Asian Apartment Assessing

So if my sky writer is doing his job, you should know by now that we've signed the lease on our first Singaporean apartment. What you didn't know!? But I paid that random stranger I met on the bus in the middle of the night all that money for top notch work!

Fine, back on topic!

For the last month we've been living with the boyfriend's Singaporean parents and while they have been INCREDIBLE (Seriously, by the normal conservative standards of the previous generation that speaks volumes!) I however have lived on my own for nearly 7-years! Living with someone else (barring my boyfriend for nearly two-years now) is an adjustment I have been finding it difficult adjusting to having 'room mates'... and living with your significant other's parents makes it both difficult and a bit uncomfortable.

• You have to be on your best behaviour all the time, no walking around in your boxers (Don't lie, you know you do it when no one's home). 
• You have to always dress nicely to present your competence as an adult... how I miss my ratty and worn lounging sweat pants!
• You can't hog the bathroom or the food, I love to take hour long hot showers where I literally can just sleep standing up... nope not here! My poor back muscles are screaming in defiance at the injustice!
• You can't curse or shout whenever your pissed or hurt. Don't believe me, stub your toe on the table and try stifling that F-word in your throat as you grip you foot and smile at the parents. 
• Your decision for meal time are by group consensus and not by what your stomach wants that night. 
• All forms of PDA even up to overt flirting is now weird because honestly, who wants to get all hot and bothered in front of you 'in-laws'. 
• Find you boyfriend's mother washing your underwear and instantly you feel both embarrassment and a healthy dose of shame, not to mention your an adult, you feel bad having someone else doing your laundry. (If your mother still does your laundry after college, sorry, you're a wierdo!)

For someone who lived by himself over half a decade, such an adjustment is not easy and the desire to return to some level of freedom I enjoyed before is desperately wanted. Don't get me wrong, its an immensely rewarding experience to get to know the Singaporean parents... but literally meeting them and living with them all in the same week is like watching an antelope on the Serengeti... every second a conversation goes quiet your afraid the time has come and that antelope is about to be hit... by Hummer!

Again back on topic, I know I run off on tangents. I think its because... Oh fine, your no fun!

So to begin hunting for a new place to stay in Singapore, the first desire is to pick somewhere that a commute to work is feasible. Right now going from Tampines down to Raffles means either catching the 552 Bus, riding it for an hour, praying traffic plays nice and then walking 10-minutes to work... or catching the 91 Bus to Tampines Mall, riding the MRT to Raffles and walking 15-minutes to work... both ways are crowded and both require me to be awake much earlier than God ever intended. So it was decided to focus in every neighbourhood that was less than a 20-minute commute from our office (train/bus included).

I am not a morning person... in fact before my coffee I am a DANGER to society... the closer I am to work the better.

Narrowing down our search area, we found apartment hunting in Singapore is very similar to NYC. Realtor's have taken to social media and the Internet with a zeal, many sites specific to Singapore apartment renting or property buying are plastered all over the Internet. We focused primarily on the website Property Guru, mostly because it required all apartment rental posting to come with pictures, both of the property but also the realtor hosting it.

Our area of focus was Tanjong Pagar, an area at the heart of the Downtown Core of Singapore that is an odd mix of old style HDBs and high-rise condos. It's only a short distance from the famed and always crowded Singapore Harbour, one of the busiest seaports in the world... seriously New York Harbour, you don't even rate in the top 10 seaports in the world when you can count nearly a hundred super-freighters representing two dozen countries, each as long as the Empire Star Building is tall, clustering on the open ocean, all vying to be the next to drop their goods at the base of tower cargo cranes that rival skyscrapers in height!

Saturday is the day to show, most people are out and about so you can get a feel for the real life of your desired neighbourhood. This will give you an idea of how crowded or loud your future home could be. If I'd have known my college apartment in Philadelphia was dead on the weekdays but overwhelmed by crowds, ear-splitting club music and drunks falling over at only 4:00 PM in the afternoon, I may have looked a little farther down the road!

Generally most owners will go through a realtor when they are trying to sell their places, the hassle is easier and most buildings require it to ensure nepotism doesn't play a factor in them keeping the rents competitive. In general pick them based on the properties they have, but when you call to schedule your appointment ask if they have similar properties in the area. Most actually will have multiple apartments in the same building complex they will be happy to show.

