Singapore, Some Musings on Homes
Dec. 18th, 2007 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaSo I took the bus down to Singapore and rather quickly found out how much I really dislike taking the bus. I much prefer the night train. At least then I could actually lie down 90' and not the sham of pretending to lay down. When I lay down, I really like laying down. I also got sick rather quickly. Either way, I got to Copthorne Orchid and found my cousin rather easily, and was taken to her flat in Bishan.
I haven't lived in Singapore since '92, and I had forgotten how most of the housing there is reliant on apartment blocks, several of them close to each other, most of them identical. Even after three days I had difficulty figuring out where her apartment was. It's a good thing I didn't go out to town myself those days. The difference between my comfy middle-class terraced house and her equally-comfy-but-a-little-crowded-and-less-showy flat was immediately clear. Her place is smaller, obviously. She doesn't have a bathroom with a tub, nor even a shower stall. Then again, the bathroom I used to share with my brother didn't use to have a shower stall either, but we never shared it with the laundry. There are small mattresses laying around because sometimes the kids want to sleep on the floor, and Cindy and her husband, Patrick, also sometimes sleep on the floor and/or on the couches in the living room. It was a bit odd to me... I'm used to the idea of having a guest sleep in my living room, but not family members, not on a regular basis.
I forget how really small/large Singapore is. For my Canadian friends, it's probably the size of Toronto plus some outlaying areas. It's just as Asian as Malaysia, but more Chinese-centric. The food's mostly the same. The MRT is always smooth, and the buses are superior to Malaysia's.
I had dinner out pretty much every evening I was there. I didn't have breakfast, and lunch was with the photographers (except on Sunday). Initially I had planned to return on Monday, but I realized it would've been a waste of an entire day to spend it on the bus.
Anyway. The physical trappings of the house made me really think of how privileged in general I am. I have a fairly large room of my own, although I didn't ask for it, and my parents have a ridiculously high-tech shower stall cum jacuzzi. The house looks nice. Just like a few other houses on our street - you can tell how some houses have been renovated extensively over the 20-odd years we've been living here, and there's a clear distinction between the "Haves" and the "Have nots" - the "haves" have really nice facades, and the "have nots" have pretty much the same facade as 20 years ago. The front of the house is also a good indication of how much money the family within has - a neat garden, nicely tiled driveway indicates money, and an unkempt garden where there's some stuff piled on and looking fairly old (which my family actually has, because my dad believes in, I don't know, returning to nature and shit like that) means the family is living comfortable, but not exactly with surplus.
Cindy's flat is like the latter - it's comfortable, but there's no surplus. Singapore gives each family more money for every child it has, but it doesn't really off-set the cost of living there - rent keeps getting raised, and housing keeps getting even more expensive because there's so little space on that tiny little island. I'm surprised they don't have extremely tall buildings yet.
But Cindy's apartment blocks have something that Malaysians don't have. Every housing area has its own library, she tells me, and its own swimming pool, and its park complete with a playground for the children. Subang Jaya's park has been encroached on by a parking lot; its amphitheatre (which actually is quite decent as far as outdoor structures go) is vandalized. We don't have a library - the only ones I can think of are the Inti library and the one I used to go to in Taipan, USJ (which is kinda like travelling from Spryfield to Bedford, or something of the like).
So who's more privileged? It's very clear that my family has got the money. But Cindy has social amenities which are really hard to get here. That's hard to say. Being upper middle-class is nice if you're a consummate consumer, I suppose, but it gets awfully lonely when you can consume goods but good company is absent. I have a lot less to shout about where I live in Canada, but at least I've got friends who aren't ever too busy to come hang out with me if I ask for it. Not that I generally ask, but it's always nice to know.
I never really thought about class until my late teens, because I was generally one of those rising middle-class kids. I had friends who were like me, some friends who were poorer, some friends who were richer and made us go "ooooh" everytime we went to their houses. Gradually, the spaces I was given on account of my family's rising fortune grew larger; it sounds like a natural progression, but there's a lot of grief that goes down in making these decisions. Growing bigger and richer is a hard process. My mother grew up poor and she's always dreamed of living in a bungalow. When my dad gave up the opportunity to buy one in SS19 way back when and instead got this one we live in now, she got angry, and she still is. The whole "we could have lived in a bungalow" spiel comes up fairly often, and I thought it was a valid complaint of hers until I grew older and thought, sheesh, that's a really dumb thing to wish for. Why would she wish for a bungalow when the REAL problems seemed to lie in how much she argued with my dad and my brother and myself? Would a bungalow have made any difference? Somehow, I feel the answer is no.
