We all know that having children is not cheap but in Singapore, it is very true, especially for foreigners. As part of its plan to put citizens on another level, the Singapore government has reserved a good portion of its childcare subsidies for citizens, allowing some for permanent residents (PR) but none for Singaporeans. In fact, some people may conclude that foreigners are often penalized for having children as one foreign child in the childcare system means that a Singaporean citizen or PR is excluded.

The childcare system here works in such a way that in most HDB hubs, there are infant and childcare centres whereby working mothers can send their children in for affordable and quality care whose operation and set-up is monitored by the government through strict regulations and such. Singaporean working mothers enjoy a subsidy of $700 whereas PRs pay the full price of around $1000 to $1200 depending on the childcare center. Foreigners on the other hand pay double of the full amount, which is a whooping $2000 or more. Most end up hiring foreign maids or finding babysitters who charge around $650 to $700 for their services (with pros and cons, naturally).

At first glance, it seems quite unfair if you’re a foreign worker as you are not entitled for any CPF contribution yet find yourself paying the same amount of income tax as a citizen or PR (a foreign worker’s tax, it would appear, goes to benefiting locals more).

Not only that but medical bills are different as well. Singaporeans and PRs pay a whole lot less than foreigners who most of the time end up paying double the amount paid by PRs. When it comes to buying property, foreigners can forget about purchasing HDB apartments which are very affordable. They are off-limits and only reserved for those with citizenship or PR. Instead, foreigners find themselves renting (which benefits locals) (be prepared to fork out at least $1.4K to $1.8K for a whole HDB 2 or 3 room apartment) or paying crazy amounts for private properties – and by crazy, I mean amounts starting from $600K to over $1 million and we’re not talking about landed properties but merely condos. And I haven’t even gotten started on things like finances, term life insurance quotes and so forth.

Clearly, having children, getting sick, becoming a homeowner and so forth are luxuries few foreign workers can afford in this so-called land of opportunity. Why I say so-called is that having said all those things, the average pay of a non-expat here is hardly anything to shout about. It is what it is – average. In many instances, accounts from friends who have been here are mostly the same; companies here want the best but they not necessarily will pay for your talents…even multinationals. It was almost as if I was being reminded that Singapore is no better than Malaysia.

Yet, in a way, I can understand why the system is such – after all, if there weren’t any benefits, who would want to be a citizen or PR? If the tables were turned and it was Malaysia who gave its citizens such benefits, would we sing a different tune?

I would say that if you’re a singleton with few commitments, then Singapore is a good place for you to establish a career, bulk up your finances and so forth. If you’re married with children, think twice before coming down here especially the pay. Factor in all the costs, possibilities and so forth – even the environment, culture and common communal perceptions. Don’t settle for anything less, even if it means “having a job is better than none” – we made that mistake and find ourselves now paying a pretty hefty price for it – something which I’m now constantly reminded of as I’m job-hunting.

Really, the grass is not always greener on the other side – or at least that’s the case for a foreigner in Singapore like myself (do exclude yourself if you’re on an expat pay or earning a nice cushy salary because you’re in a different league altogether).

Rais Yatim, Malaysia’s Information, Communication and Culture Minister recently made several comments regarding mixed marriages, in light of Malaysian actress Maya Karin’s failing marriage to an Italian. Among some of the things that he mentioned were this:

In response, Information, Communication and Culture Minister, Rais Yatim has cautioned that young people should think “a thousand times” before committing to such onions.

The minister cautioned that incidents of marriage breakups involving Caucasians (coloquially referred to as mat salleh) happened more frequently, as compared to thove involving other ethnics group.

…

When asked about the recent split between local celebrity and star of Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam, Maya Karin, 31 and her Italian husband, Steven David Shorthouse, 41, Rais said they had only been “in love” and were to blame for not considering their cultural differences.

According to the Malaysian Mirror, he went on further to say that “the reality is that those who want to go into mixed marriages have a lot of obstables [sic] to go through. Marriage failures are due to cultural and religious differences as well as the upbringing they go in their respective countries.”

“Most of the marriages are a result of ’short-term love affairs’ that survive for a brief period before each of the spouses go back to the cultural and religious beliefs they grew up with.”

Rais continues to caution about the legalities of such issues.

“It’s not that simple to get a Malaysian citizenship. In this sense, it is easier if it involves a foreign woman marrying a Malaysian man than otherwise.”

“This is because the status of citizenship, under Section 16 and 17 of the Federal Constitution, is based on the paternal consideration not maternal.”

