Singapore Experience
- Oct 2, 2017
- 2 min read
To celebrate the last term of IFB, I decided to do a post on how my study experience in Singapore has affected me.
Honestly, everyone knows that I am not a big fanatic of Singapore. But of course, as a city where I spent 2 years of my life in, I learnt to love several aspects of it.
I'll start with a more trivial stuff. These are the little things that I would miss in Singapore.
The safety and how the country is very organised. Everything is very orderly that it’s almost an utopia straight out of a Young Adult novel.
Wide availability of products and brands. Even when I was in Japan I noticed that some of the cosmetics there are available in SG’s Watsons (Well I had to find a restock channel...)
Love for books. I can always go to BooksActually or Kinokuniya for a literature fix. Its libraries, especially Orchard’s design shelves and National Library’s overall collection, are heavenly.
Strolls and shopping around the city. There are options galore.
I would say that the culinary here is pretty amazing. The locals are great and the city still manages to satisfy my affinity for Japanese/Korean food. I’ll definitely miss Tanuki Raw, Ma Maison, Cedele salads, and the Thai place near school.
Generally a reliable place to live in with strong technology and infrastructure
In hindsight, I did develop a certain level of cultural awareness during my time here. Singapore is a melting pot of a nation, combining norms and traditions from Chinese, Malay, Indian and after-effects of the British colonisation period.
What it DID taught me was that Singapore made the impossible happen. In the history books, Singapore was a third-world nation with barely any land and no natural resources. Behind that bend of fate was sheer endeavour backed by strong visions of change and held together by a large number of striving men. In comparison, my home country Indonesia has an abundance of natural resources, only to be sucked dry by certain organisations or political 'squads'.
My point is, someone who works hard for a change can triumph over those who came from a seemingly prosperous background.
Now, things I don't peculiarly adore about Singapore aside, I do believe that I learned a great deal about myself and life here. Some of the subject dwells in a more personal territory for me, so I do not intend to disclosure the full story here.
For sure, it made me more independent. It killed my fighting spirit more times than once, but it allowed me to find various ways to rekindle it. I hopefully found good friends, and learn more about myself and what I want.
But this is not the end.
There are still MANY facets of myself that I need to fix or develop.
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