looking for flat...

I'm looking for a flat.
We're looking for a flat, Tina and me.
Well, if Betty is willing to move, all of us three, are looking for a flat.

We prefer to have a 3+1, simply, all ladies, each has her room. No owner living with.
We prefer to be near MRT, easily, to get to down town and offices.
We prefer a condo ! For security, all facilities, especially the swimming pool. (j'adore)
We want a reasonable price, without agent or co-broke.

But after the seeking of these days, I found finally, it's impossible!

Rentals are raising so much since I came to Singapore at the beginning of the year, almost 20-30%, good resouces are always kept by agents and I hate to pay agents who do nothing and easily get money from both parts.

Tina and I visit some flats these days, tried, and nothing interesting is found. We're considering to rent a whole condo flat and re-lease it to some tenants, like people do, but finally it seems too complicated.

HDB is not bad, but old HDB is inacceptable, especially some old HDB without renovations...
We cannot stand living with owner, to avoid several rules in flat...

A few posts show "sorry for indians and PRC", Singaporians are good at generalize things and people...

We're keeping searching, hope to have good chances.

Back...

Back from Shanghai, walking out of MRT, I said to myself: I'm coming back, but why?
4 mts and a half I stay in Singapore, doing a job which I'm not interested at all.

Almost all my friends from Shanghai who are now working in Singapore aren't loving the life here. It's as noisy as Shanghai, as busy as Shanghai, not modern than Shanghai(but cleaner). You'll never find the feeling of hometown here, you're arounded by Chinese, but you're always foreigner.

Tina has been arrived for four days in Singapore, she was my shcoolmate in both high school and college in Shanghai, studied in Australia in the last three years, not charted accountant but soon begin her banking audit work in KPMG Singapore. We were classmates when I did my minor course in Accounting. As most of the Shanghaieses, she doesn't like Singapore after three days' visit, and we gather together to do some "unfair" comparison and criticism between Singapore and Shanghai, between Singapore and Europe/Australia.

As she said, we're here, just for experience. She would earn more if stay working in Australia, or live better in Shanghai, but KPMG offered her this opportunity to work in this financial center city. She took it because she loves this career.

$1000, which is enough to rent a pretty appartment in Melbourne or Lyon, can only get a small bedroom in Condo in Singapore...

People are snobbish, this even rarely happened in Shanghai. Singaporiens discriminated against Chinese, meanwhile, if you have overseas background, they'll raise their head, look you up. Now in Shanghai very few people distinguish men and women according to their appearance. Because people know, in subway a man in tatter t-shirt could be a talent graduated from MIT.

But, people here, they don't know that, they close themselves in this mini country.

Well, beyond the complaints, we're living in Singapore, to achieve our professional target, to learn Sud East Asia culture, it's not a terminal, just a stage of our life, right?

Dialects

There're so many mixed languages and dialects in Singapore, it is said that the singaporean can speak both english and chinese, or other languages but they are not good at either of them...But actually I have to admit their english is quite good, although when they speak very fast with a chinese accent (or rather south asia accent ) , they often neglect some english grammars. However their listening comprehension and writing are so good. Well take an example of Markus, the son of my friend Jamie, this 13-year-old boy can understand everything in BBC news, but I cannot.

I'm always confused which language should I speak with my singaporean colleagues, those who also understand Chinese, but yesterday my HR colleague told me " if you really want to practise your english, just speak it naturally, don't care that we have different accents! ". Can it be a good solution?

Today when I talked with colleagues about the dialects in Singpore, it looked much more complicated than my problem of english...if you really pay attention to their common words used in dailylife, you'll find "qia" "kopi"...something mixed by Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, and Malay. They grow up in this mixed-cultures environment.

Now when I enter deep and deep into this society, shall I have to learn those dialects as well? Then work hard!


PS. qia=car, kopi=coffee