Posts tagged "immigration"

Interview Waiver Experience for H1-B1 Visa

I've learned a few new things since I last posted about how other Singaporeans can apply for, and receive, the H1-B1 visa.

In renewing my visa in Singapore this September, I opted for the new-ish interview waiver process (available since 2021).

Although I have never had a rejection, going to the US embassy is always a stressful time. You see so many people (usually non-Singaporeans) getting their work or school dreams dashed at the window. You can hear everything. The high stress, high security: I would very much like to never go there again.

The interview waiver process was made available to me at the last step of the visa application, in the USTravelDocs portal. When scheduling step 6, USTravelDocs will ask you a bunch of questions to determine if you are eligible for the interview waiver.

The main thing to note is that only Singaporeans and permanent residents are likely to be eligible. While the main applicant for H1-B1 has to be a Singapore citizen, if your dependents (spouse or children) are not Singapore citizens, then they will not qualify for the interview waiver. Definitely allow more time for an embassy interview if that's the case.

I was nervous about whether or not to do this, so I consulted a Singaporean immigration attorney in California. Junwen was able to give me very specific advice that I found helpful. Check out his blog here. I highly recommend booking an appointment with Junwen (send him a message on LinkedIn) or use this contact form to email him if you have any specific questions (paid consultation).

He advised that I should use the Chinatown document drop-off point at Bstone Travel, instead of the Changi location. This is because his clients had some challenges with the Changi location recently, which led to delays.

He also informed me that the interview waiver process can take anywhere between 4 and 11 days.

Because I find the USTravelDocs so ridiculously difficult to navigate, I am pasting this information here for anyone who needs it.

Check that the information is still accurate before you rely on it though, I may not be updating this page with new information.

• Aramex at Chinatown, located at Bstone Travel, People's Park Centre, 101 Upper Cross Street, #B1-31, Singapore 058357
• Opening hours: 10am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday
• Closed on Singapore public holidays and weekends
• US Embassy contact number: +65 3158 5400
• Aramex contact number: +65 6543 0300

The email you will receive about dropping off and collecting your passport / visa says they open at 11am, but they actually open at 10am. At least, they did, as of September 2023.

• I dropped off my documents (passport, signed LCA, interview waiver confirmation code generated by USTravelDocs, and passport photo) in Chinatown on a Tuesday afternoon around noon.
• I checked the visa status tracker every day and did not see any change until Thursday, when it changed to Approved
• On Friday, the status changed to Issued
• On late Friday night, I received a text message saying that the passport will be available for collection soon
• As all the document collection points are closed on weekends, I didn't hear anything else until Monday
• On Monday morning, I got an email that my passport had been sent to the pickup point (the same place I dropped off my passport)
• On Monday morning, I joined the line at 10am (although Google Maps, and the email you get, says it only opens at 11am), and got my passport in 15 minutes (there was a line)

Excluding the document pickup and drop-off days, it took 3 working days in all. Maybe dropping off on Monday first thing in the morning would have been faster, but I wasn't in a hurry.

It wound up being almost the same as going to the embassy in the past: if I went on a Tuesday, I would have received my passport on a Monday morning anyway.

So I got to do that, but skipped the anxiety and stress at the embassy. Highly recommended. Just make sure you have ample time in your travel plans.

