Pinoy in Singapore

On a survey done by an HSBC bank, Singapore came second to Australia on a survey of the best places to raise expat kids.

What immediately comes to my mind is what is their definition of expat?

If you look it up at www.businessdictionary.com, expat is defined as:

A person who has citizenship in at least one country, but who is living in another country. Most expatriates only stay in the foreign country for a certain period of time, and plan to return to their home country eventually, although there are some who never return to their country of citizenship.

Based on this definition, a lot of people in Singapore would be considered an expat even if you exclude the low wage foreign laborers who are obviously not included in the context.

There is what you call an expat package that not all foreign professionals get.  But if you do get this package, then it is certainly easy to raise kids anywhere when the mere tissue paper that you use to wipe your butt is paid for by the company under living allowance and you can send your kids to any international school of your choice courtesy of the company.  Singapore then would likely be a nice place to raise your expat kids.

With the anti-foreign talent sentiments lately, I wonder if the survey holds true for those that fall under the dictionary definition of expat but do not have the expat package.

The thing I noticed from reading discussions tainted with anti-foreign talent sentiments is that the sentiment does not extend to caucasians and westerners who in my opinion are paid more than their asian counterparts.   Well in the first place, when foreign talent is mentioned, it usually implies foreigners from mainland China or from third world countries.  If a person in question was caucasian, then that person would probably be referred to as an expat instead of foreign talent which confuses me because they are all foreigners to Singapore just the same. But then again, with the negative sentiments I read almost everyday,  I have yet to read a complaint about westerners save for the general local opinion that local girls prefer them over their local men … then again that complaint is directed towards the girls not the westerners.

I would like to make clear that my impressions are based on what I read online in news sites, blogs, etc.  Read the comments.  That’s where the nasties come out. I can’t believe there’s so much negative sentiment against “foreigners” making a living in Singapore.   I don’t want people leaving hate comments here in my blog.  I understand their sentiment but I think some people, instead of taking issue with their government who make the policies, attack those who are also just making an honest living to feed their families and make ends meet and it so happened their fate brought them to Singapore.  And I read a lot of comments that are just uncalled for.

Fortunately, so far I have only encountered that sentiment online.  No one has had the guts yet to say it to our faces.  Or I prefer to think of it as we are fortunate to be in the midst of more open minded people.