Country

Now, I'm going to say this will be quite a rant. Figured it was about time I said why I hate this country. All opinions expressed will be my own, with the exceptions of any from quotes, which I may or may not make in this post. I shall say first, before anyone goes like "Let's beat up this treasonous fool who isn't a patriot," this country has many things going for it. The water (and city) is always clean, crime rate is low, racially diverse culture, etc etc. We could sit here all day and never end with what is good about this country. Objectively, this is a good country. Subjectively, it isn't. Let me get to what I don't like about this country that gave me everything (and I assure you it will sound like a child who is absolutely ungrateful about what his mother gave him).

I figure I should start with its geography, this country is smack dab like just a wee bit north of the equator. For all intents and purposes, it might as well be right on it because this country is hot as fuck all year round. Even in the "monsoon" season it's still hot. I once experienced rain where the droplets were warm. They were fucking warm. Like 40ish degrees celsius warm. Mind you, there was absolutely no lightning. It was just beginning to rain. That's absolutely hellish. When I was in Australia, it was hot out in the sun and when you were in the shade, it was cool enough that I could start shivering, that was in the afternoon. At high noon and late evening, you could still feel hot if you were under shade sitting down or just walking. I can't stand the heat. You can always put on more layers if you're cold but you can never run around naked if you were hot. That's the first point about its geography.

Second point about its geography, this place is boring as fuck. I mean sure, there's plenty of old shit around here, but the oldest standing building isn't even 200 years old. Barely 150 maybe. And I'm not interested in modern architecture either, which damn near everything is. The tallest "mountain" is 164m and the only place you can camp in a tent on this entire island is a fucking beach. Barely 300m away from a shopping mall where you can find yourself a MacDonald's. This place is dead. It's a green city sure, there's plenty of trees, plants and other ding-dangs but almost non-existent nature. In the sense that this country probably doesn't even have an elemental for its ecosystem. It probably shares one with Malaysia. I can walk across this entire country along its widest width in a day if I wanted to. I can't even walk across Yellowstone National Park in 5. Hell, it's more than 10 times bigger than Singapore and it's a freaking park. So the point is, there's nothing interesting about this country nature-wise. I can't go hike to some lake in the mountains or camp up in the woods. There are no real "woods" (by which I mean established entire forests that are hundreds of years old, the oldest clump of trees probably lives on Bukit Timah Hill) and it's illegal as well.

I'm a man of adventure. I want to get out there and see the Natural Wonders of the world. The Alps, the Pyrenees, Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, the Appalachians, fjords and all that cool shit. I want to live in a country where I can get away from the city in the weekend, climb a real hill and see stretches of land all around me and the mountains in the distance. Wait till nightfall and see the universe above me. Drive on the highway and see the shadows of clouds on the rolling hills next to the road as I did in Australia. None of this is possible in Singapore.

Now, for the people. Honestly speaking, not all Singaporeans are assholes. But you see enough of them to think that all Singaporeans are assholes. Every time I take the train, I'm just dumbfounded by the kind of idiots who take public transport. For instance, a single man, standing on both sides of the escalator. He was not obese, carrying a lot of things or injured with crutches. He was merely an asshole. And then the stupid people who walked in a staggered column on the travelator in Serangoon, all of them at the same speed and close enough that you cannot weave in and out of them. Excuse me, if you're all traveling at the same speed anyway, can you fucking walk in one lane together and not hog the "fast" lane?  Or at least open up so I can actually move past you guys. I'm not even going to talk about standing on both lanes of the escalator because it happens every freaking time and it's not even worth talking about anymore because I see it every single time. Not to mention the people (I really don't know how to describe these people, whose behaviour is just baffling) who are practically rearing to charge out the door of the MRT and will start standing in front of the door as close to it as they can before the train has even arrived at the station and rush out as soon as the floodgates are open only to FUCKING STAND ON THE ESCALATOR. WHAT THE FUCK. You asstarts are in such a hurry to get out of the MRT just to stand on the fucking escalator? Gods help me.

