As a political commentator, I have been asked several times by foreigners, ‘Why are you still in Singapore? Why haven’t you gone to live somewhere else?’

Now the foreigners have either overestimated the hardship endured by a political critic in Singapore or underestimated my homing instinct, or both. In sum, I am too attached to Singapore, my home (adopted that is, for I came from Malaysia, more than forty years ago) for any antagonism from the authorities (none really, considering that now they leave me pretty much alone) to want to relocate. Relocation means uprooting, and my emotional rooting in Singapore has gone too deep to allow this move.

I have often given as my main reasons for wanting to live in Singapore and nowhere else in the world, the safety, ease and comfort of life here, in that order of priority, which I have got used to and would be loth to sacrifice. I like the assurance that after a mahjong game at a friend’s house, which could be well past midnight, it is safe to take a taxi back. I know that if my daughter is out at a party and does not come home till the wee hours of the morning, I don’t have to do the anxious parental pacing of the floor or watching of the clock. I know I can drink water straight from the tap without worrying about whether I should have boiled it first, that my garbage will be collected every day, that if my phone or TV breaks down, it is quickly repaired, that if I want to have something done at a government office, I don’t have to grease palms first.

But I think that what ultimately endears Singapore to me is the pleasantness of the people I meet, many of them complete strangers. Once I was shopping in a busy food centre, to prepare for a big family lunch at my place the next day. I was at a ‘nasi padang’ stall, and was by this time, laden with so many bags of shopping that I should not have ordered the chicken curry, vegetables and ‘roti prata’ that I knew my family would enjoy. The stall attendant, seeing my difficulty, immediately offered to help. He not only carried all my shopping bags to the part of the road outside his stall where I could get a cab, but waited for the cab to arrive and put all the shopping in the boot for me.

On another occasion, again at a food centre, I was waiting at a barbecued chicken stall for my order to be ready, when I saw a basin of fried mee on a table beside the stall. The stuff looked delicious, and I ordered a portion, to be told by the stall-owner, laughing heartily, that it was the dinner for his staff. I too laughed at my mistake, and then saw the man scoop up a goodly amount, put it in a styrofoam box, and hand it to me. ‘For you,’ he said, ‘free!’

A friendly encounter is always the pleasanter for raising laughter. Once I was in a taxi, after a work-out in the gym, dressed in my gym outfit of black T-shirt and tights and sporting a white cap pulled low over my face. The taxi driver, in the true tradition of chatty, inquisitive taxi-drivers, began talking to me, giving information on a whole range of current issues in Singapore, arguing about why he thought this or that government policy was wrong. The conversation then became a little personal: he talked about his family and inquired about mine. I told him about my children, both in their forties. He quickly adjusted his mirror to take a better look at me; the gym outfit and the cap, with the assistance of that time of day when there is no more harsh, scrutinising sunlight, worked in my favour, taking years off. He asked my age, I cheerfully gave it. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘You’re lying. Show me your IC!’ I finally convinced him, and he said, a sudden gleam in his eyes, ‘Hey, give me the last four digits of your IC. I’m going to play 4-D afterwards!’ I obliged. If I meet him again, and recognize him, I’ll certainly ask about the outcome of that bet.

The love of home has its colour code, and, by universal agreement, it seems to be green. Think of that proverb ‘The grass is greener on the other side’, reprimanding those who always compare their own countries unfavourably with others. Think also of that lovely song about the ‘green, green grass of home’—or, in Singapore’s case, the lack thereof, since most of us here live in high-rise apartments. But it doesn’t really matter that another, less attractive colour is the more appropriate one for our highly industrialised, highly urbanized society, committed to technology’s ‘grey revolution’. For the love of home does not need any assistance from any coding system, any symbolism, for its fullest and sweetest expression.

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...