Singapore is a great place to live.

For an ex-pat that is.

We have great infrastructure, everything works like they are supposed to and our standard of living is one of the highest in asia if not the world. Especially if you’re an ex-pat working in singapore on ex-pat terms, your life will be good here. There is nothing you could find or do somewhere else that you couldn’t find or do in singapore. The only thing you couldn’t do here is winter sports and entertainment of the dodgy and illegal variety.

Even if you don’t work on ex-pat terms, life can still be pretty good. If you come from one of the surrounding regions, chances are you won’t be living on ex-pat terms, but you’d still benefit from the favorable exchange rate and the greater economic opportunities that you can find here than from the surrounding regions.

I am not saying life is perfect because its a rat race in singapore and life can be highly stressful and pressurized in our society. But when you’re young and forging your career, trying to make your mark on the world, this is not a bad place to start.

In many ways, its like living in a hotel. Things work like they are supposed to and you will be living in relative comfort and security. You don’t have to worry about the nitty gritty things of life as they will be taken care of for you. Applying for work visas and other bureaucratic procedures is swift and straightforward and there is no need to bribe some underpaid government worker to expedite the process for you- not unlike checking into a hotel. It must be said, our civil servants has got the drill buttoned down much like the hotel front desk.

Of course the highly desired professionals will be living in the upper floors that comes complete with a great view and excellent service, the lower rungs will be occupied by the progressively less skilled, less educated and less paid. Nonetheless its a great big hotel that offers a lot of perks and benefits.

But like a hotel, this can never be home because it will never feel like home. It will never feel like home for anyone because like a hotel, despite all the perks and privileges, its all cold, impersonal and things are conducted on a businesslike reciprocal manner.

How well you are treated is solely determined by what you can bring to the transaction. Its as simple as that. A hotel will not continue to treat you like a valued guest if you can’t pay the rent and singapore won’t continued to treat you like a foreign talent when you cease to be economically useful.

It is very telling, earlier in the week when I was having a lunchtime conversation with a couple of my colleagues. When asked hypothetically if they will take up citizenship if given the chance, all politely but flatly refused. There’s a lot of reasons given, but I know they are just being polite and have no wish to offend anyone.

Its not like I don’t understand, if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t take up citizenship either. Its a hotel, nobody goes to a hotel hoping to make it their home and stay there forever. Because the minute you make singapore your home, when your status change from foreign to domestic, this hotel which you have stayed so comfortably in becomes a jungle.

As a foreigner, you are here solely for economic reasons, the politics of the country is of no concern to you because end of the day, how singapore exist 10-30 years from now  is of little importance to you because most likely you will be home or somewhere else.

But when you take up citizenship, it all changes. Suddenly what did not affect or bother you in the past is all of sudden of great importance. Suddenly things like freedom, accountability and the politics of the country matter a great deal because it not only affects you, but your family and your love ones. Think of it this way, when you stay in a hotel, you hardly cared how the hotel is runned as long as the service performs as expected, but the moment you become involved on a personal level, then everything matters.

Most foreigners working here are no dummies, which is why so little people actually take up citizenship. The minute you take up citizenship is the minute you walk from the hotel to the jungle.

And make no mistake about it, its a jungle in singapore for people like me- the unfortunate citizen of a country with a government that treats its citizens as nothing more than economic batteries whose sole purpose is to power the economy and nothing else.

Its survival of the fittest while the old, weak and the poor are left on their own trying to scratch out a living and hoping for the periodical government handouts that always comes with strings attached. Meanwhile the elites are free to live off the fat of the land, shamelessly raising their own astronomical salaries while telling the lower income workers to live on their measly pay because any pay raises will worsen the already worsening inflation.

Even the young are not spared. Ruthlessly segregated and categorised according to so-called  academic potential based on tests and exams that rewards rote learning and mindless regurgitation. Your fate could be decided at an age where you probably don’t even know the meaning of the word. So when you think about it, would anyone in their right mind want to make singapore their long term home when they have a choice?