Merantau Cino

Tretes, Indonesia (link to some photos I took

1. I have been struggling with my feelings on and about immigration.
2. Some time in mid 2023, a woman at a bus stop in San Francisco pointed a blow torch flame at me and threatened, I'm going to burn you, because you're Chinese!
3. Number 1 is possibly related to number 2.
4. A theme I keep coming back to: why does it feel like this?
5. The feelings: neither here nor there, a deep sense of longing for 'home', uncertain what 'home' really means, feeling like I'm in two or three places at once, feeling stuck, feeling like I don't know where I fit, feeling like I am two people at once.
6. That the 'home' I return to, I no longer fully fit into. I left five years ago, and in that time: obviously, it's moved on without me. I no longer know how to exist here in Singapore. I don't have any routines, I don't have places to go, things to do. I'm no different from a tourist. Just that I'm a tourist who knows a lot of details about this country, and who has an intimate knowledge about its food and its politics.
7. That the 'home' I now exist in: where I have work, family, contemporary friends, hobbies, a home, feels on some days like it's real and solid, and on other days that idea of solidity is completely unraveled, especially when things like number 2 happen.
8. I've spent the past week in Singapore and Indonesia. It's been splendid to be around friends, food, the weather, environment and culture that I know and love.
9. A big part of why I suffer from number 1 is that I feel completely estranged from the Southeast Asian bits of my life when I am in California. I can probably fix that by going to do things like, I don't know, play gamelan or learn Balinese dance in Berkeley (both activities that are very popular and established, led by East Bay Indonesians).
10. Living in the heart of the imperial superpower, I do not hear, see, learn about anything about the outside world outside the US at any time. TVs don't play world news, they play sports: sports that only Americans play. Online discussions tend to veer towards only domestic politics. I feel like I'm at the heart of the world, and totally cut off from it, at the same time.
11. I've fought it for a while, but I feel the semblance of a nascent Asian American identity forming. Ever since I learned about the Hyphenated Americans discussion, I've been far more open to the idea that without the hyphen, I can be both Asian and American (without necessarily needing citizenship).
12. As number 11 strengthens and solidifies, number 1 also waxes and wanes. Some days, I am convinced that coming to California was the best idea I ever had. On other days, I cry myself to bed missing tropical weather, my family back in Asia, immigration stability (not having immigration challenges at all), and maybe a romanticized idea of what Singapore means to me.
13. The past week in Indonesia was transformational. Not only did I get to wake up the part of my brain that had been dormant for a long time, the one that speaks, understands, and exists in Bahasa Indonesia as well as Bahasa Gaul, I also got to reconnect with my friend of 25 years.
14. Beyond the food, which was amazing (East Java has my favorite Indonesian cuisine and dishes), it also sent me down a rabbit hole of listening to Indonesian music and reading in Indonesian.
15. I was reading something today that referenced the idea of merantau cino.
16. I know about merantau: it's the Minang rite of passage where men leave their homes in Sumatra to pursue careers and experiences outside their village. There was even a martial arts movie made about this.
17. In merantau, the idea is that you leave and then you return to your home.
18. However, in merantau cino, you leave your home and you never return. Not permanently, anyway.
19. The term is based on the idea that the southern Chinese diaspora left China, many of them never returning.
20. Therefore, a person who does merantau cino is doing a rite of passage, embarking on a migration story, where it's unlikely that they will return to their original homes.
21. I'm not sure whether I am a perantau cino or a merantau cino yet (difference explained here; article in Indonesian), but I'll be damned if this hasn't been a more relevant and insightful observation about my personal immigration journey than anything I have read about in English, in an American context.
22. When I get 'home' to San Francisco next week, a couple of milestones will happen; things that will set us up for a different phase in our lives there.
23. I will probably always see myself as someone split down the middle.
24. Two lives: one here, one there.
25. But at least I know now that there's a name for it. And maybe it feels a little less lonely, since merantau cino was exactly what my grandfather did, as a teenager.

The Moving Calculus

Some time ago I read a tweet by a queer Singaporean asking why any queer Singaporean would move to San Francisco, citing the following shortcomings (not verbatim):

• San Francisco used to be a place where queer Singaporeans would move to, for safety reasons, but perhaps those safety reasons aren't that dire anymore
• San Francisco / the US is the heart of the hegemonic world order / imperialist system
• We probably like the white gaze
• San Francisco provides the opportunity to be a Joy Luck Club Asian queer

There was a time in my life where those thoughts resonated with me.

This topic has been on my mind since I moved here and, surprisingly, did not hate it as much as I imagined I would (I did not like San Francisco at all when I came as a tourist).

Unlike many other immigrants I've met here, who have left deteriorating and debilitating circumstances, my 'why I moved and how has it been' calculus is different. I did not move for material comfort. I am, daily, reminded of how I left home, away from material comfort, and my support systems, to be here. (Not to mention the tremendous amounts of social privilege I've left behind.)

Some time in 2012, I was pretty satisfied with my life as a queer Singaporean living in Singapore. I was in a high growth industry (tech), I got to date (a lot), I had many opportunities to create and carve out a life for myself as an upper middle class Chinese Singaporean gay woman who'd probably end up in a relationship with someone like me. In fact, when I went home recently we hung out with my ex (as queer women do), I took a photo of their home office in their absurdly beautiful Bukit Timah home and I captioned it in my phone as: "the life I would have had if I stayed home".