And then the "scared to lose/scared to die" or kiasu kiasi mentality of Singaporeans. While I understand that Singapore is a competitive environment (maybe toxically so in certain respects) and sometimes being kiasu will help in vying for the top position, must this mentality extend to other areas as well? Granted, not every Singaporean has that mindset and not every Singaporean extends the mindset to outside competition realms, but it happens often enough. My mum often told me not to intervene if people are fighting in case I'm implicated, or injured. Kiasi. I say I should intervene within my means, meaning I don't get injured but at least try to do something about the fight. I daresay when danger is on the horizon, many of them will be at the forefront. The forefront of running away and letting someone else handle it. I'm sure it happens in other societies as well but it's just so pervasive here that I can't stand it. And many Singaporeans lack compassion as well. This is not a country who will really help its fellow countrymen. They only say they will. Just the other day I was watching a video where a motovlogger crashed. The first people to stop and help him were other riders and mostly white people. Even the motovlogger himself mentioned it, that the first people to help him in a crash were usually other riders and white people. Meanwhile all the other Singaporeans can't be bothered to give a shit. Think about it, the foreigners that Singaporeans hate so much (you would think that if you spent enough time on Straits Times' facebook comment section) are the first people to stop and help you, not other Singaporeans. How does it even feel?

Interlude, in case you don't realise, I refer to Singaporeans as they, not we. While Singapore is a country to be proud of, and I am, I am not proud to call myself a Singaporean, because I have not seen that most Singaporeans are worthy of my respect. Only a few have and it is not enough for me to be proud.

And then there's the culture. It's far too conservative for me. Gay marriage isn't allowed as of yet and transgenderism isn't recognised even if you've had the corrective surgery. Now, it doesn't affect me personally, since I'm cis-het trash but that doesn't mean my future children won't be. If it happens that they are, I would like that they are free to do what they want. Unfortunately, it would seem that the more open younger generation has no interest in politics and unless most of the voices in Parliament are of the open type, nothing will change. And instead of waiting for it to finally be, when my children may be halfway to the grave already, why not just go somewhere else where they don't have to wait and rarely have to face the criticism of the older folk?

I also sorta hate the education system, now don't get me wrong, it certainly works. It's a good system that has produced academics, though maybe it's too focused on academics and rote learning and neglects sports more. What I hate about it is that the only things you can learn in Singapore are the things that help Singapore's economy. You want to take up archaeology? Tough shit mate, good luck finding that in Singapore. Paleontology? Forget it, it's not like finding old fossils boosts Singaporean GDP. Astronomy? Singapore doesn't even have a space program. Granted NUS does offer Physics with specialisation in Astrophysics, which was my original aim, that's far from Astronomy. Don't even get me into Astrobiology or Cryptozoology, those are words that don't exist in Singaporean education. Now there's the argument of "What's the point in learning something that won't help you find a job (here)?" To that, I say perhaps you don't consider that maybe the student has no intentions of staying in Singapore anyway (me and I'm sure there are others as well) and perhaps you might have forgotten that a big part of learning is to enjoy what you are learning. Sure, it's better if you can do something with what you learned but if you don't enjoy it, then it's harder to do well for it.

My next point is that vehicle ownership here is cancerous. Most people will only ever own 1 vehicle and with that 1 vehicle they can buy 2 or 3 in other countries. Not to mention you only get to keep it for 10 years. I get that it's to control the vehicle population, which it is really successful at but no. I like my bikes and I intend to own several. I'm not about to pay 10 bikes' worth of money for 3 (or so) bikes and then be restricted in every which way on what modifications I can make and having to pay money for pointless inspections on what modifications my bike has to check if it is road legal damn near every year that I own the thing. And I don't mean servicing the bike. It's just inspections. And you have to pay for it. Even if I end up staying here and buying 3 bikes, it's a fucking waste of time to bring each of them to the inspection. And also kind of a lack of point in buying some of the bikes I want anyway since there's only city in Singapore and if I want to do any sort of offroading or touring, it'll be done overseas. Might as well skip the whole living in Singapore part so I can actually use my bike(s) for what it is meant for.

