baby, what's in that satchel?

everytime sheep and i procrastinate, the goings-on in the motherland suddenly become very interesting. not that this isn't interesting in itself, but it just happens to be taking place when we have huge deadlines to meet.

anyway, it sparked off some discussion in castle anthrax on whether things were so bad when we were growing up. we never felt it living there, but now that we're in sydney we do realise how oppressive singapore can seem from an outsider's point of view.

zoot reckons that because our grandparents lived through singapore's toughest times politically, what with the japanese and communists and the merger with malaysia, then being kicked out (depending on which history book you read) of malaysia, they really appreciate what "the great leader" has done. and similarly, our parents lived through a time where singapore was developing well and things were pretty rosy so there were no complaints obviously. so much so that the generation between us and our parents are pretty apathetic about a lot of things.

but now, you have precocious young whippersnappers going overseas to study and experiencing all these new and fantastical things and coming back (well some of them do) and asking questions like "how can singapore claim to be a first world country when its government tends to have a flagrant disregard for the human rights of dissenters and rabblerousers?"

so then we wondered if knowing what we know, we'd still want to raise our hypothetical, mythical, in-the-future children in the same place that we grew up. of course singapore has a lot of things going for it: a pretty safe environment, order, good transportation etc, and there's really a lot of lovely little places to discover if you have the inclination to do so.

zoot is pretty undecided, because she has lots of family and friends in singapore. i'm pretty much a flat-out no, because most of the family that matters to me "quit" and most of my friends are scattered all over the place anyway. of course, who knows what things will be like when we actually do have children etc, but barring all those other factors because statistics are never accurate, what would you do?

i don't know how many (ex-)singaporeans read this blog, but here's a poll so vote! because you know you'll rarely have a chance to. and if you vote, maybe leave a comment* explaining your reasons. curiosity bunny wants to know!

would you raise your offspring in singapore?
aye nay see how lah
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