Every conversation when I was home revolved around, "when are you coming home?" because it seems unexpected, even among some types of minorities in Singapore, to entertain the idea of leaving the supposedly best place in the world (that we still all complain about anyway).

I found that my connection with Singapore was weakening. Other than family, I don't have anything to do there, or many people to spend time with. I have loads of acquaintances, of course, but many of my friends are.. elsewhere. (Not all of them to the hegemonic core, many of them to many parts of the world, including China, Vietnam, Indonesia.)

Still, every conversation (especially with my family) was around: so are you done yet with San Francisco? Isn't it absolutely terrible, that country? When are you coming back to this superior place? was the underlying question. If you're an always online Singapore leftist, your concerns with my city of choice probably has more to do with the above list of questions. If you're not a leftist, your concerns with my city of choice probably has to do with things like safety, medical bankruptcy, housing, why someone would realistically choose a higher cost of living and physical discomfort (as mentioned, Singapore is far more comfortable, materially, in nearly very way), and give up substantial amounts of socio-economic privilege.

Why people choose to leave home is deeply personal. Every situation is different. I moved here exactly three years ago with my wife and my dog when we suddenly had to make a huge life decision on the spot, when her work visa ran out and we decided to get married. We were lucky to have the option to come here, and to be able to thrive.

I learned quite quickly that I would have survived in Singapore (it's getting harder for queer people there), but I no longer felt like I could thrive. In spite of my immense privilege.

I felt like like the short-lived optimism I had for Singapore expanding queer rights was over. Even if 377A is repealed, I don't feel optimistic. I don't feel like I want to wait for incremental improvements. That's not to say that I don't want to do the work. I did, for a time. And if my circumstances were different, if I had decided to spend my life with another Singaporean person, if I was okay with surviving and not thriving, if I was able to shut up and be okay with the already tiny space around me in Singapore, eroding further and further; perhaps that would have been different.

I don't pretend this city, or this country, is perfect. Far from it. Unlike the home I grew up in though, it lets me say so: even if I am not a citizen. No country is perfect, so for now, we'll enjoy the wide open space of California, where, frankly, life is pretty good (if you can hack it). I feel immensely lucky to be able to grow as a person out here, far from home, while also having the ability to move back to my country, which has given me so much, yet currently exasperates me, whenever I need. I'm certainly cognizant of how this is a huge thing to have. So many of the other people who have moved to where I now am, no longer have a country at all. After three years in San Francisco, I feel like I've finally passed the moment of transience and 'uprootedness' that I've felt for so many years, and that maybe 'home' is always 'small cities surrounded by the sea, that punch above their weight'.

But there isn't a single day where I don't grieve what I left behind.

So This Is the New Year

It feels like we all just woke up from a collective dream. The dream of the '10s, where we gave our content, perhaps even our personalities, away for free to Facebook.

No longer.

Not only have I cut that toxic company out of my life, I have also started thinking about how web 1.0 got it right: writing on the web, for yourself, with no ads, for free, with a tech stack you control... really was all that.

I don't have resolutions. I don't have aspirations towards goals I won't reach. I don't have diet-related, or gym-related thoughts; exercise has slowly become part of my life again,and I'm thankful for that.

This year, I am taking the opposite route. Instead of doing new things, and becoming a new person, I am going to get really good at doing things I already know and love. Having dabbled in so many hobbies in the past, there are plenty of options to pick. I've quite enjoyed the heads-down learning over the last couple of months, and am looking forward to more.

The one thing that is new is the city I live in. From 2018 I have been living in a new city, San Francisco. I used to visit often, so it's not new-new, but it's new in that I live here with my wife, Sabrena, and get to experience it somewhat differently as a result. We're exactly where we need to be for now as a newly married queer couple, even though we hadn't planned on coming here. It's too bad we're both from countries that don't recognize our marriage.

I have been preoccupied with trying not to lead a conventional tech worker's life in San Francisco. It's so easy to fall into that trap of always-on, tech-enabled convenience. I find that if you do that, the city becomes much less diverse. I want to meet people, build relationships, be part of communities and be part of scenes outside of tech.

