I’m done with the “Singapore is so great” posts.

Every country has its own unique circumstances when it comes to this disease. Not every country has a strong central government. That’s a feature, not a bug.

I, for one, am glad I now live in a place where children are encouraged to protest (instead of police-probing people holding signs), and that decisions are made largely in the open. I like noisy democracy, personally, over quiet exclusive technocracy.

Everyone is entitled to their own preference on the sort of society they want to live in. I just can’t stand the smug sneering. Singapore isn’t better. It’s pretty good. Sometimes great. But it’s not better. Nowhere is better. Nationalism sucks. Everywhere.

The absolute best thing about having a a Singapore passport is that we’re exposed to so many cultures and generally have high levels of socio-economic mobility. To have that, and then to go elsewhere, only to only see ‘Singapore is better’, is so terribly sad.

Middle class Singapore is significantly better off in so many ways than middle class America. I know that, I feel that every single day. But the smugness of middle class Singapore is unbearable, and a big part of why I’ll probably never live there again.

I agree with Rachel Heng in this piece that as a middle class a Chinese Singaporeans I have had significantly more opportunities than if I had been the same, but Asian-American. https://therumpus.net/2018/07/on-becoming-a-person-of-color/

I am also aware—from all of the exes I love and still talk to—that my life in Singapore as a middle class queer Chinese Singaporean would have been pretty fucking great. I didn’t come to America for a better life, I am here because it recognizes my marriage.

I, in fact, probably gave up a better life to come to America. I don’t know I’ll ever afford a house in California. I hate that I worry about insurance being tied to work. As a visa-holder, everything is fraught. Yet I, and many others, are here. Because. It makes sense, somehow.

In so many ways I know I’m lucky I have a safe country I can go back to at any time, whenever. Where I know my salary isn’t going to be significantly different from here. I’m proud of how SG is handling covid, but I feel increasingly distant from it.

Many Singaporean friends in San Francisco have very different perspectives. They all plan to go home one day. But as a queer Singaporean in an international marriage, that’s just not in the cards.

Older friends in similar situations with foreign spouses, unrecognized by Singapore, have had to do crazy shit like complex legal arrangements and spouses leaving every 30 days for.. 15 years. I.. can’t do that. It’s not right.

In this model of Singaporean exceptionalism, some of us have decided for all of us that civil liberties are not necessary. And that hard conversations on anything should only be had if you’re polite enough.

It is true, not every country can respond to this disease like we can. Because we are a low key totalitarian state! You can’t want the accolades and deflect the criticism. Most of that criticism is valid. Most of the people at home don’t care. That’s fine. I get it.

Everyone is suffering. Everywhere. It would really be fantastic if Singaporeans could shut up about how we beat everybody else in everything. Especially when people are dying. Rumors of an East-West clash are wildly exaggerated.

It’s possible to hold two beliefs at the same time: that America is in decline, and that as an ethnically Chinese person I do NOT want a Chinese superpower.