Now that sounds odd, if you've seen one HDB apartment, you've seen them all. But remember Singaporeans love to buy over rent, which means that as owner they have say in how all of these decade old units are not only decorated but also how they are renovated. The first apartment we saw had a wall between the kitchen and living room. But the next apartment did fit within the same space and shape, but that wall between the kitchen and living room had been torn out and a breakfast counter now acted as a barrier. Another two floors down had redone the kitchen counters with green tiles, the one next door went with stainless steel tops.

Secondary to this, almost all rental apartments in Singapore tend to come fully furnished. The owners know that most people who are renting tend to be working and juts starting out in the world, they have few belongings. Its common for all the basic furniture and major appliances to be installed on arrival. Think of it like how a hotel room is built, nothing fancy but still you will have a couch, television, washer, kitchen table, a bed and wardrobe for each room. If your buying, sorry they expect if you can afford property, you can afford your own couch! This means that the décor and furnishing of the place must also be considered when moving in. I loved a 18th floor apartment in a particular HDB near Duxom Park but the fact that owner refused to remove the ancient and truly gaudy Chinese-style wooden furniture and furnish with a television that wasn't made in the 1980s was the reason we turned it down.

The range of rents you can find will run the gamete and are largely predictable. The fancy condo built less than a year ago, with its own small backyard, a sky garden on the room, private courtyard and garage, even a private hall for functions, along with complimentary bomb shelter/pantry, was of course rated at a price that visibly made us choke. The cheap HDB flat built around the time my grandparents were newly weds and still hosting all the original décor, was straggly cheap... and stomach turning in its filth.

Be clear with the realtors, most are willing to negotiate the rent down if you are willing to offer incentive. Move in right away, but only if you drop S$200 from the rent. Like we'd pay the full rent, but wanted the couch, television and beds replaced with more modern versions. Haggling will be difficult and somewhat exasperating but we managed to chop a good chunk off our rent and get a say in how it was furnished because since the renovations were completed the day before, it lacked furniture when we viewed it.

Once the bid and the your haggled stipulations for moving in have been presented to the owner, they can decide whether or not they'll take your offer. This offer is going to include a check for your first month's rent, plus a security deposit that is usually one months rent and a realtor fee, which is usually another month's rent. So expect whatever price you agree on, the first time out of the gate you'll be paying three to four times that amount, so brace your bank accounts accordingly.

Once the offer is accepted, its time to sign the contract, where your stipulations for moving in are legally documented. Do no skimp on any details and make sure the owner is held accountable for all damages within the first day of moving in. We found while out future home was ideal, the handles on the kitchen windows were broken, a mirror was cracked and two tiles in the bathroom were wobbly. Yes, wobbly is the technical term! These damages must be fixed before you move in and any one's you missed need to be documented the first day in order to avoid a hefty chunk of your security deposit being sucked up when you move out.

There are also some stipulations that have to be made clear on the contract when you move in, in order to save yourself from 'breaking' your lease later on:

• Expatriate renters can use the Overseas Clause to break a lease without penalty. If you are posted back to your home country or another, you are only required to give two-weeks notice and your lease will be shortened accordingly to end as soon as possible. Just provide you FIN or Passport number to secure this.
• If ANY of the persons on the lease are Singaporean, the Overseas Clause not only doesn't apply, it voids an early lease break for the whole apartment.
• Rent periods tend to be 12-months to 18-months, not by year. 
• Non-Singaporeans can not own property in an HDB. Only Singaporeans can buy an HDB unit. This is the reason the Overseas Clause applies to expatriates and not Singaporeans, we can break contracts early but can never own.
• Subletting is illegal and strictly enforced. Even to family this is unacceptable unless their names are on the lease.
• Most buildings come with WiFi and it is average in speed. Enough to browse the Internet but if you want to use some serious power, like online gaming or HD television, you'll have to invest in something more powerful.
• Unlike in the States, water, gas and heat is not included in your rent. They will be billed to you same as electricity. 
• You are expecting to service all appliances and amenities in your apartment. No building repairman, unless the damage is to the building itself, then alert the owner for assistance. Remember your air conditioner WILL need to be serviced every three-months, if it doesn't the build up of bacteria, dust and oils can make you sick or worse, start a fire!

And with that all hammer down, we've signed our contract and are set to move in next week! Ang Moh finally has some property to call his own! I think I'll raise some rabbits... yes that seems appropriate... fine I'll just get a mint plant for the kitchen window!

Where are you From?

