Hopping off the plane from Brisbane, Australia into Changi Airport, I knew I had become a different person from when I left four months ago. Ever since I started poly, I had always wanted to have an internship overseas but I never could imagine myself going for it. Living somewhere else was a distant thought to me. It was only four months, but it was four months that I will never forget. I will always remember the times I felt lonely, the times I felt proud of myself, the times I regretted and the times I would never hesitate going back to experience again.
I picked up my luggage and went to find my brother standing amongst the expectant crowd. We hugged for the first time in a while and immediately he asked, “Do you want anything to eat?”
The moment that question left his mouth, I automatically replied, “teh c bing.” It was as if a switch had been triggered. At that moment, when I held the familiar cup of ice-cold tea, I knew that I had not changed that much at all; I was still a Singaporean.
I still had my accent, my Singlish vocabulary, my passion for food and my tendency to complain. Yet the biggest thing that changed within me was the perspective of the things I had in Singapore. Over my time there, I began to notice everything good and bad about living in Australia and that changed the way I saw my life in Singapore. I realised the little things that I took for granted played a big part in how I lived my life and the complaints I used to have became more bearable. It is human to see that the grass is greener on the other side, yet to be given the opportunity to experience what the ‘other side’ is like for a short while is a privilege that I am grateful to have.
The very first thing I cherish about living in Singapore is our food culture. I used to dislike going to hawker centres. It was humid, hot, crowded and slightly disorientating at times. Yet as I scoured Google maps for food to eat in Australia, it was this melting pot of food and cultures that I sorely missed. It was hard to find a place there like a hawker centre. There were markets and food courts but it was never the same. Hawker centres were the perfect mix of authentic street food and the comfort of seating and shelter. In Australia, most of the food you buy was prepared behind a wall and a plate of food is served to you by a waiter. I really missed seeing the hawkers tirelessly whip out dishes in front of a roaring fire, sliding their masterpieces onto a plate and handing it straight into my hands. It definitely is an experience that can never be replicated.
Another thing I came to love about Singapore is how convenient life is here. In my first week of living abroad, I decided to head to a mall to run some errands. It was around 7pm and all I wanted to get were some containers from Daiso. As I approached the mall from the bus stop I instantly knew I made a wasted trip there; all the retail stores were closed. Feeling a little shell shocked, I wandered around an almost empty mall for a while before I went to grab dinner. Thankfully the restaurants and food courts remained open. Even then, mostly only bars were open till late. To this day, I am in awe at how late things in Singapore close. It was frustrating to me that I had to wait till the weekends to shop and not having to plan my time around opening and closing times was definitely something I took for granted when living in Singapore.
On top of the convenience of timing, it is the general convenience of everything that I am so grateful for. Having an extensive train system like Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) meant that I did not have to rely as much on busses that definitely cannot be as frequent as a train. Also simply having so many malls and stalls in close proximity was something that made life so much more comfortable. Going to get what I need is never more than a 15-minute walk away. Of course, Singapore is so much smaller than Brisbane, but to me, that is the beauty of staying here. I learnt to appreciate long walks when I was there but part of me wished I walked because I wanted to, not because I absolutely had to.
We all have our fair share of complaints about Singapore. The weather, the people, the stressful culture and more, but deep in our hearts we treasure this place enough to call it ‘home’. Growing up here, a part of me will always yearn for whatever is Singaporean, and living abroad helped me realise just how much it meant to me. It means so much to me that I can get quality comfort food just down the road. It means a lot that I can reach my destination as fast as I can. It means the world that I live in a small, efficient country. We can live and make our lives elsewhere, but something within us will never change - Singapore is our homeland.
