the chinese efficiency.

south-east asia → malay peninsula → singapore → sembawang

it has been 3 weeks ago since flying here from christchurch, and i suppose i’ll make my first formal report of what’s been going on. what brought jeremy to singapore? in complete honestly, it was money. by early august back in auckland, i realize i will have to end my attempt to find a skilled job sooner, and so i told me friend in singapore, carmi, that i might go and try job hunting in the lion city by september before going home since there’s no direct flight to manila anyway. i’d have to pass by sydney, hong kong, singapore, or brunei, and given these choices, the odds of finding an IT job is a lot better in singapore. in complete opposite to my fruitless attempt in finding an IT job in new zealand, singapore accepted me no questions asked. literally. not one single phone interview or email asking about my professional career. they wholly based on my CV, and in the agent’s first email (’cause i emailed by CV to carmi), the contract and employment pass application are attached. sweet.

you could only imagine how grateful i am to the job with the current economic condition i’m in. this as well boost my spirit that i can definitely go back to IT, and there are other places out there where my talent will be more useful, appreciated, and most importantly, lucrative. well, the pay itself is not the best, but i’m in no position to demand anything, and since the recession is not completely over, i got a market-realistic compensation.

so, in my attempt to show off, and equate chinese efficiency, i had my medical done the next day upon landing back in asia, and got the result the day after. yes, i’m HIV -, and didn’t get any sick from the tattoo needle that massacred the backs of my arm on my last day in kiwiland. my first weekend here was devoted to studying (and a few sips of wine, champagne, and vodka. not all at the same time!) and hastened reviews of mainframe cobol, which according to my CV, is something i’m very proficient including SAS, JCL, MVS, CICS, and a lot of other scary all-capitalized abbreviations. it was a complete information overload, and in the end i gave up wishfully thinking my boss is an angel in disguise.

and then my first day at work. i have this big grin on my face as i was getting ready for work on a tuesday morning (monday was holiday). i can’t believe i’m wearing formal crisp longsleeves, partnered with slacks. black socks fit perfectly on my slender feet, which sit perfectly on the even base of my black leather shoes. i put a small amount of clay pomade on my hair, and 2 sprays of the only remaining perfume i have (which will be empty soon), on left and right, one on each side, then, i’m ready to go. i walked toward the MRT, which is a short 5 or 6-minute walk from our apartment, and then found myself inside the cramped train heading to toa payoh, HDB’s headquarters. the MRT system resembles a lot of hong kong’s. it was so easy for me to close my eyes, and imagine i was in hong kong once again going to work.

working culture in HDB, at least for beginners, is something hard to explain. for some reason, they developed this custom that when you are new in the company, you should not know anyone inside. so on my day 1, i’ve been ignoring faces i just saw back at the apartment (i live with 4 other people working in HDB as well), and looked blankly at them inside the elevator. i also found out that sol “the destroyer”, who was my office mate back in sun life, is working for HDB too, but deliberately ignored me as he passed by my cube, and only had the chance to talk to him in the toilet! if you know me, i’m a total leftist, and would be the first one to proudly break this bullshit rule, but, a very big BUTT, i need the damn money, and so i was there ever so kind, harmless as a furry white lamb. i was calling every boss and boss-wanna-be ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’, while deep inside, i was hoping they would say,”No lah, don’t call me sir lah!”, but they didn’t. in fairness to my boss and colleagues, they are so nice. they kept me well fed with all the mooncakes showering from desk to desk, and my grandfather, este, office mate behind me, richard (let’s be politically correct here, he’s in his prime age), gave me a set of aquarium complete with filthy sand, which i smartly thought would be a very nice decoration to our almost bare apartment.

to be honest, i’ll feel bad if i won’t be staying for a while in this country as i bought and invested in a lot of things already like 2 pieces of pillows in 2 different colors of pillowcases, a black duvet, 2 pans, a plate, bowl, glass (which is broken now), and 5 pieces of spoons. i’ve yet to buy some clothes hangers, trash bin, a desk and a rolling chair. i also bought 5 white undershirts as my old ones were tarnished in brown during my career as a farmer. one thing i dislike in shopping here is that paying by credit card is not widely accepted, so i try to make my cash purchases wisely, and my credit purchases equally as wise as well that i used it last week end to by a skateboard. i guess i never had enough of snowboarding in queenstown so i thought i’d try this sports since it uses a board too. last weekend proved to be very productive starting on a friday night karaoke birthday celebration of buffy and her flatmate. i met buffy just once from a lomography group back  home, and was surprised that carmi knows her as well through marlon (who works for HDB), whose friend is buffy’s flatmate. small world. my productive weekend continued on a saturday morning trip (with 5 or 6 hours sleep from last night) to ministry of manpower to secure my work visa. it is here where once again, i was impressed by chinese absolute efficiency. in about 10 or 15 minutes, i’m done paying zero dollars. i’ll be back there next week to get my card. back at the flat by midday, i engrossed myself in the kitchen cooking my favorite sinigang na hipon while doing my laundry, and at the same time cleaning and setting up richard’s aquarium (which is jeremy’s aquarium now) though i don’t have fishes yet. sunday was staying late in bed, cooking again and preparing my lunch box for monday, and my first skateboard ride outside after watching tons of youtube demonstration. i’m still in one piece.

going back to work, it’s alright, with some confusing encounters with the abbreviations i was talking about earlier, but eventually, it went fine. a lot of thanks to carmi, who has been very supportive in this pretentious professional career. well, i’m not certain if i’ll stay here longer really ’til my boss tells me i’m done with the evaluation period, and i would know that in about 2 more weeks.

one thing i like being here is at least seeing familiar faces. carmi, a friend i met from lawson and we share a lot of things in common. sol, an ex-officemate from sun life, buffy and eugene from the lomo society. i met recah and jr as well a few days ago, friends and batchmate from uni, and i won’t be surprised in the future to meet other filipinos i know back  home. perhaps it’s because philippines is relatively closer to this side of the world that makes me feel i’m not too far from home.

i would have to admit that having chinese surname, and with the size of eyes i have, it placed me to an obvious advantage, starting at the airport without a single hassle despite coming here on a 1-way ticket, and how colleagues and bosses get along with me. now, i’m beginning to realize how my roots really accepted me. living in hong kong for more than 2 years has been positive over all, and now, i’m trying to start anew here in the lion city.

the one common question i get from people when i say i’m partly chinese is “how many percentage are you chinese?” i don’t really get offended by this asking, but i find it funny and at the same time, puzzled. before, i just answered 50% as i know my both grandparents from my dad are both chinese (lim and chua), but then i know that my grandmother (again from my dad, my mom is purely tagalog) is partly somewhere from ilocos originally, so i should start answering “maybe 45.50%?”.