So this video 'What Kind of Asian are You?" by David Neptune and Ken Tanaka has been making the rounds on Youtube recently and by far I find it is the best and most humorous portrayal of what I like to call 'Ignorant Racism'. By definition, its not intended to be racist, just in trying to appear non-racism, you actually achieve what you intended to avoid. In the video the racist, if you want to call him that, is attempting to come off as worldly, liberal and open to foreign cultures while failing to flirt with the woman, in fact his attempt comes off making him look completely ignorant and a total ass.

But this topic, while funny for some, is one that has been extensively researched by others. While its not common in many countries, it is one that has been creeping up in the increasingly politically correct and culturally liberal people of America, where our 'great melting pot' welcomes all cultures... as long as they don't exist outside our preconceived notions of what different ethnic groups should act or look like.

Author Evelyn Alsultany detailed similar interactions and classification attempts that she herself endures throughout daily life due to her ancestry as being both Arab and Cuban, more importantly in her article 'Los Intersticios: Recasting Moving Selves'. Here she showcased several deeply personal encounters of how her race and cultural identity have been so tightly defined, that to exist outside of them is a near impossibility for the everyday person to comprehend.

I seriously recommend all Americans take a read of the article, it can be a real kick in the pants to those that originally thought of themselves as liberal and open... its the reason why I actively try to avoid asking the question... "Where are you from?"

Take a few minutes to read it here, I'll wait.

Alsultany's pain, frustration and annoyance is a feeling I relate with all too commonly and worry about constantly. A worry that tends to creep up not in America where this trend predominately tends to occur more along racial lines than cultural and more out of unintended ignorance or honest confusion than any true malice or ill-intent. Instead it is in my second country, Ireland, where I feel at odds at what defines me as a true Irish citizen and as an unwanted outsider.

In Ireland, most especially in my family’s ancestral hometown of Bandon in the south, people can effortlessly identify me as Catholic due in part because of my appearance. To many it is confusing, how you can be identify by your religion based on your appearance? In this case I quickly point out what do you think a Muslim or a Buddhist looks like, and instantly they know what appearance to supply; skin colour, accent and all.

Yet in what many outsider’s view as a a racially homogeneous country such as Ireland, hundreds of years of cultural and ethnic mannerisms have been defined on only the slightest differences. To be Catholic is as simple as the shade of your hair or the colour of your eyes. I am moderately tall, thin verging on lanky, ice gray eyes, near cream skin that never seems to tan and blond hair. Most people would call these features Aryan in appearance but in Ireland this is the look of the southerner.

When I enter a restaurant they see my face and smile, chatting with me and asking a whole array of questions out of shear curiosity. Having an American accent but speaking in the native slang they quickly inquire how I have developed such combination. I speak like a native, have no problem understanding the accents and never once ask them to slow down when they talk. In fact quiet often I have to remind them that I am not just some American tourist and they don’t have to dumb down their conversations for my benefit. This ease I attribute to my mother who until the age of four was a native and a vast majority of my extended family still remains bound to the lifestyle of farming or shop keeping in the central regions of the island country.

Yet when they inquire for my name I can always see the flash on confusion and even hostility when I half-heartedly mutter my surname... I won't repeat it here, the anonymity rules apply...

"You're not Irish," one woman actually scolded me as if I was some stupid child. "You're a northerner."

I've never been to the north, as the south calls Northern Ireland. I don't know anyone in my family that has. In fact my grandmother regards the idea in the same realm as jumping off a cliff, to do so either means your insane, stupid, lost a bet or all the above.

Among the Irish, although it has officially and publicly dwindled in recent years, a general animosity between the southern Catholics of the Irish Republic and the Protestants of North Ireland, which is controlled by the United Kingdom. Many see them as traitors, foreign invaders, turncoats and secretly undermining Irish sovereignty. To the world at large this is preposterous but to the natives, it is a grave insult.

Many people don't know the history behind the animosity between the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants, to the direct extent the English Protestants they descend from. Most play it off as old wounds and hate that have been forgotten to time. Some even think its funny, a good laugh and another example of how stubborn and repressed the Irish can be. Few realize that until no more than a generation ago that laughable conflict came very close to escalating to same level as the Palestine-Israel Crisis, with murders, violence, bombings and brutal acts of hate that all of Ireland now regards with deep seated shame. In the Brighton Bombing of 1984, Irish militants of the IRA set off a bomb, killing 5, injured over 30 and nearly killed the British Prime Minister, one Margaret Thatcher. It was only the fact that the old Victorian architecture of the Brighton Hotel did not implode from the devastating structural damage, that the number of dead wasn't near total and killing the always defiant Mrs. Thathcher.

