Whinges of an Alien

If this is the first time you're seeing this title, please refer to the prequel: Uniquely Singapore Enbloc Fever Part 1 . Here is what happened after that (I could probably make a movie out of it). If you have seen The Worst Week Of My Life (British TV comedy series), you will understand what I’m talking about, because this IS the worst week of MY life, till date. ****************** 5 July 2007, Thursday So I tried to reason with that agent of mine that, since the contract has stated that either party has to provide a written 30-day notice in the event of early termination of the contract, she can't possibly fault me for this because it was HER who has neglected her responsibility as a real estate agent. And who is the one breaching the contract now? It's her who is not giving a 1-month notice! She can well keep my deposit as the rental of my final month, and shove her gangster attitude up where the sun doesn't shine. I texted her. No reply. And I thought no news was g...

Out of desperation, I had to join the Sunday crowd at Ikea for my dinner. Such a trendy place to hang out for families from a highly developed country, to show off that the wives do not have to do the cooking at home because they can afford to eat out. After much struggle, I finally managed to snatch an empty seat at a table shared with a family. They had a stack of serviettes (paper napkins) on the table. When I said stack, I really meant stack. A 1-inch thick stack! How can a family of 2 adults and 2 toddlers need so many of that? It is such a common scene that these humans will take much more than they should, when they can, even when they have absolutely no need for it. "Well, it's free", someone will tell you that. It is also one of the many notions of "hygiene" in Singapore, well, also in many other places where humans reside. Since the extinct of handkerchief (some may not even know what it is or how to spell it anymore), the use of paper napkins is on th...

The bus ride back to my little room rented from a human family takes about 35 minutes every evening, and passes by many HDB flats (The Singapore government built flats, HDB stands for Housing and Development Board) in Chinese housing area including the China Town. Since mid August, I have been noticing a lot of burning of candles, prayer paper that represents "hell money", joss sticks, and paper replicas of luxury items in these areas. There are also some heavily decorated stages and tents set up in various areas, completed with altars and amazingly, karaokes! It looks like something really big is going on. Aahhhhh... it's one of the most important Chinese festivals in Singapore: The Hungry Ghost Festival! The festival which the Chinese believe that the hell gate would open and free all underworld souls to wander amongst the livings' world. All that burnings are the humans' offerings to feed these hungry and perhaps greedy ghosts, so that they shall not disturb or...

TVs are so common these days. You've got one, she's got two, he's got three (except poor me who is now trapped in a humble room who does not have access to one); and now even the fish!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw this in Suntec City. How on earth did that big TV screen get into the aquarium?!! Well obviously some technicians and engineers helped, of course, I'm not an idiot. But why??? I know this is really 'different', and 'innovative', to humans' standard. The business owner must have thought: "Hmmm... the wall looks kinda empty here, let's build an aquarium and keep some colourful and lucky kois to boost our business." When the big, world-class aquarium is installed: "Hmmm... the fish look kinda lonely and bored. Oh why don't we give them some entertainment? Let's place a TV in there. Fantastic! That way the aquarium would look soooo "out of the box" (a phrase the Singaporeans use literal...

A usual morning, a routine tea and toast breakfast down the sandwich place, with my usual half closed/half opened eyes. The lady at the counter is as grumpy as usual, Singapore is as hectic as it usually can be. A young bloke caught my eye. A young, trendy looking bloke whom I guess works in an advertising agency or some sort of design industry (according to years of observations and experience in the industry myself) from his "smart-casual" outfit. Standing in the queue, he has a short flask in his hand. I am curious: is he planning to do what I am hoping that he is? I have already finished my breakie, but I decided to stay for a bit due to my nosey nature. And... YES! When it came to his turn at the counter, he handed over his flask for his takeaway coffee! YAY! Someone is doing the things that the few of us are doing! One more to the club! The hope is out there! [I nearly went up there and gave him a bear hug, but thought I'd better not scare his little effort away so ...

Just when I was talking about unethical agents and enbloc issues in Singapore, I got a text message from my agent yesterday, confirming that our flat in Le Chateau has been enbloc, and that all tenants will have to move out by the end of this month! Less than 1 month notice, and not even a written notice! And she had the nerve to ask me to pay up the full rent for the month of July! In other countries that I have resided in before, including Malaysia and England, I have never experienced this kind of real estate moments. Whether it was a lapse of a contract, or in the event of my old landlord wanting to sell the place, I was always informed formally, given ample time for necessary planning with full refund of my deposit. But the law here seems to be working in the owner's or the agent's favour. In most contracts you will only find rule after rule for the tenant to obey, and nothing for their benefit, for example: what would happen to them when the property is sold, or enbloc in...

Oh what a wonderful country! The 'clean' and 'tidy' facade of the city, the heavily advertised 'high standard of living', and its 'uniquely' advance lifestyle! Oh what a wonderful world! No wonder everyone wants to come to Singapore. Le Chateau is the low rise apartment I am residing in since last September, a 'higher end' private apartment and what the Singaporeans sometimes refer to as a 'mansion' style development. I pay extremely high rental due to the 'golden location' nearing Orchard, for just a room! Monthly cleaning was promised to tenants but you never see the dust disappears. I am sure the apartment once had its glorious time, but it is not maintained properly and everything is on its way out. I believe this is one of those many properties in Singapore: luxuriously built, but high maintenance. The owner or ex-owner has either migrated to somewhere better, or simply gave up maintaining it, and sold it off or let an agent ...

A few days after the routine-disturbing, too-much-to-handle-for-Singaporeans, Bring Your Own Bag Day; I went to do my shopping again, and as usual I had to shout 3 times at the cashier so I can use my own shopping bag. And guess what she said to me: 'But today is not "Bring Your Own Bag Day".' I was speechless.

If you ever come to Singapore, you would be impressed with their efficient public transport such as the trains and the buses. They are not short of taxis either, however, these taxis may not be of your service at all time. After a human-bashing (verbally) dinner with my sister (may or may not be another Erisian) who came for a training trip, we headed for the taxi stand to get her back to her hotel. The moderately long queue didn’t put us off. We thought: this is a highly ‘developed’ country equipped with such efficient public transport system, how difficult is it to get a cab? Moreover, I see taxis on the road all the time, loads of them! 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. The person at the start of the queue stayed unchanged, and the queue got longer. Yes, there were taxis driving into the stand, but they either had the “On Call” sign on, or were just dropping off some passengers. Those with no “On Call” sign on, would come in and pick a random passenger whose destination appealed to...

Recycling, in many human’s mind, is a process or action whereby you dump something used or unused into something called the recycling bins. These bins are often painted in different colours according to each designated category of recyclables. Of course, human being human, they need to be educated n terms of what goes into which coloured bin. Despite that, you can still find them shoving the wrong stuff into the wrong bin, or worse – treating them like a normal rubbish bin! Obviously, human need a hell a lot of programming in recycling. After all, this is such a new thing to them. They have been taking greedily and thoughtlessly from their mother earth for millions of years! How do you programme the recycling act into human? First and foremost, the authority (Yes, it’s got to be an authority. Anyone without a title can never convince a human being) has to let these people know what can be recycled. Hence, the different coloured bins for different types of recyclable materials. HOWEVER,...