strange but true expats

[occasional]

As a light-hearted and balanced riposte to the earlier list of Singaporean characteristics, here's my short list of observations abt and for Caucasian expats here (the Anglophones anyway). This is from having grown up in a neighbourhood where all around me were whites (the "old" expats) and now living in a development with plenty of foreigners (the new "expats") and having worked overseas where I was the expat.

- Expats whinge abt the price of alcohol because they don't realise yet that food's more important than drink here
- Expats whinge abt the price of nectarines, halloween pumpkins and other "home stuff", forgetting that a star fruit in London is abt the size of a grape, costing more than nectarines here, and forget abt getting rambutans/mangosteens in regular supermarkets in California
- I've come across more Australians who whinge abt Singapore than any other foreign nationality (maybe there are just more of them)
- Which nationals talk louder: Americans or Australians? Fight it out among yourselves
- And on the subject of noise and Cantonese conversations, this may explain why the MTR sounds like an open outcry trading floor compared to the MRT; and mobile phone calls are frowned upon on Japanese trains; and you don't hear many conversations on the London Tube because mobile signals don't reach down that far and half the time the trains are screeching deafeningly on the rails
- Expats here are so much nicer than those in Hong Kong who still act like colonial lords (blame the locals there for allowing such condescension)
- New expats are far better at integrating and trying out new things than the old ones
- Old expats' children scream from one end of the street to the other whether the coast is clear to skateboard down and throw eggs at their neighbours' houses for laughs; new expats yell from one end of the development to the other about the previous night's drunken and egg-throwing spree
- Expats in Singapore always get together and compare notes abt Singapore like this which Singaporean expats overseas hardly do (maybe because we've already had a preview of coming attractions at home!   Besides, we're too busy trying to find the best place for laksa)
- Expats who get together to compare notes abt Singapore and form their own clubs are the same people back home who were irked by the sight of immigrants and foreign students sticking together and "not mixing"
- Expats make some of the best friends for the "westernised" Singaporeans who are more attuned to their wavelength and the expats are in turned enriched by the rich friendships they make with locals because they were open and friendly
- Cab drivers all around the world are maniacs. Likwise contractors and workmen are unreliable -- but at least in Singapore, they're cheaper (actually I haven't had any problem with my aircon man and carpenter)
- British drivers esp will always find Asian drivers trying -- they find the German, Italian, French and Arab drivers trying
- London cab drivers have remarked that British driving standards have sadly gone down over the years
- in Singapore, there's not much difference between women drivers and men drivers
- men are from Mars etc. and Asians are VERY different from Anglo Saxons, possibly closer to Mediterraneans in their boisterous ways but Singapore is about as British as you can get due to the PAP

[chichi]

Bravo, occassional.
About Aussies doing the most whingeing, I don't have enough statistics to come to my own conclusion.  But I do find that the European (including Brits) expats seems to whinge the least.  Wonder if there's a good reason for that???!!!
And yes, I thought if you moved to a country and found that it's not as fabulous as your own, you would just move back or move on.

[Daniel A]

It's because all the whinging poms are living in Oz.  

[some more]

expats get away with more than locals here because they're more vocal e.g. Ive seen alcohol and cigs sold to obviously underaged expat kids and expats have told me about police warning expat parties theyve busted with grass and lite dope, not wanting to press charges
singaporeans don't complain that ang mohs get all the expensive housing and good life that they can't afford vs when asians buy houses in canada and  oz and the locals there get upset

[London Lassie]

As a Brit I can tell you that we do whinge, but our somewhat reserved nature means that we do not do it with people who we really don't know that well. It's quite usual to answer "How are you ?" with "Great Thanks"  even though we are really hacked off about something.

The other thing is a lot of Brits save up all their life to buy that holiday home on the Costa Blanca or French Farmhouse for a bit of sunshine. They spend all year waiting for summer so that they can down the pub on a summers afternoon and sit in the beer garden with their mates (bliss). When we get to Singapore we think cool - it's summer all year round. It's not just Singapore - if we where anywhere hot and half decent we would love it....anyway this is just my opinion - but I know a lot of people who think like this.

[Rob]

Of course relative to the paradise that is Oz, Britain is like a third world country. perhaps that is why we whinge less.

I always assumed that when aussies called us whinging poms, that they were being charmingly ironic

[Chichi]

Dan A, that doesn't make sense.  I would think that Oz, with its beautiful beaches, people and sunshine, not to mention without the suffocating humidity, would be a paradise compared to Singapore.
Maybe the aussies got bored in Eden, so they up and came to Singapore just to suffer and whinge.
Hey they did say that you need the downs in life to appreciate the ups....