As you know, it's so much harder to make friends as an adult. So old hobbies have come in handy. I have been playing music again, casually, but perhaps later performatively. I have been exploring Tibetan Buddhism. I am pushing myself to do things, like bike camping and hiking, that would force me to meet new people and explore new places.

In many others, this new year is just like many others. But I know now that health, family and happiness comes first.

That should count for something.

Fresh Off The Boat

When I first moved to America nine months ago, I was perplexed by a never-ending list of things. They were not the 'big' ones, like having to learn a scary new language. We already spoke English. We'd seen enough movies. Our accents, we were told, were non-existent! You sound Californian!!! You have no accent! (Didn't that mean we had a Californian accent?) But the little things started to add up.

Nowhere was this clearer than when my wife and I stood in a Bed Bath & Beyond, overwhelmed by nearly everything. Not because we were from developing countries (we were not) and all of this was shiny and new and amazing, but because we just didn't get it. First, we gawked at the escalator that was purpose-built for one's shopping cart to ride up at the same time as you, the person, riding the other escalators. Then, we found ourselves in surrounded by bed-linen, utterly and completely lost.

"What are comforters? What are duvet covers? What is a quilt? What is a flat sheet? Do people in this country really need so many pillows?"

I ran to the nearest human who was not my wife, saying, "Hey I need to buy a bolster, you know the type you cuddle between your body, and I have no idea what it's called in this country." He scratched his head, then his beard, before finally saying, "well I'm from the UK and I just moved here…"

I still don't understand bed-linen in this country. Across our studio (I very nearly said 'flat'), we are treated to full-glass windows into our neighbors' bedrooms. Every last one of them has a bed that looks like a hotel bed; like it would take twenty minutes to peel the multiple layers of ribbons, throws, miscellaneous sheets, and other types of softness, before one could have a good night's sleep. I felt anxious looking at them. I felt more anxious thinking about having to make up such a bed.

Voicemail is another American practice that strikes fear in my heart. Perhaps it's because I have never lived in a society where voicemail was actively used (and I have lived in many countries), or maybe it's due to my general levels of social anxiety relating to being on the autism spectrum, but hearing a chirpy person say "hey leave me a voicemail" makes me want to hang up, even if I originally had something to say.

I came to America after four years in Indonesia. My conversations in Indonesia inevitably ended with "hey, add me on LINE, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, what else do you use?" This was true when I hung out mostly with rural housewives for work; this was also true when female teenagers would come up to me to ask me for my Instagram account because "I want to know a woman who has tattoos". This was true of every motorcycle taxi driver I met, who sent me "what's your closest landmark" in Indonesian short form internet slang to multiple apps and also SMS, in just four or five letters small caps no spaces, even though the pickup location was always on the damned app.

In America, there are just three texting camps. Blue, green, and don't-text. Leave me a voicemail… nope, no, never.

You have no accent, has both been a blessing and a curse. It's certainly perplexing, for everyone around me, when I forget which words are British and which words are American.

It's hard for me to say "restroom", when "toilet" has sufficed in every other context I've lived in. Concepts that exist for me in one English don't seem to exist here. Prepaid-anything, like in phones, are 'pay as you gos', which seem so inefficient. A Clipper card is to be reloaded, or have value added to it, not recharged or topped up. Telling someone you don't know know how to drive, have never driven in your life, is like telling them you're from a different galaxy (I was indeed, from a galaxy with good public infrastructure).

Mostly, I'm so fresh off the boat I don't even know that it's an insult. I'm so far-removed from the pains of the Asian-American community: their pains are not my pains, I have not been a minority for long enough; and nope, I have absolutely no qualms bringing my own chilli sauce to restaurants because I cannot abide sriracha. Team spicy forever, no sour.

I'm still figuring out what it means to be here. Mostly, I like that nobody ever asks where I'm from, because everybody is from somewhere else.

Until I tell them I still don't know how to drive.

Then they exclaim, "you're from Manhattan!"

Culture Kitchen 2: Little Myanmar

If you are anything like me, you've walked by Peninsula Plaza all the time and perhaps even entered it when you've needed to buy cameras and stuff. You've probably also wondered about all the wondrous things there. What is the paste they are mixing, what is this delicious-looking food and how can I have some of it, if only I knew what to order?

I've had the luck to spend more time in Myanmar in recent times, and I absolutely adore the country. I figured it would be only fitting to feature the community in Singapore for the next Culture Kitchen, seeing as that there's an entire building in downtown Singapore that caters to that community.