And now, perhaps the point that I've been waiting most fervently to make, is the NS system. Now, I'm not talking about the 2 years. I'm talking about the entire package. I understand that a conscription system is necessary for such a small nation, but it's amazingly asinine. For example, females are not required to serve. At all. Not even a little. I'm an egalitarian and I firmly believe, if males have to serve, so do females and others. Logically speaking, it only makes sense. Instead of placing males who could be doing active combat in support roles like transport drivers and storemen/armourers etc, why not place women in these roles. Their lack in physical strength isn't critical in these roles and it frees up more able bodied males for the front lines. Even if they don't serve in a military capacity, there are other things they could do in service of their nation, for example basic nursing or community work etc. When at war, you can bet there'll be casualties and having about half the nation know how to treat injuries is never a bad thing. It could be a way of teaching them skills which they would otherwise never learn. And they don't have to serve a full 2 years either, female draftees in Israel only serve 18 months vs the 30 months of male draftees. And it's not a bad way to get the population to mix either, think of it as a way of jump starting the birth rate, most males are delayed 2 years in the age that they start their families because it's hard to meet the opposite sex when you're busy in camp serving your nation. When you can meet them while doing your NS, it negates those 2 years and it helps you meet more girls that you otherwise might not have met. Besides, I feel that most girls nowadays need it, they're too spoiled and immature. They've mostly never known discomfort and it makes them soft and weak. Should we really be invaded one day, I doubt their ability to rise up to the challenge.

But it's not just that only males having to serve that bugs me. It's that they still hold on to you like a bloody leech after you've served. For 10 work years you have to apply to leave the nation and take a fitness test, as well as reservice. Now now, understand this, it's not 10 years, it's 10 any year they choose to call you back. If they don't call you back, the year count doesn't increase. And they like to keep you till you're 40, when you're halfway into the grave. You can't even leave the country if and when you please for a quarter of your life without applying for a permit to do so and in those 20 years you have to keep your hair short. That's right, you're a middle aged man and you still don't get to choose what you want to do with your own hair or go where you please. Meanwhile an officer in the Norwegian Navy gets to look like he's a spokesperson for a shampoo brand. Lasse Matberg if you've no idea who I was talking about. Seriously, google that name and be awed by his luscious locks and good looks. It's almost slavery, except they don't whip you daily and feed you wormy bread. But they still own you, and they like to remind you of that every year through birthday emails. Honestly, I have to applaud them for it. They make it hard for you to leave so that by the time you're free to go, you're halfway dead and have already settled out of necessity. When you're 40, it's hard to just leave your nest and go build a new one. You just don't have the energy to resettle and have to make new friends and what not. You probably have a family to worry about. My favourite way to describe this: "This country gave you wings, but it clipped them and kept them clipped until you're halfway dead. By then you've settled down because you can't fly even though you have wings and by the time they let you, you've either forgotten how to fly or can't afford to leave your current nest."

If you can tie down the male, whoever he marries will most likely be tied down with him, so essentially Singaporean females aren't the key to maintaining our population. They only need to tie the male down. That's fucked up as hell.

Not to mention that they shave your head when you are drafted. All in the name of "stripping away your identity and giving everyone something in common" or some bullshit like that. Really? The fact that we are all wearing the same uniform, on a strange island separated away from our friends and family and everything we know, eating the same food and suffering the same shit isn't enough common ground that we also all have to share the same haircut that we have to fucking pay $2 for? That's like paying a rapist $200 dollars to have her/him take your dignity away or $20 to the food stall owner to serve you cockroaches in your fly lice (fried rice). Insult to injury really. Again, even after I've done my service, I still can't do whatever the fuck I want with my hair till I'm halfway dead.

So that's about all the reasons why I hate this country. You don't have to agree with my reasons and you can certainly try to convince me otherwise, though it will be hard to because there are some things that literally cannot be changed about Singapore that I don't like. The bike and geography reason alone is enough for me to want to leave this country, you don't have to throw in NS into the mix. I can only hope I am fortunate enough to leave early enough that I can still enjoy life while I have the youth to do so.