We call these thirty years of violence The Troubles and though its name sounds melodramatic, it lead to over 3,529 deaths, half of which were people caught in the crossfire as the Protestant North Irish battled it out with the militant Catholic North Irish.

Few would say it today but I know one or two elderly members of the community who still refer to the IRA as freedom fighters, even if our hometown of Bandon is as far south as you can go in Ireland, making it the furtherest from Northern Ireland and the conflict zone The Troubles created. There people had the luxury of loathing the North Irish Protestants without having to see the damage done by both sides, to understand that terrorism leaves no victim free of scars.

The Troubles are however and thankfully regarded with a shame by most of my hometown, but that only helps to temper the hate, a cautionary tale parents tell their children and then roll their eyes in exasperation as their elders begin to spout their almost visceral hate of the North. I'm sad to say that few bother to correct their elders, age always denotes seniority and wisdom in Irish culture, second only to the church in the power and faith it is given.

Maturity of body does not always guarantee maturity of mind and old wounds always fester when they are not addressed.

When I try to explain this relationship and inherited hate, I get a few odd glances from my friends who's countries were also former British colonies when I explain it was because of the British colonization of Ireland that lead to all this animosity and fighting. They don't seem to be able to comprehend the idea that we share a common history, that through my ancestors, the few stories that have survived and several large tomes of Irish history, I can understand how it feels to be a former colony violently trying to free itself from a foreign imperial power and feeling a sense of national failure when it legally can not. They see a white man, claiming to understand the plight of their ancestors who lived among the British colonies.

A few have actually reacted with anger or scoffing laughs that I'd even think I could ever relate to them on that topic.

Few realize that Ireland was the English's first colony, before the Americas, before Africa, before the concept of a round world was really drilled into the public mind and the colonies in Asia began to spring up.

Ireland was the first test bed for an overseas British territory... we were 'colonized' first... and that carries not an ounce of pride it in... but usually is spoken with anger.

The invading Protestants of the 16th century brutalized and mistreated the ancient Irish, who were almost entirely Catholic with a fair sprinkling of Pagans. These new arrivals disenfranchised the natives and turning their ancestral lands over to British colonists, called the Protestant Ascendancy, predominately from England but a few Scots among them.  New laws were quickly enacted, baring land ownership to all Catholics and even Presbyterians.

These British colonists arrived in droves, the majority in the north, this would led to the eventual modern partition of Ireland into the Republic and North Ireland. They were more than happy to administer their new lands and the people that came with them, gleefully happy to civilize the natives, which meant working them on their farms as just a step above slaves, what you called in the contemporary world, serfs. The first act was to repress the Catholic faith, which in England at the time went against the teachings of Protestism and the faith of their most hated enemy, the Spanish. Spain attempted numerous times to conquer England in the name of their faith, leading to an inherent fear of Catholicism's spread in their country, even if it largely was misplaced. Spain was only trying to garner points with the Pope and Church, they were just plain greedy and trying to hide it with religious rhetoric... rhetoric that spawned angry prejudices in the English who saw the Irish as part of the Catholic fanaticism threatening their great country.

Sounds a bit familiar today, how a few bad apple Islamists can paint the entire faith as a danger to national security and sovereignty. Its one of the reasons I am very leery whenever organized religion springs up in politics, it is too often used to single out another minority and limit them in some form.

Anyone who know's an Irish man or woman knows one thing, we can be a stubborn people, we prefer to be left alone, almost verging on isolationist and we can take a lot of punishment before cracking... but never mess with an Irish person's faith unless you want that bloody nose...

Centuries of fighting, persecution and brutally crushed rebellions followed, coupled with the economic exploitation of Ireland's few natural resources. The English colonization radically changed the country. Most wouldn't realize it but Ireland use to be heavily wooded. The country is now the most deforested in the world, its forests used immensely by the arriving colonists for shipbuilding. The lose of those vast forests radically changed hundreds of years of Irish culture, who predominately were herders or isolated villagers.

Irish history is not something that can be looked at through rose coloured glasses, its something you have to read through with a strong stomach. The Great Famine of the 1840s, rebellions of 1803, 1848 and 1867, claims of neutrality during both World Wars, the Irish Civil War, the independence votes and trade wars of the 1930s only helped to cement some of these long standing beliefs, that a Protestant would sooner sell you out for a hot meal or stab you in the back if it got them ahead in life. While these tensions have dwindled in the more moderate and progressive regions of the country, such as the ever popular Irish city of Dublin, in my family's southern home of Bandon, those tensions are still unfortunately kept alive and prevalent.