With a bunch of intrepid volunteers' help, I'm happy to announce Culture Kitchen 2: Little Myanmar. We'll have lunch featuring the best-of Burmese cuisine, you'll get to meet and mingle with the Burmese community, we'll also screen "The City Where They Live", a documentary about Meiktila's community and youth leaders and how they worked to heal the city after the horrific communal violence of 2013. We'll then do a Q&A with the filmmakers live from Yangon before kicking off a walking tour of Little Myanmar.

Sound good? Get your tickets here, there are just 19 seats left.

Why I'm Hosting Culture Kitchen

This is a project which has been on my mind for some time now. We've been planning it for a while. A part of this is a response to a worrying trend of anti-foreigner sentiment (c.f. the responses to a drive to raise funds for victims of last year's Downtown Line accident: here and here).

The other part — which I believe to be more important — is the need for us as a nation and as a society to come around to the idea that we are not alone in this. Immigration is a touchy issue everywhere. How we choose to deal with this now will be something which has repercussions in the future. Evidently there are many schools of thought on this.

Personally, I believe the day people stop wanting to come here to live or work will be the day we should worry. That would only happen when we become verifiably a land with no opportunities whatsoever, which cannot afford our people, and our guests and newcomers, a better life.

When I was in university, my closest friends were in the Indian/ Nepali/ Pakistani (i.e. desi) contingent. Homesick, they sought out food which reminded them of home. Usman Restaurant at 238 Serangoon Road, near Mustafa/Desker Road, was one such place. It opened late, and most nights we would walk there from school or from the SMU hostel to tuck into comforting, always hot naan, roti, dal fry, haleem and other delicious Pakistani/North Indian dishes.

Anil, my university buddy from Kathmandu, and I were big fans: pretty soon, we got to that point of patronage where we had our own tab, and the workers and owner of the restaurant were on our speed dial and Facebook. We made friends.

When I went abroad for about five years, every time I returned I had to come back here. I started bringing other people there: my parents, other family members, family friends. One incident which stood out for me was in how I had brought a younger friend from China to Usman. She had barely eaten Indian food in her life, and now she was in Singapore, about to start at another local university. I saw her go from trepidation (from not knowing anything about the food nor what to order), to familiarity. It turned out that while I was away, she would return religiously with other friends from China, and also from Singapore, and she would order the food that I had ordered for her because she loved it. Eventually she began to have friends from India, too, and this was something that she now had in common with them: she really loved the cheese naan and the chicken kadai there.

Something struck me, and has stayed there ever since. When I read about Conflict Kitchen, something clicked. I realized we could synthesize — and borrow — some of the food and art as dialogue aspects, and localize it for our own context.

There were plenty of challenges. What came up often was: how do you know you're not already preaching to the choir? The bleeding heart liberal wing, the English-speaking, the people like us, already believe in migrant rights and all of those things. What good would it do to tell these people again about diversity and inclusivity, when they already believe in them too?

The second challenge was place. We wanted to do it in a public place, and Little India was top on my list. But this is Singapore, and there are a thousand permits… so that was off the table.

Eventually we came up with a first Culture Kitchen which is, I think, simple in its objectives and easy to understand. The main premise is, quite simply, come have dinner with our migrant workers. We sold out tickets in two and a half days. We went to Little India last Sunday, and distributed free dinner invitations. (Singaporeans/expats/residents pay $5.)

Dinner invitations for migrant workers.

The response was enthusiastic, and we were fully subscribed. I am delighted to announce that we have an pretty balanced mix of Singaporeans/expats/residents and migrant workers.

What's the objective?

I'm doing this because I'd like to help facilitate more of those moments. Moments like when a Singaporean-Chinese and a Nepali student like myself and Anil, are able to make great, lasting friendships with people from various parts of Pakistan who have chosen to make this place their home, and with each other. Moments like when the mainland Chinese friend is able to glean a closer understanding of a completely foreign culture, only by way of her time here in Singapore. All of us have just this in common: we live here. Some of us, like me, were born and brought up here. Others come for a short while for study or work. Others will do that and choose to make this place home, when the time comes. I don't think we need to split any hairs over who is a ‘true blue Singaporean' and who isn't: I truly believe that.