A house is the physical trapping of a home - what's important is what's inside it. I think I grew up okay. Lots of kids I know who grew up in homes smaller than mine turned out okay too. In fact, most of them are a sight happier than the kids who had more money, who therefore had to fulfil tons of parental obligations for supporting them so comfortably and shit like that. But that's another rant for another day.
My parents are still arguing though. My mom's a bit of an asshole, and sometimes she just sets off. This isn't to say my parents can't laugh together - I've seen them do so but it's not as often as they fight.
One day, I came down while my mom was yelling, and I said, "Half a million ringgit invested into this house, and you're still yelling in it." I don't know why I said it. But it's noisy when she yells, in a negative sort of way. I don't mind if it's parents calling for kids to come down, and kids shouting at play, but there's a distinct menace in the air when it's due to bad emotions coming to the forefront.
Cindy's home has a different feel. Mostly because she has four children, three of whom are pretty damn capable of speaking and using their voices at high volumes. (The third one cried at the drop of a hat. It was difficult on me. For some reason, I kept expecting her children to be reasonable, you know. I figured that if you could talk, you could use your brains and reasoning faculty. Apparently not. This is another subject that bears further looking into.) She's definitely home a lot more than my mom is. It's not a bad thing - she makes crafts, too. When my mom was laid off from her work, she spent her time making cushion covers and curtains. My mom is actually really good at craftswork. I believe my artsiness comes from her. She won't admit it. Haha.
Cindy's kids do stuff I rarely did as a kid: they go to aikido, they go swimming, they go to the library, and go shopping. They also play a lot of Gameboy and watch a lot of TV, even when their mom's around. I don't know what a happy kid really looks like (it's not like children spend their days arranging their faces into emotional barometers) but I guess they're doing okay. I'd much rather be reading (which I did, but mostly because my parents wouldn't let me have cool Gameboys, and plus, my brother would never let me in on his D&D games. Asshat) but if they're happy with what they've got, then they've got a functioning thing going on, right?
I don't know. What do you think? What constitutes a home? What was your family life like growing up, and now? Do you have an ideal home (as in, emotionally, not the house itself)?
I haven't lived in Singapore since '92, and I had forgotten how most of the housing there is reliant on apartment blocks, several of them close to each other, most of them identical. Even after three days I had difficulty figuring out where her apartment was. It's a good thing I didn't go out to town myself those days. The difference between my comfy middle-class terraced house and her equally-comfy-but-a-little-crowded-and-less-showy flat was immediately clear. Her place is smaller, obviously. She doesn't have a bathroom with a tub, nor even a shower stall. Then again, the bathroom I used to share with my brother didn't use to have a shower stall either, but we never shared it with the laundry. There are small mattresses laying around because sometimes the kids want to sleep on the floor, and Cindy and her husband, Patrick, also sometimes sleep on the floor and/or on the couches in the living room. It was a bit odd to me... I'm used to the idea of having a guest sleep in my living room, but not family members, not on a regular basis.
I forget how really small/large Singapore is. For my Canadian friends, it's probably the size of Toronto plus some outlaying areas. It's just as Asian as Malaysia, but more Chinese-centric. The food's mostly the same. The MRT is always smooth, and the buses are superior to Malaysia's.
I had dinner out pretty much every evening I was there. I didn't have breakfast, and lunch was with the photographers (except on Sunday). Initially I had planned to return on Monday, but I realized it would've been a waste of an entire day to spend it on the bus.
Anyway. The physical trappings of the house made me really think of how privileged in general I am. I have a fairly large room of my own, although I didn't ask for it, and my parents have a ridiculously high-tech shower stall cum jacuzzi. The house looks nice. Just like a few other houses on our street - you can tell how some houses have been renovated extensively over the 20-odd years we've been living here, and there's a clear distinction between the "Haves" and the "Have nots" - the "haves" have really nice facades, and the "have nots" have pretty much the same facade as 20 years ago. The front of the house is also a good indication of how much money the family within has - a neat garden, nicely tiled driveway indicates money, and an unkempt garden where there's some stuff piled on and looking fairly old (which my family actually has, because my dad believes in, I don't know, returning to nature and shit like that) means the family is living comfortable, but not exactly with surplus.
Cindy's flat is like the latter - it's comfortable, but there's no surplus. Singapore gives each family more money for every child it has, but it doesn't really off-set the cost of living there - rent keeps getting raised, and housing keeps getting even more expensive because there's so little space on that tiny little island. I'm surprised they don't have extremely tall buildings yet.
But Cindy's apartment blocks have something that Malaysians don't have. Every housing area has its own library, she tells me, and its own swimming pool, and its park complete with a playground for the children. Subang Jaya's park has been encroached on by a parking lot; its amphitheatre (which actually is quite decent as far as outdoor structures go) is vandalized. We don't have a library - the only ones I can think of are the Inti library and the one I used to go to in Taipan, USJ (which is kinda like travelling from Spryfield to Bedford, or something of the like).
