Conclusions of my year in Singapore
Now we are back in Vietnam, visiting my wife’s parents for a bit before coming back to Spain to start again. 2 years in Asia (Vietnam and Singapore) has been great but it’s good changing environments some times.
I’m left Singapore for personal reasons that make me return to Spain, but I’d like to say the good things and bad things of that mini-country:
Advantages:
- Salary (for those who are just graduated, Singapore gives around a 160% more than Spain).
- Technology and prices: Singapore is probably the cheapest place in all easy to buy technology, they have their famous SimLim Square where you can even bargain for the price of an GPS, PSP, laptop, etc.
-Internet: It’s not the fastest, but it’s very cheap, I rented a 3G USB modem of 512Kbps with unlimited bandwith for 12eur a month only.
- Organization (also see in disadvantages) : The whole system is organized until the smallest detail, constructions everywhere, reparations, consistent bureaucracy (most of the procedures can be done online).
- Education system and lack of racism: Singapore is a pot of cultures: Chinese, Malaysians, Indians, Indonesians, Filipinos, Europeans, etc. The education system is really good and strong, that’s probably the thing they are more proud about. Children in school learn to have friends from many different cultures and races, and after few generations, they live together peacefully. A important thing for Europeans to learn.
-Low criminality: That is true, you never feel scared walking at night time in Singapore, the police most of the time are bored in the offices. Government, thought, as spread around the country some banners that says: “Low criminality doesn’t mean no criminality”, and they are right, because they have got few cases very popular.
- Foodcourts: Eating outside in Singapore it can be very cheap (2 eur) thanks to many foodcourts spread around the country, near every office building you can find one, and in every shopping mall. The choices are quite good, from Japanese food to Chinese, Indian,Vietnamese, European, etc
Disadvantages:
- Big Brother feeling: Due that Singapore is so small and the efficacy of the burocracy is high, you cannot avoid to hold a feeling of being watched all the time. Singaporeans behave sometimes like robots, never doing naughty things and following the laws and rules strictly. As a example, when you are going to cross the street, most of Singaporeans will patiently wait until the green light appears, even no car has passed for the last 2min 
-High beer price: Alcohol is almost “forbidden” due to its hight taxes, I guess to discourage their citizen to act not properly and maintain low the criminality rate, but at the same time makes the environment boring if you cannot afford going bars few times a month. Of course an European expat will tell you that Singapore is very fun, but then ask him how much money he spend in restaurants and drinks and you’ll how expensive is have to have “fun” with friends.
- Workaholics: is crazy how hard Singaporeans work for their own private companies, even knowing that their extra efforts just goes to bosses’ pockets. Having to have dome so many extra hours like the rest of my colleagues and living in such a closed country gave me a weird feeling of claustrophobia.
- Death penalty and no freedom of speech: Is not as bad as Vietnam but it’s very shame to have this in such a “developed” country, what is more shocking for me (as European) is that citizens don’t seem to care about it as long as their economy goes well and companies success. No Demonstrations are allowed. Also for example drug dealers face the death penalty in few weeks after being caught, even your plane was only doing scale in Singapore from neighbor countries.
-Senglish: For a non native English speaker like me sometimes is really hard to understand Singaporeans accent, funny called “Senglish”. It’s basically English with an strong Chinese accent, I forgot to say that Chinese race is majority in Singapore, around 60% of population.
