<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>By talking cock and sayang their lumber 1 ego after returning back to their beloved homeland!
Aug 31, 2008
THE EX-PAT FILES
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Message from the dark side
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Linda Collins
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Sometimes, you can tire of Singapore.
An expat starts to view his old life back home through rose-tinted glasses. He hankers for the familiarity of kith and kin.
Or some Singaporeans might think the grass is greener.
Yet, leaving can be a mistake.
I ought to know - I am one of those who succumbed to this feeling.
It was post 9/11, a time when Westerners felt vulnerable and unsettled. I lasted only eight months back home in New Zealand. Luckily, I was able to return to Singapore.
The weeks before my ill-fated departure were focused, not on what my new life would be like, but on buying things for it. The spending frenzy included: linen sheets (from Chinatown), value-for- money furniture from Ikea (the Swedish firm isn't there yet), and a claypot from a mini-mart.
But for my Filipino maid, homeward-bound preparations were somewhat different. One day, I found her carving a hole in a pair of wedge-heeled shoes. She comes from the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao, and explained that it is common for mini-vans to be held up by gun-toting bandits. She was planning to hide jewellery and cash in her shoes.
I thanked my lucky stars that it was unlikely anyone would shove a Kalashnikov in my face and demand money back home.
However, while that did not happen, returning to my home city of Auckland was a shock.
Within days of moving into rented landed property in an upmarket area, I received a phone call from a cop asking if I was Linda Collins. 'Yes,' I replied, puzzled. He said thieves were going on a spending spree with a credit card in my name. Copious purchases of jewellery and watches had triggered a credit alert at the bank.
Turned out that my bank had posted me new cards - which had been intercepted either by a 'bent' postal worker, or by someone keeping a watch on my mailbox.
It was creepy to think of a crook staking out my home.
But that was nothing. It was the nights I came to dread. The real estate in the area may have been worth multi-millions, but the city fathers stinted on basic services like street lighting. At night, parts of the road were pitch black.
Outsiders would come over under cover of darkness, prowling around for houses and cars to break into.
As I lay in bed late at night, I could hear the guffaws and calls of teenage guys - no doubt high on drugs - as they made their way down the street, setting off car alarms.
Their scampering footsteps resounded on the nearby public footpath and even past my window - they seemed to regard my backyard, in fact all yards, as handy shortcuts.
It was futile to call the police, who were usually too busy with boozy brawls and knife attacks. Problems involving just property came further down the list of their priorities.
Still, I'd sometimes hear the whump-whump of a police helicopter - copper chopper, as locals called it - on night patrol, and be dazzled by its spotlight shining on our houses.
What I really came to dread, what had me awake at night with a lump of terror in my throat, was hoodlums banging on the doors and windows of the house. I would pray that the locks held.
Singapore is a haven of safety in comparison. We moved back, even managing to rent the same unit as previously. And we tracked down our same maid, who agreed to return to us.
The decision nearly killed her, though.
She had to pick up her flight ticket at Davao International Airport a week before travel. Fifteen minutes after getting her ticket, she was leaving in a mini-van when a bomb blast ripped through the airport. At least 15 people were killed.
We heard news of the blast in Singapore and were in agony before her relatives were able to tell us she was unharmed.
Six years later, we are still in the same part of Singapore, with the same maid.
In Mindanao, government soldiers battle the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Artillery rounds are crashing into the hills directly above our maid's town as I write this. Thousands of people have been displaced.
In New Zealand, our worry now is not crime, but the effects of Mother Nature on a rural holiday cottage we own. Severe winter storms this year caused coastal erosion, and part of a main access route to it has fallen into the sea.
In Singapore, my thoughts are on the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. The neighbourhood holds a lantern-making contest for kids. Have I kept aside enough egg cartons for my daughter?
Ah, the luxury of small concerns such as this.