Bangladeshi workers in Little India signing up to Culture Kitchen.

I may be idealistic in that respect. Some of the undercurrents of Singapore politics disappoints me greatly. I believe that we can be welcoming of foreigners, and I also believe that we should be able to have mature political dialogue over our immigration policies. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game. A few days ago I posted that I disliked the term, "Singapore for Singaporeans". I think that if you were to replace either term with any other race, nationality, religion — it would be unacceptable. It is, to me, fascist, loaded, designed to exclude. This is not the Singapore I want. Immediately I received a torrent of online feedback, wanting to know if I would be happier with being a second class citizen in my own country. Again, this is not a zero sum game.

What would be detrimental is if we were to continue tolerating the racist and xenophobic sentiments and never call them out for fear of being termed a traitor (or an SPG, as I have been called many times in this context). What is already detrimental is agitations of the vocal minority which wants to see no foreigners here at all, or only the ‘right kinds' of foreigners. What is already detrimental is the unfortunate lack of gumption in the political establishment, which seems too bothered by the vocal minority, in dealing with the push back not by doubling down on better policy, but by apparently taking an iron-fisted approach. Closing the doors every time someone stages a protest is not the way forward.

What is the way forward? I don't have a specific answer.

I can, however, build communities and movements. This is one of the things I know I can do well, and I want to lend my technological and organisational skills to building a movement which will stand up for a Singapore which includes. The Singapore we want to see. While I will continue to call out the xenophobes every time they emerge from the hills, I will also spend twice as much time on helping to create a counter movement which is positive in nature. I don't have an ROI, I don't have an end goal, I just want to bring people together.

The first Culture Kitchen will feature biryani. You will realize from the name itself that the event is titled Biryani/Beriani, for good reason. One dish, many stories, many geographical and cultural interpretations. But still a tasty dish which everybody can get behind. There will be dum biryani from Pakistan, and there will be Malay-style chicken briyani. All of it is halal. There will be peas pulao, for the vegetarians among us. I'm not sure what can happen over biryani, but I think if I don't try, I'll never know.

So let's rock up on Sunday, keep calm and eat a ton of biryani, and make new friends. Thanks for the overwhelming support.

From the Fringe

I've had more thoughts on the anti-white paper protest since the weekend, I'll need to write it down into a slightly longer piece. But here's what I posted on Facebook that got passed around a fair bit.

Point is, Singapore is at an interesting stage in our politics and civil society and it's going to take a while to smooth out the kinks. Where I stand is, I don't think, extreme in any way — but the values of race and inclusion are very, very important to me, and sometimes that is perceived to be too pro-immigration.

I was told today that I lacked moral courage for not going to the protest; that I was merely a keyboard warrior. I was also told: 'see? no racist or xenophobic speeches!'

Hmm, let's see:

1. I have volunteered for years with the opposition and I have been on the frontline of elections. What have you done for your country except to happily throw it into the dustbin of nativist trope?

2. The political figures and figures on the political periphery (cannot confuse the two as there were too many political also-rans and wannabes best kept out of Parliament) involved should know what associating with Gilbert Goh means. I am especially heartbroken because some of these figures also purport to be the only party to stand for 'human rights'; the other because it was inaccurately portrayed to be THE xenophobic party due to the unfortunate former membership and candidacy of said event organizer.

3. There has been a lot of moral relativism around today's protest. There should be none. Someone said Gilbert's stance is a lesser boo boo than the PAP's bigger boo boos. Or something similarly puerile to that effect.
   The only boo boo there is is that there should be any moral relativism at all. The racial profiling of the foreigners among us is vile and must be condemned unequivocally. There is no intellectual or high brow anything to this. It is basic human dignity.
   Associating with someone like Gilbert Goh, a mere demagogue and an opportunistic one at that, merely cheapens the cause you and I both care very much for: how we can find an alternative to the White Paper which we believe will spell disaster for Singapore.

4. Some of you attended and said you needed to be there to (1) express your disagreement against the White Paper (2) shout down the xenophobes. It is regretful we have an impaired democracy in which a citizen finds he or she cannot sufficiently be heard except by gathering in one sanctioned park. It is even more regretful this democracy is so impaired that bright men and women consider the right to assembly and to be heard more valuable than the demagoguery involved.

