjiang? Sounds ridiculous but just mention the stereotyped rich White man and his Singaporean girlfriend to the average Singaporean male and you can see how resentment roils under the surface…