“What more, if the couple has a child or children. The father is likely to ’snatch away’ the kids to England or Europe, for instance.”

“It is, perhaps, better for those involved in mixed marriages not to have children.”

…

The full article is available here.

Rais Yatim is right to a degree. Mixed marriages are a lot of work, especially more so if it is between an European/Westerner and an Asian – not only are they different ethnically, but the environment they grew up in are starkly different. By environment, we not only refer to the living conditions BUT the social and communal practices.

BUT it doesn’t mean that a mixed marriage is doom to fail the moment it begins. It just means that the effort you put into your marriage is different from those in non-mixed marriages.

Looking at the article, I resent the following implications:

• Marrying an angmoh means that my love is “short-term” and I’m only interested in a fling.
• Angmohs steal away children and are inconsiderate towards their partners or former partners.
• Malaysian women who want things easier should stick to marrying Malaysian men while our male peers can go ahead and marry foreign women.

Marriage is a serious thing and irrespective of who you are marrying, people do think long and hard about it – “a thousand times” were the words he used. Many go for premarital courses OR those who don’t, talk things through. It’s not the same as shopping or buying stuff like industrial products. Also, no one gets married with the intention of divorcing. That’s just being silly. Everyone whom I know who is married works doubly hard at making their marriage work, especially those whose parents are divorced – the last thing they want is for history to repeat itself.

As for “stealing children”, Malaysian men are capable of that – Chinese, Malay, Indian or otherwise – and they sure as hell can be inconsiderate towards their partners. I have lost count of the number of stories I have heard of spousal abuse, marital rape, unfair judgements at divorce trials, fathers skipping out on alimony and child support, and so forth. In fact, one of the reasons why some women marry angmohs is because they are more likely to garner equal status and treatment in a marriage then they would if they had married someone from their own race (NOTE that I said some and not all). Bad, inconsiderate men exist in all cultures, just as how good and God-fearing men exist in all cultures too. No need for white-washing here.

With regards to “easier” and “choice”, instead of telling women to stick to the status quo when there is something wrong with it, how about considering a change to the darn constitution? In one sentence, Rais Yatim confirmed what I have been trying to get across to many women out there – Malaysia is not female-friendly at all. By stating that our citizenship rights are only based on paternal consideration, we tell female citizens that they are not as important as men and that ultimately, it’s better to be a man. Shouldn’t a citizen be given equal rights and opportunities irrespective of sex? Apparently not in Malaysia.

I do believe that many Malaysian women out there who choose to date angmohs, let alone marry one, think long and hard about their decision. It is not as if you don’t face any “judgement” while you’re dating one. I’ve been thought of as a gold digger, a hooker and so forth, and this is by other Malaysians. Sad to say, we are a really judgemental and ignorant bunch. Unfortunately, the people in leadership positions like the Minister of Culture is the same – for all his title may say, he is certainly not very informed or ‘cultured’.

I completed a pretty large order the other day and suddenly find myself swamped with two more orders! Yes, lovely start to the new year and something that I’m ultra thankful for. To top things off, I suddenly have additional assignments although researching about best acne treatments isn’t all that fun per se.

On the side, I still managed to squeeze in some time for a new sewing project – something that, hopefully, can make its way off the baby shelf and into the store someday. I’m not holding my breath though. It’s still very much in the works.

Nil will be off to India this weekend for two nights which leaves me with just Eva and well, our apartment. I have a couple of activities planned – and she’ll be tagging along plus she’ll be starting on different foods as well so that’s pretty exciting.

Sure, it’s nothing like the dramas I’ve had to go through at the office but hey, I’m not complaining. Life is good and I feel blessed.

Amidst all the remarks regarding the use of word “Allah”, one remark stood out the most for me (in bold below):

…

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said such incidents might have been avoided from the beginning if there had been a culture of understanding, tolerance and moderation.

The Deputy Prime Minister said he had been receiving quite a number of messages from his Christian friends from Sabah and Sarawak over the issue.

“They say the things that had happened would not have happened in the first instance if they, the Christians, had just said, we are not going to use the word Allah,” he said.

Muhyiddin noted that this was because in Malaysia and all Muslim countries, Allah was the only God for Muslims.

…

Source here.

What a load of C.R.A.P.

For one thing, I bet Indonesia Christians don’t get into hot soup for using the word “Allah” (refer here) so was Muhyiddin right in saying that the world’s largest Muslim state is wrong in its legal stand on this word? If so, perhaps he too feels that the Indon government should grant exclusive use of the word to only Muslims. A bit difficult considering that Bahasa Indonesia is spoken by Muslims and Christians alike. In fact, many only speak nothing else but Indonesian.