And caught between that history of violence and hate, of clearly defined but unseen lines is someone like me. My surname is a predominately Protestant name, namely a Welsh and Northern Irish name, to have it labels you as a northern and as such, very much NOT Irish.

It gets even worse when I attempt to explain my patronage, my mother is Irish Catholic, my father is an America who was raised Protestant.

Like many bi-racial people face when having to declare their race or ethnicity on the US Census, one drop of Protestant blood automatically dilutes a long Irish Catholic family line that can be tracked back over 230-years. Great-Great-Granddad could possibly be spinning in his grave for knowing that his descendant, my mother... married a Protestant!

But it means nothing to many, they see me as just a North Irish, some of have even treated my attempts to convince them otherwise as a act of 'slumming' with the southerners.

Even if I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic grade school, attended more masses then I care to count and read the Bible so many times I can see the words behind my eyelids, the mere mention of my surname is enough to sever me from the very heritage that makes me who I am.

It shames me to say that when given the choice to renew my citizenship papers and passport I instead took my mother's maiden name instead, a very common Catholic name that would cause far less confusion and annoyance for me in the long run. But to no end I feel like I have just put on a façade to hide myself from the constant annoyance of explaining myself, even more so from the anger of arguing my very right to call myself Irish in my own country.

Checking Off the Bucket List

Ang Moh has been bugging me incessantly to write another blog post. And because I know that it really is something I want to do as well, I am relenting and finally writing another post a day before our departure.The primary reason that I have not been updating this blog as frequently as I would like to is because we've been exceptionally busy readying for the big trip back to Singapore.

For me this has meant getting my fill of American TV, like Game of Thrones Season 1 and Season 2, the Voice, The Walking Dead, and the odd episode of Glee, American Idol, and spending meaningful time with Ang Moh's family members and living the good old suburban life. I must admit that if we were to break it down, it'll probably be 80% watching TV, 20% hanging with family.

The suburbs takes some getting used to for a city-boy like me. Something about the suburbs causes my body to shut down for the night at 7:00 PM, and there are the occasional moments where I feel trapped because we don't have any available cars - although when everyone is home, four cars are piled into the driveway. As much as I like the open space, the occasional herd of deer one spots crossing the road, and the cheap drinks, I don't think the suburbs and I are meant to spend more than two weeks at a stretch together.

So in the 20% of time we spend meaningfully with family, we've been hitting up our bucket list, which on hindsight is oddly dominated by food. Here's what we've done so far (and let me emphasize again, this is the suburbs, so don't be expecting crazy helicopter rides, wild parties, and the like!):

• Power Hour at Dave and Buster's with the Ang Moh's kid brother who's finally turned 21. For the uninitiated, as I was a mere four-years ago, Dave and Buster's is a huge arcade and fun center for adults and kids alike. There are game machines, bowling, pool, food and a full bar. And Power Hour, is a magical 60-minutes where for $10 you get to go crazy on the arcade machines. We hit up old favorites like Daytona, and I discovered the joys of hunting when I had target practice shooting at virtual wildebeests on the Serengeti.
• Taking the Golden Retriever and French Bulldog for walks around the neighborhood with the younger sister.
• Errands like picking up Grandma Ang Mo from the hairdresser and going grocery shopping with the 93-year old; cleaning out the garage, cleaning out the basement.
• Dinner at Kasdon's, which is an institution in the Yardley area where Ang Moh's dad has been going to since he was a wee toddler of five-years and sitting at the bar with Ang Moh's granddaddy.
• Burgers and shakes (we actually didn't get shakes) at Nifty Fifty's - old school diner which was popular years ago. But things don't really change much in the suburbs. 
• Stuffing my face with Ben and Jerry's ice cream! On a side note, their Canoli flavor isn't great on it's own, but is absolutely heavenly mixed in with coffee like an affogato. 
• Happy hour at Jo Jo's - the bar & restaurant that the younger sister works at where I learned that a "bar pie", as exotic as that sounds is really a personal cheese pizza, and I prefer Espresso Martinis to Peanut Butter Martinis. 
• Happy hour at the Langhorne Ale House where a pitcher of Margarita goes for just $10!

Speaking of happy hours, another reason I couldn't live in the suburbs is I don't drink and drive. Out here, cabs don't ply the roads and it's impossible to walk to the bar down the street! All this talk about food and drink, mostly drink is making me thirsty. Time to pop open a Coors light and enjoy the gorgeous spring day on the deck.