So who's more privileged? It's very clear that my family has got the money. But Cindy has social amenities which are really hard to get here. That's hard to say. Being upper middle-class is nice if you're a consummate consumer, I suppose, but it gets awfully lonely when you can consume goods but good company is absent. I have a lot less to shout about where I live in Canada, but at least I've got friends who aren't ever too busy to come hang out with me if I ask for it. Not that I generally ask, but it's always nice to know.
I never really thought about class until my late teens, because I was generally one of those rising middle-class kids. I had friends who were like me, some friends who were poorer, some friends who were richer and made us go "ooooh" everytime we went to their houses. Gradually, the spaces I was given on account of my family's rising fortune grew larger; it sounds like a natural progression, but there's a lot of grief that goes down in making these decisions. Growing bigger and richer is a hard process. My mother grew up poor and she's always dreamed of living in a bungalow. When my dad gave up the opportunity to buy one in SS19 way back when and instead got this one we live in now, she got angry, and she still is. The whole "we could have lived in a bungalow" spiel comes up fairly often, and I thought it was a valid complaint of hers until I grew older and thought, sheesh, that's a really dumb thing to wish for. Why would she wish for a bungalow when the REAL problems seemed to lie in how much she argued with my dad and my brother and myself? Would a bungalow have made any difference? Somehow, I feel the answer is no.
A house is the physical trapping of a home - what's important is what's inside it. I think I grew up okay. Lots of kids I know who grew up in homes smaller than mine turned out okay too. In fact, most of them are a sight happier than the kids who had more money, who therefore had to fulfil tons of parental obligations for supporting them so comfortably and shit like that. But that's another rant for another day.
My parents are still arguing though. My mom's a bit of an asshole, and sometimes she just sets off. This isn't to say my parents can't laugh together - I've seen them do so but it's not as often as they fight.
One day, I came down while my mom was yelling, and I said, "Half a million ringgit invested into this house, and you're still yelling in it." I don't know why I said it. But it's noisy when she yells, in a negative sort of way. I don't mind if it's parents calling for kids to come down, and kids shouting at play, but there's a distinct menace in the air when it's due to bad emotions coming to the forefront.
Cindy's home has a different feel. Mostly because she has four children, three of whom are pretty damn capable of speaking and using their voices at high volumes. (The third one cried at the drop of a hat. It was difficult on me. For some reason, I kept expecting her children to be reasonable, you know. I figured that if you could talk, you could use your brains and reasoning faculty. Apparently not. This is another subject that bears further looking into.) She's definitely home a lot more than my mom is. It's not a bad thing - she makes crafts, too. When my mom was laid off from her work, she spent her time making cushion covers and curtains. My mom is actually really good at craftswork. I believe my artsiness comes from her. She won't admit it. Haha.
Cindy's kids do stuff I rarely did as a kid: they go to aikido, they go swimming, they go to the library, and go shopping. They also play a lot of Gameboy and watch a lot of TV, even when their mom's around. I don't know what a happy kid really looks like (it's not like children spend their days arranging their faces into emotional barometers) but I guess they're doing okay. I'd much rather be reading (which I did, but mostly because my parents wouldn't let me have cool Gameboys, and plus, my brother would never let me in on his D&D games. Asshat) but if they're happy with what they've got, then they've got a functioning thing going on, right?
I don't know. What do you think? What constitutes a home? What was your family life like growing up, and now? Do you have an ideal home (as in, emotionally, not the house itself)?
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Date: 2007-12-18 10:00 am (UTC)As you know, I moved a lot. So to me, a house is just a house. I rarely attach any sentimental value to a house. Some of my friends do. They seem to treasure every brink of their house. I don't care about that. To me, 'my home/room' is where my stuff is, whether that's in Belgium, Thailand or the North Pole.
As for family life, well, besides the moving and some bullying issues, I'd say that I had a pretty care-free and happy childhood. My family is upper middle-class. We weren't filthy rich but we weren't struggling either. My mum stayed at home to take care of us and after all is said and done, she did a pretty darn good job. She taught us how to behave, how to be responsible and such. My dad provided us with enough financial help so that we had things/opportunities that others wouldn't have e.g. gameboys, toys, a school trip to Tanzania, etc. All in all, we were a pretty happy family.
Unfortunately, somewhere in 2002, things started to fall apart. It's a very long story. You know parts of it. Certain things happened, fights broke up, a lot of hurtful things were said, everyone got hurt in one way or another and now, I feel like we're not really a family anymore. Things just aren't the same. When I come home, I don't get that warm, fuzzy feeling I used to get. Now, I just feel hurt and emptiness.