malaysia vs singapore

so close to merdeka day and we have the issue of malaysia vs singapore again. old story that flares up again and again. I like singapore. if not just for the sales. eheh. as a kid, we used to go to singapore just before christmas. why? no idea. probably because orchard rd is nicely decorated and almost magical before christmas. haven't been to singapore in ages. not sure if it looks too tacky now, but when I was a kid, it was serenely pretty. I guess my parents did their christmas shopping in singapore. a lot of things were only available in singapore back then. the humongous christmas trees in the hotel lobby were also very pretty to look at. so I have nice memories of singapore. singapore meant christmas holiday and shopping! but even then there was a disparity between malaysians and singaporeans. my sis and I would sometimes try to guess who were the malaysians and who were the singaporeans. got difference one!

years later I studied in singapore for one and a half years. it was fun. mostly stuck to malaysians since I lived with them in our sort of community. I am grateful to singapore for that opportunity since the malaysian gahmen didn't give me shit after spm. not smart enough to beat the quota. bleah. the singaporean gahmen gave me what I wanted. in jc there were differences between malaysians and singaporeans. I remember our pe teacher liked to rile the malaysians up with his inane comments on soccer and what not. my singaporean classmates were on the whole more privileged. they were one year younger (annoying!). they took foreign vacations. a lot of them have been to australia (why?). most of my malaysian friends have been to thailand. eheh. but they were also quite straight (goody goody). we ruined that for them though. yes, the unruly malaysians convinced the whole class to ponteng a few times. whole class ponteng at the same time how can? can! because we are split up during our general paper class according to how terror our bs skill were. I guess if the teachers really paid attention, they would notice. this is no small feat as we had to sneak out of the school compound. not easy with that pe teacher always picking on my terror class (had the most malaysians). and of course we stood out in our freaking uniforms hanging around downtown. we even went bowling once ok! my poor singaporean classmates hor wa lang kar pai!

anyway, the impression I got was that most of them were sheltered and the boys were pretty fearful of their impending ns! eheh. very funny I tell you. we malaysians were living by ourselves in delapidated flats taking care of our own shit while these boys were worried because they would have to forgo their own ac'ed rooms. to be fair my particular class had a lot of rich singaporeans, I don't know why. another thing the malaysians used to snicker about was the phys ed thing. they have this 'competition' each year to see which jc has the highest number of gold medals. I can't remember the details lah, but it was pretty easy to get since even this lazy pig got it. but since the competition is tough between the top 5 jcs, they had saturday torture phys ed sessions for those who fail. very miserable lah. malaysians used to snicker (yeah, we're evil), because you won't find any malaysians in the miserable lot. again, to be fair, malaysians who choose to study in singaporean jcs are usually not the 'mummy daddy' kind lah. those stayed in malaysia so their mummy and daddy can pamper them what.

of course, don't forget the kiasu business. let's face it lah. chinese ppl very kiasu one. not just singaporeans. but it is cranked up a notch in singaporeans. eheh. I mean not getting in the right kindy will kill you in singapore! even my fellow jc students felt a little inferior because they were not in rjc leh. so sad hor. hor lang kua suey because didn't make it to rjc. *sob sob*

then came time for college. most of my malaysian jc classmates stayed on at ntu/nus but not me lah. because I hate bonds. and more so because at that time studying biological sciences in nus was for morons apparently. eh, I didn't say it! my teachers and nus science students themselves told me -' you crazy ah? nobody puts science as their first choice one.' apparently it is like the easiest course to get in. so go to US of A lah. no regrets here. hohoho. my malaysian classmates who stayed in singapore mostly studied engineering or medicine. bah! hate engineering! my jc roomate told me her singaporean roomate sibeh spoilt. mummy does her laundry every weekend. of course I know not all singaporeans are like that.

but on the whole, my impression of singapore is that, it is too stiff and unforgiving. too homogeneous that it borders intolerance. one of my singaporean friends who studied in the states and went back told me that the pressure to conform is high in singapore. for example, her co-workers even suggest that she should go on a diet because she is not model thin. also there is the standard measure of success - the 5 Cs? so, for those who like the corporate ladder, singapore is swell. for others, it may be too suffocating.

but one can't deny the successes singapore has achieved. recent comparisons between singapore's biopolis and malaysia's all but defunct biovalley (link 1, link 2, link 3) have driven me up the wall. not just because malaysia is so blatantly mispelled in the title of one of the articles, but also because most of it is true. singapore's biopolis has joint programmes with MIT and johns hopkins, among others. they have people like sydney brenner, david lane, and edison liu. they are even hosting a keystone meeting for crying out loud!! while malaysia languishes far behind. lack of commitment! all talk no action. not to mention the double standards driving non-bumis away.

I'm where I am today thanks to malaysia, singapore and the US. although there may never be a job for me in malaysia, I will always be malaysian. those malaysians who love singapore so much should give up their malaysian citizenship and become singaporeans. same for malaysians who prefer to be americans. the choice is theirs to make. like minishorts says - 'so pissed for what?' (that story is sibeh funny ok!)

arf! arf! arf!