Being in a church full of people who have studied overseas or have gone overseas for some reason, I feel the urge to go back to America. I feel happy with the memories that I had. But I wish I could go back again. I haven’t had any chances to use my accent because there was no need for me to converse with an American anymore. But I was glad I still have it in me, because it sure made English so much easier. However, with these people who had gone there, I feel annoyed in some ways.
First of all, they’ll always talk about what they had experienced there, which was fine. But I recently came across some youths from church with American accents. Not that I had a problem with it, because I was like them when I first came back, still adapting after coming back to Singapore. It was what they said that made me super annoyed with them. They kept mocking Singapore, but I’m not complaining about this because I’m patriotic. I’m not.
People who had stayed in America for a couple of years, I noticed, would tend to say that Singapore sucks. They would make fun of how the Singaporeans speak, and how some aunties would dress, and the mannerism of the people here. They would complain about the culture and several other things.
On that day when I was hanging out with some of them, I got super annoyed and was thinking to myself: Singapore is not very good in certain ways, but they have improved greatly over the years. I like living in Singapore because it is a small country that is VERY convenient. Places here are easily accessible. You can hardly get lost around here.
If let’s say you can’t get from somewhere in Queenstown to Seng Kang, just take any bus around you. They’re bound to get to an MRT station. And from there, you can easily make your way to Seng Kang by MRT. It’s as easy as that. I remember when I was 10 to 13 years of age, my mother had to drive for 30mins to the bowling alley every day of the week so that I can practice. Although of course, being a small country is also a bad thing due to its chances of becoming boring. But you can’t blame it for its natural size. It’s like blaming me for being small.
I like it here also because it’s rather cosmopolitan. It very well developed, and I loved places like Vivo City, Orchard Road, and our very own airport. However I only go there like, once in 3 months or less than that. It’s so different from the town I lived in back in America, although the town was more relaxing and simple because it was a country side. So I smell cow poo every morning in the winter since the farm was just 100 meters from my backyard.
On top of that, Singapore is so much more secure than America. There is better control there and there are less criminal cases, probably because there is a smaller population here. But the government here is quite good as well. At least we have a minister mentor with a good foresight.
I probably don’t understand their complaints because we lived in different parts of America. But they still shouldn’t be complaining so much about their country of origin and be so smug about their accents. If it weren’t for their parents who went there to work and decided to bring the whole family along, they wouldn’t have their accents and their beautiful experiences in the first place. Are they being smug because they think they’re different and special apart from their peers?
Of course, there are some things here that Singapore can’t compare to in America, for example, the mannerism of the people. But I could see that being improved on in Singapore. And of course, the vulgarities in America are not as much as Singaporean youths think. So I hope they would stop mixing so many vulgarities into their speech because they sound freaking ridiculous, like they’re not educated enough to know many alternate vocabularies to use for description.
Of course, there are more “unglam” Singaporean habits, which I’d rather not mention. But the bottom line is that Singapore is their homeland. Each country has their pros and con, and one is just better than the other in their own ways.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10, "'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Phillipians 4:6-7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."