Should have posted this long ago...
Typing this in the plane now. It has been an busy yet interesting start to the new year. For one, this is my first time spending the Lunar New Year away from home. Yes, Qin and I went overseas as it was the long weekend and I thought I was the only one but I was so wrong. Traveling was so popular that I nearly couldnt' get onboard. Well, we went to Perth and from there went over to Adelaide. We did the great ocean road and drove to Melbourne where we fly back to Singapore. It was summer there and Perth was pretty hot. However, as soon as we hit the road, we were suprised by the pleasant weather in Australia. The plan was this. We will fly to Perth on Friday night and then spend the night in Perth airport it self and venture to Perth city to have a look before our domestic flight to Adelaide that afternoon. From Adelaide, we will rent a car after the first night stay at Mercure and then drive down to Victor Harbour. It is a very short drive down but I thought it is good to have an easy start. Somemore, we are going to the clevland wildlife park. This is one cool park as you get to hand feed the kangaroos. They are pretty tamed and I know Qin would love this. She was hoping like the kangaroos around the park. Oops, suppose to be a secret. Then, the plan was that we will stay in Victor Harbour for a night before driving off to this town called Robe. Then this town called Portland and then Apollo Bay, followed by Baccarat and then into Melbourne where we will spend 2 nights. So that is a total of 9 nights. Well, things didn't go as planned. When we were in Portland, we decided to do some crazy things and thought of driving to the Grampians. According to my good friend who has studied in Melbourne for a number of years, "Grampains is a must visit. It is more beautiful than the blue mountains". So we decided to take up the challenge to drive all the way up north and do a little diversion. Man, this was one long drive. Basically, from morning 9am all the way till night time around 9pm. It is a little risky in retrospect. The saving grace was that it was summer then and the day is longer than usual which means that we have more day light to drive. Well, one of the nights, when we were in Portland to be exact, we drove out of Portland and did some night driving. It was really cool driving in the dark and you get to see a lot of wildlife running about. There were kangaroos, rabbits etc. Anyway, from Grampians we finally made our way to Apollo Bay and after we checked-in and put down our bags, it was almost totally dark already. If we were late by about half hour, probably will be caught in total pitch darkness driving in.
This trip to Australia has made me think of many things, especially after interacting with the locals or not interacting with them actually. What happened was that when we were taking the domestic flight over to Adelaide, someone sat wrongly and took our seats instead. What are the chances of 2 person sitting wrongly? Well it happened. We were given 12E and 12F. Well, I think I can be considered as a pretty regular flyer by now and I do not think I'll get my seats mixed up. The guy who was siting on 12E was a Chinese and he immediately stood up and said sorry before making his way out. The other guy, was an Aussie and he had his laptop opened up and was busy at work. Well, if you are a regular traveller, you'll know that you only use your laptop after take off and when the seat belt sign has been switched off. Well, at least this is the case for this airline I am flying with. So my guess is that he is a noob. Nevermind, he insisted that he was correct and I was wrong. "This is MY seat". He said. "The row number is written here" as he pointed towards the number above his seat, at the overhead compartment area. Well, the ground staff may have made a mistake by issuing a duplicate boarding pass and so I didn't want to kick a big fuss but wait for a cabin crew to come and have a look. By now, the passengers in the area were all looking as this man had raised his voice. I was like a stupid Chinese and all the whitemen are thinking I'm the dumb dumb who cannot even read a number. After a while, the guy realised that he was seated wrongly. His seat was 13F and not 12F. He said softly "Oops, I made a mistake, I'll move back". The gentleman on 12D then looked at me and shook his head. He was a 1st generation Australian and he too was discriminated because of his race when he first came. So he completely understand how I felt. He also said that if I was not an Asian, I will probably not be treated like that. Anyways, this was not the only incident throughout this trip. We went to a restuarant, samething. And another case in a parking lot. I wasn't really offended by such things. It was in fact thought provoking. What caused some Aussies to be this racist? I saw milkshakes being thrown at my colleagues when I was there many years back. Many of them thought that we are there to fight for jobs