Whinges of an Alien

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.

To my biggest surprise, when I approached the check-out counter in a supermarket and the cashier asked me, "would you need a bag?" It is definitely not a norm for that to happen in Singapore! Even when some major supermarkets do sell reusable cloth bags, they have never once asked me if I prefer to purchase one of them! And to actually ask me if I need a bag? In your dreams! Oh but that is finally happening now, so it's God's gift! Of course my answer is "no, I don't need a bag, thank you" - with a big smile, which they don't usually get when they tried to shove me plastic bags. Then when the next customer said he would like a bag, there was a 10-cent extra charge to his purchase (he then quickly changed his mind ahahaha). Then I noticed a sticker on the cashier counter top, advertising about some "Bring Your Own Bag Day" campaign. So I see... Singapore is FINALLY "doing something" like a few other countries. Of course, for a star...

After those near-violence experiences with the cashier , on instructing them not to provide a plastic bag, I now bring my own container for any food purchases. I came to this very famous and popular Southeast Asian-style bakery in the heart of Singapore, with my little reusable food container. I just felt like having some Cassava cake tonight. Guess what? When I revealed my little box and said that I want my pastries placed in it, both the shopkeepers looked at me, puzzled. Yes, please, I said, I want my purchase to be placed in the box, and no extra plastic bag please. Guess what? When I wasn’t looking, the elder shopkeeper stuffed two pastries into a plastic bag before placing them into the box! Arrrrrrgh! This time, I made sure I told her repeatedly that I want the other items placed straight into the box, without any bag. Guess what? She looked at me, “huh? Straight into the box?” I said yes again. She then said, with that where-the-hell-did-you-weirdo-come-from look, “what? No bag...

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,...