But wait, I thought Allah in English, Malay, Indon and all referred to the same God – since when did God in the Christian faith morphed into a different diety in Islam?

Perhaps tomorrow he’ll come up saying that he was misquoted. B.A.L.O.N.E.Y!

For people who think that Christians should cave beneath the pressure, think again. This is not a religious matter anymore but one that revolves around freedom of religion and freedom of speech. If one group of people is banned from using one word, what is to stop the government from simply banning people from using a whole lot more words?

This is the kind of thing that gets on people’s nerves. This is the kind of stuff that shows the world how stupid Malaysian leaders and politicians are.

Y’know, my in-laws and every other French who is aware of the Altantuya case or is politically knowledgeable thinks that it’s a laughing joke that a man alleged to be corrupt is now the Prime Minister of a country. Now add this sham of a deputy prime minister who is not just ignorant but religiously prejudicial (and open about it) to the list.

And how did he come to be Deputy Prime Minister? Because Malaysians voted his party in during the last elections. WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU PEOPLE THINKING?

*grrrr*

After sharing this with Nil while we were heading out for our regular grocery shipping at Carrefour, not to mention, stocking up on food stuffs for our little one, something he said hit a note.

I thought the word referred to the same God shared by the Muslims and Christians.

So I went looking around to be doubly sure, not that I don’t trust him. His knowledge of world history and culture is far better than mine.

While Wikipedia cannot be a 100% correct source, it is interesting to note its entry on the word “Allah” as seen here:

While the term is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, in reference to “God”.

…

Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word “Allah” to mean “God”. The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for ‘God’ than ‘Allah’. (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for ‘God’.) Arab Christians for example use terms Allah al-’ab meaning God the father, Allah al-ibn mean God the son, and Allah al-ruh al-quds meaning God the Holy Spirit (See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of God).

So really, outside of Malaysia, no one group has claimed exclusive right to use over this language. Just us silly Malaysians with our draconian concepts of language, ethnicity, religion and society.

It is also interesting to note that PAS – traditionally known to be highly religious AND political – agreed with the court’s ruling (that Christians and Jews may use the word) but “Muslim Youth Movement, Abim, have cast the use of the word Allah as a surreptitious effort on the part of Christians to try to seduce Muslims away from Islam” (source here).

Talk about men of little faith of themselves. If a word is all it takes to seduce a God-fearing Muslim away from Islam, then is he/she really all that God-fearing in the first place? Is it right if a person partook in religious rites like fasting, send out things like first communion invitations but gets all hostile about sharing their God in language with someone else?

It angers me at times to see the things going on back in Malaysia; and yet, I cannot help but feel a certain sense of relief than my daugther will never have to feel what I feel or see what I see. She will have a lifetime of witnessing man’s stupidity; she doesn’t need to start now.

For most of you who don’t know, the hottest issue in Malaysia right now is not the cost of petrol BUT a fight over who owns the right to use the word “Allah” exclusively. In the Malay language, “Allah” means God and many non-English speaking Christians use this word in hymns, songs and so forth. This is especially common among aboriginal Christians who worship in Malay – the national language in Malaysia – AND among East Malaysians.

In a nutshell, Muslims are saying that the word “Allah” should only be used in the Islamic context whereas Malay-speaking Catholics and Christians are saying that it should be free to be used by all (like in the Catholic weekly The Herald).

While everyone is busy squabbling over the exclusive rights to the word, a church got burnt down in the process and someone like me who hasn’t been really following the drama begins to wonder…

Is a religion tied exclusively to a language? Do all Catholics speak Latin? Do all Muslims speak Arabic? Since when did speaking a certain language meant that you were part of a religion as well? More importantly, since when did God belong to one religion? I always thought that we belonged to him and not vice versa.

I guess in Malaysia where we tied the ethnicity with the religion, I supposed people would automatically think that Malays who are deemed to be all Muslims have the exclusive right to use Malay in their worship of God. BUT they fail to realize that a language and ultimately a word can never be exclusive as people of all walks of life can learn a language and utilize it. Is it fair to say that I’m French because I speak French OR that I’m Malay because I speak Malay? Subsequently, if I spoke Latin, would you say that I’m Catholic?

The word “Allah” is just another word in a different language used to describe God, just as how the French use “Dieu”. I find it shocking yet ignorant for some Malay groups to demand exclusive right to the word “Allah”. For a people who profess to be practitioners of a peaceful faith, I find them to be very intolerant.