with the locals and hence, hate non-Aussies to the guts. However, they are also not the locals if we want to be precise. THe aborigines are. They came and look their land to call their own and then form an exclusive club and deny the acceptance of other people like asians. And the scariest thing is that this bears close similarity with the situation we have in Singapore. Chinese, being the majority, didn't originate from Singapore. We came from CHina a few generations back. At present, we are also facing an issue with the influx of foreigners. Be it talent or labour, what difference does it make? The culture is different and they too are competing with us for jobs, houses, wives, husbands, food, etc. How are we reacting then? SHould we be racists and throw milkshakes at them along orchard road? Should we outrightly discriminate them? But if we do accept them, what is going to happen to our home? The place where we worked hard to defend (serve NS) and give it to new citizens like Jet Li and Gong Li? Allow foreigners to come in so that our kids are facing enormous pressure in schools as the elites from all over wants to come to singapore and partake our education system? Slog our lives away only to realise that the HDB flat seems forever out of reach as the rich Chinese can buy it using cold hard cash? These are issues that everyone face. In fact, these problems have been brought up at almost every rally during the election period just last year. What is our government going to do about it. I just read a report that LKY has called us to accept foreigners and that will prevent us from becoming like Japan. I'm not sure if he said we will regret if we choose not to accept foreigners though.
After returning from Australia, I was in China the next day. A drastic difference in temperature and culture as well. I first visited China close to 20 years back. Back then, I was in Yunnan and I totally didn't like it. Throughout the trip, I wanted to return to Singapore so badly. I enjoyed everything in Singapore. that was in the early 90s. Everything was hopeful. The common understanding was that if you worked hard, you'll make it in life. We have a great government with great policies and everyone was happy. Many people supported the government as shown in the polling results. Now, CHina is not that bad. Singapore on the other hand seems to lose its shine. Just take a walk at MBS, you'll think you have gone overseas. OK, that is a tourist place, so let's take the coffeeshop in our heartlands for example. It is the same, foreigners everywhere. I come from Jurong and when I went back to Jurong recently, it is totally unrecognizable. Way too many foreigners providing labour to the factories there. In fact, the only time that I saw lesser foriegners was when I attended the rally during election time. I really enjoyed the rallies. Not because of anything but because it reminded me of my childhood days. Where we will go satay club to eat after shopping at marina shopping centre. There were Singaporeans everywhere and I am proud to be a Singapoean. I remember attending National day Parade and when the fighter jets flew past, I was so proud. I saw many Singaporeans tearing then. Because we know that we all had a part to play in this. Now, when I see a fighter jet flying past, I do not know if that pilot inside is a Singaporean or not. When I was in China airport, i saw so many Chinese speaking folks. You know they are from CHina by their dressing, by their spitting and by their very loud speaking as if the person they are talking to is on the other mountain across the valley. Then when they were clearing immigration, I saw them taking out a Singapore passport. Wow, I thought they managed to buy a Singapore red passport cover. Then I was wrong, it was really a SIngapore passport. This influx of new citizens is indeed true. I can see that they are really proud and happy to be holding onto the red passport. They must be so grateful to our government for taking them in. Anyone knows if new citizens have voting rights? The rest of the Chinese passengers were holding onto Singapore work permits. In time to come, they will exchange the green card for the red passport. That is when our Children's generation will suffer. Back to Perth, I noticed many Singapoeans who have migrated over. I chatted with a staff in red rooster and she was from Singapore before and is now an Australian citizen. I asked if it was better in Perth but she too cannot give me a definate yes. Perhaps she was also treated like a 2nd class citizen there. So, is staying in Singapore better? Or Migrating better? both cases lead to being a 2nd class citizen no? Is there anything that anyone can do to change this? It is a huge thing and it concerns many lives. What kind of pace we want out future to have. WHat kind of pressures in life do we want our future generation to have? THese are questions that demand answers. Who knows that the future holds? We know. We decide. The future is ours.