5. My allegiance to The Cause has been questioned because I refuse to toe the ‘us vs them' line of reasoning. I am old enough to remember the extreme political repression of the generation before us, but not old enough or idealistic enough to buy into the 'anything, anyone but the PAP' school of thought. I am a patriot first and an opposition supporter second. I am worried by the perception that not buying into the lock stock and barrel of all anti-PAP rhetoric necessarily means one is a traitor, spy, mole or PAP agent (I have been accused of all of the above).

Addendum: the more I do this stuff the more I think we need to grow the opposition not because I hate the ruling party. But because when they stop being the best guys for the job (and they're starting to seriously show signs of that), I don't want this country to descend into the mob. It's capacity and the long game we need to build, not the Tan Jee Say REJECT EVERYTHING model. I will now actively seek out an organization which better fits this worldview.

A Public Service

Recently, a friend from Bangalore messaged me on Facebook and asked me for some help. Her family friend, who was not very educated, had paid a lot of money to an agent in Bangalore to get work in Singapore. He had his work permit issued, and was told to leave for Singapore as soon as possible. There was a gap of a week: he had to leave immediately, they told him. She found this a little dubious, and asked me to help verify if the work permit was real, if he was being taken for a ride.

As we suspected, the entire thing was a scam. He did not leave for Singapore, and narrowly avoided what I can only imagine was a low paying, illegal job for a shady employer. I doubt he will ever get his money back, but I still think that is a better fate than coming here without even fewer rights than a legit foreign worker.

In the process, I learned a bit about how one can verify the authenticity of a work permit. I hope this can be translated into different languages, especially in Indian languages. Feel free to post this in as many places as you like. As long as it helps somebody.

1. Visit the Ministry of Manpower's Work Permit for Foreign Workers page

2. Scroll down to: Work Permit Validity Check Via Work Permit Online. Click it. Note: This service is only available Monday to Saturdays from 8am to 10pm, and unavailable at other times and on Sundays and public holidays.

3. If it's within the time frame that the WPOL service is online, this is the screen you will see: a lot of legalese. Click Agree.

4. In the main WPOL screen (which looks like this), click the third item on the left which says "Work Permit Validity/Application Status".

You'll be prompted to enter your details. If you are a foreigner or currently not residing in Singapore, check Passport and enter your passport number.

You'll see many boxes. Go to Option 3 and key in: "Worker's Work Permit" and "Date of Application of Work Permit". Both details will be on your IPA letter.

If it is an invalid or forged work permit, you'll see: Error.

Follow up by calling the Ministry of Manpower at +65 64385122 during working hours in Singapore.

Hope this helps someone.

#iamsingaporean

I am a Singaporean who lives in a series of hash tags. They are:

#iamchinese my race, my ethnicity, a language I speak, "mother tongue" classes I struggled with and the colour of my skin

#iamasian a vague identity I hold; ‘one of them' in the tribes of Northeast India and I am ‘one of us' when I am on the streets of peninsular Southeast Asia

#india my second home, a spiritual home that I frequent, whose cities I roam in, whose trains I love, whose air makes me homesick, whose people are my friends

#tech what I do for work and love

#iamsingaporean is the answer that's so obvious, it surprises me

I spent many years doubting my future as part of this nation, for good reason. I always wanted to leave. I left, but as I returned I found the city's transformation to my liking; its new citizens and residents as friends rather than threats; its 2011 elections a watershed that I took weeks off my life to play a part in. I am proud of my little country, whose red passport brings me places in a way that shows me how we ‘punch above our weight'. It is a home I can count on, a home whose rapid change I want to be a part of.

It has been an interesting journey: my circuitous journey upon graduation to the Middle East, to Europe, to India and Bangkok and KL, and back again by way of politics, tech and business. No doubt I will find myself living and working in other places in the world throughout the rest of my life, yet Singapore has never felt so much like home.

I can't yet put my finger on it, it feels like a tide has turned somewhere. Friends I accepted as lost to the charms of the big cities of the West are now homebound; people who never used to care about this place now sing a different tune. I have had the honour to have served my nation with a great many able, clever, talented young Singaporeans.

I think I may be homebound sooner than I thought — although I have already come home in more ways than one in the non-physical sense of the word.

So happy 46th, Singapore. People expect a mid-life crisis of us but I think the best years are ahead of us.