The writer is a copy editor with The Straits Times and has been living in Singapore for 15 years. Send your comments to [email protected]
Aug 31, 2008
THE EX-PAT FILES
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Message from the dark side
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Linda Collins
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Sometimes, you can tire of Singapore.
An expat starts to view his old life back home through rose-tinted glasses. He hankers for the familiarity of kith and kin.
Or some Singaporeans might think the grass is greener.
Yet, leaving can be a mistake.
I ought to know - I am one of those who succumbed to this feeling.
It was post 9/11, a time when Westerners felt vulnerable and unsettled. I lasted only eight months back home in New Zealand. Luckily, I was able to return to Singapore.
The weeks before my ill-fated departure were focused, not on what my new life would be like, but on buying things for it. The spending frenzy included: linen sheets (from Chinatown), value-for- money furniture from Ikea (the Swedish firm isn't there yet), and a claypot from a mini-mart.
But for my Filipino maid, homeward-bound preparations were somewhat different. One day, I found her carving a hole in a pair of wedge-heeled shoes. She comes from the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao, and explained that it is common for mini-vans to be held up by gun-toting bandits. She was planning to hide jewellery and cash in her shoes.
I thanked my lucky stars that it was unlikely anyone would shove a Kalashnikov in my face and demand money back home.
However, while that did not happen, returning to my home city of Auckland was a shock.
Within days of moving into rented landed property in an upmarket area, I received a phone call from a cop asking if I was Linda Collins. 'Yes,' I replied, puzzled. He said thieves were going on a spending spree with a credit card in my name. Copious purchases of jewellery and watches had triggered a credit alert at the bank.
Turned out that my bank had posted me new cards - which had been intercepted either by a 'bent' postal worker, or by someone keeping a watch on my mailbox.
It was creepy to think of a crook staking out my home.
But that was nothing. It was the nights I came to dread. The real estate in the area may have been worth multi-millions, but the city fathers stinted on basic services like street lighting. At night, parts of the road were pitch black.
Outsiders would come over under cover of darkness, prowling around for houses and cars to break into.
As I lay in bed late at night, I could hear the guffaws and calls of teenage guys - no doubt high on drugs - as they made their way down the street, setting off car alarms.
Their scampering footsteps resounded on the nearby public footpath and even past my window - they seemed to regard my backyard, in fact all yards, as handy shortcuts.
It was futile to call the police, who were usually too busy with boozy brawls and knife attacks. Problems involving just property came further down the list of their priorities.
Still, I'd sometimes hear the whump-whump of a police helicopter - copper chopper, as locals called it - on night patrol, and be dazzled by its spotlight shining on our houses.
What I really came to dread, what had me awake at night with a lump of terror in my throat, was hoodlums banging on the doors and windows of the house. I would pray that the locks held.
Singapore is a haven of safety in comparison. We moved back, even managing to rent the same unit as previously. And we tracked down our same maid, who agreed to return to us.
The decision nearly killed her, though.
She had to pick up her flight ticket at Davao International Airport a week before travel. Fifteen minutes after getting her ticket, she was leaving in a mini-van when a bomb blast ripped through the airport. At least 15 people were killed.
We heard news of the blast in Singapore and were in agony before her relatives were able to tell us she was unharmed.
Six years later, we are still in the same part of Singapore, with the same maid.
In Mindanao, government soldiers battle the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Artillery rounds are crashing into the hills directly above our maid's town as I write this. Thousands of people have been displaced.
In New Zealand, our worry now is not crime, but the effects of Mother Nature on a rural holiday cottage we own. Severe winter storms this year caused coastal erosion, and part of a main access route to it has fallen into the sea.
In Singapore, my thoughts are on the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. The neighbourhood holds a lantern-making contest for kids. Have I kept aside enough egg cartons for my daughter?
Ah, the luxury of small concerns such as this.
The writer is a copy editor with The Straits Times and has been living in Singapore for 15 years. Send your comments to [email protected]
