Well it’s been now more than a year that I am living in Singapore. Although I have been traveling across the world for over a decade now, it’s been a transition for me and my family to a foreign land over the last one year. And a year it has been to shatter some of my old school beliefs, some assumptions which I had taken as a given, but in a global world I am coming to realize them as too narrow to have a meaning for me today. Let me explore some of these.
- Education System: Our education system has never been able to address global behaviour and ethics. So my learnings have been mostly first hand. Every day that I spend here I am now able to appreciate, not only Singaporean culture, Chinese culture, North and South Asian Cultures, Australian culture but have started to appreciate Indian culture and things that I miss here.
- Etiquette: When people ask you, “How are you?”, they are very seldom genuinely interested in your story. All they want to hear is everything is hale and hearty and never could be better. No one has time for your sob stories. So standardize your answers as “Brilliant / Never Better / Great / Having Fun / You know last weekend, we went to this fabulous … “ yada yada.
- Time Management: Between the two extreme ends of the region I operate in, there is a narrow margin of one hour when both ends are in their working hours. To be able to manage a conference to match everyone’s expectations is an acrobatic feat in Microsoft Outlook Calendar Management. And time does mean differently in different parts of the region. The Japanese people with whom I worked like to work till late in the night in their offices and drink till wee hours of the morning. Australians like to keep things short, focused and finish in time for dinner at 6 and beer for later. Singaporeans love their lunch. Indians have Indian Stretchable Timetable all the time. Jakarta reminded me of traffic jams in Chandni Chowk and Ghatkopar – how the hell do people do more than two customer meetings in a day is a mystery to me.
- Culture: I realized that just like when we generally look at a sardar, we cannot make him out as different from another. I mean facial features are so similar that unless you understand the person well, they may seem similar. On a similar note, I for one never could differentiate between a Chinese, Korean, Japanese and a Singaporean. At least I have learnt some special habits, cultures, practices and diction that differentiate in my mind these set of people. It has been a very revealing experience and an education which continues as I live on. I have learnt to love Japanese food – who says you cannot have uncooked food? I found amazing Khimchi in Korea.
- Being a Singaporean: I learnt the passion of an average fellow Singaporean that I can learn from includes, their passion for multi culture cuisine, their favourite pass time of shop till you drop attitude (its amazing to see how they can find out the best sale and discounts, the most value for money deals in any market across the globe) and oh the drive to keep up physical fitness (I have actually seen people jogging on the roads at 3 am – when I usually am not awake, but happened to chance on a late night flight that got delayed).
- Advancing Years: As I grow older, I have been able to appreciate the “loneliness” of older generation. Most amazingly I have been approached at least couple of times by elderly Singaporeans who said Hi and asked if I would like to become friends with them. Indeed, I now realize that after an age of active life, life after is one filled with pain and loneliness. I hope I will have friends, family and foes to keep me busy.
- Management: There are tremendous learning that we can take from major management events. F1 Grand Prix Night Race which was witnessed by people from all over the world, was immaculately planned and executed. Every office that I go for government services, its planned and thought through. Transportation system so good, that at times I feel that I own the bus in which I am traveling coz I am the only one and yet, the buses run on time and rarely break down. Means their maintenance schedules are very well managed. Even a Zoo and its management is worth looking at. There is so much to learn all around.
I will write again as I live life as a seasoned Singaporean this year.