What’s worse is that some groups feel that it’s necessary to terrorize and scare others into dropping the use of the word “Allah”. Are they any better than the 9/11 terrorists? Hardly. Scare tactics like leaving a cow’s head at a temple doorstep or burning down/bombing churches (even my church got hit by this issue) only makes Muslims look bad and the people of their faith who don’t say anything against it are no better than their bomb-totting peers.

And you wonder why many European governments are having a hard time with extreme Muslim immigrants who want everything done according to their way and rules.

*sigh*

I hope such behaviour doesn’t spread like mesothelioma or any other cancer – it would be such a shame. So much for hoping for a positive start of the year. Bah.

You could say that second to the year in which I got married, this year was a pivotal for me as I went from being just a woman and wife to being a mother as well.

Being pregnant again after a previous miscarriage wasn’t all that a happy occasion as we grappled with the possibility of history repeating itself. Many people assume that I would have been happy to be pregnant but what they didn’t know then was how worried I was about miscarrying again. I was taking no chances even though you probably wouldn’t have suspected looking at the trips I was making to the Alps. I went through a horrible bout of flu and food poisoning – all of which I had to go through without resorting to medication except for some Smecta. Oh the woes of being pregnant AND sick!

So when we went into the second trimester without a hitch and got our first confirmation that all was great, the next hurdle came along in the pregnancy. Because I was born with a congenital defect, the doctor was concerned that Eva may face the same problem as congenital defects are genetic. We went through a number of scans to be sure that everything was in place and you could say that I could only stop worrying towards the end of my second trimester.

It was during the end of the first trimester in which Nil and I experienced our first major major issue/conflict as a couple and pulled through it just well with the support, encouragement and help from both family and friends. Upon returning from our Christmas vacation, we discovered that Nil was being retrenched, and that his last month would be March. It couldn’t have come at a crappier time – just as we were thinking of setting up a nursery and so forth.

The following weeks after getting the news was hard as we adjusted both financially and morally to the news. Bringing a child into the world was a joyous occasion and one that many would look forward to but in my case, it was worrisome as we had to consider how to go about feeding not just ourselves but a baby. But we pulled through with some adjustments to our finances.

Then we had a break – sort of. Nil received some good news in the form of a job in Singapore and while he was elated to bits, I, to be honest, wasn’t looking forward to the move again. I knew that it would be tough adjusting to a new country and the Asian culture that I was happy to leave behind, but to do all that while coping with being a mum on top of running my shop, handling assignments like life insurance policy reviews and so forth? Lets just say that I had so many breakdowns then and now that sometimes I felt like giving everything up!

Really, being a mum is a test and while not everyone is cut out for it, I must say that it can bring out the best in people. I was pushed to so many limits, limits that I didn’t even know existed. What more, the word “sacrifice and selflessness” is never more real than when you’re a mother. The things I do, buy, and heck, even think, is often about her first – it has long stopped about what I want or need; although sometimes those things (”me” time/things) are important.

To be honest, I can’t really remember anything else apart from the fact that I got pregnant, Nil lost a job, Nil found a job, we moved to Singapore and that I’m a now mother. I guess when life keeps you busy with a baby, you don’t really have the time to sit back and take stock of the little little stuff. Sometimes they do matter but in this instance, I think the bigger picture is more important. The year 2009 was just that – the bigger picture.

Mum is the word.

….when people make “what happened in the year” together with Christmas shopping lists.

….when people go bonkers and get festive in all sorts of ways, from dressing to the mood and even the food!

…when all you can think about is holiday, holiday and more holiday.

Yup, even Nil and myself are becoming quite festive as gifts pour in from families (and we give a little of our own) not to mention prepping for our upcoming trip to Bali. Travelling with a baby always requires some form of forethought plus planning, not to mention hunts for the appropriate things like a travel cot and such. We’ve decided to rent a Samsonite Pop Up bubble for the trip and I’ll be getting that tomorrow. But otherwise, we’ll be lugging our stroller there together with a carrier – am deciding between the BBjorn or the pouch. Maybe we’ll end up taking both.

But yeah, going back to the whole spirit of making lists…

Now that we’re closing in onto the end of 2009, time to take stock of what happened this year both personally and on the “global” front. So over the next few days, do watch this space for some “summaries” to mark the end of 2009 on this blog. Yup, the lists will be my last entries for 2009 as I’ll be coming back only after the New Year. In the meantime, there is the rush to work on things like phentermine reviews and crochet/knitting projects!