I came across this gem tonight on the ExpatSingapore forums (via Salary.sg):
What are you upset about? This is an expat site for the Singapore expat community to discuss matters of common interest. It is not for “journalists” to try find people to do their research for them, especially for stories that will increase local heart-landers’ negative feelings and disdain for the foreign talents who actually drive this economy. (emphasis mine)
This was posted by a dude named Kubes.SG in a series of responses to a journalist’s request to comment on how the current economy is making life difficult for expats.
Wow. Is this guy for real?
I work with expats everyday for the past four years, and pretty much all of the expats that I’ve encountered so far in Singapore have been nice, humble and pleasant people.
So although I’m inclined to think that Mr. Kubes’ opinion is of the minority, it’s still disturbing to think that there may be a segment of the expat community here who are egotistical enough to think that they are indispensable to the Singaporean economy, and local “heart-landers” somehow need to be protected and fed propaganda from our “nation-building press” so we can feel much better about ourselves being inferior to the “rich Ang-Mohs”.
Yes, I took some liberties with words, but do read the forum thread for yourself, and see if you walked away with the same feeling I described above.
Anyway, that is just wrong on so many levels.
Here are some questions I would ask:
- Do well-compensated foreign talent really play that much of a bigger role in driving the Singaporean economy than Singaporean heartlanders?
- If that is true, do Singapreans feel inferior to foreign talent because of this, and therefore feel disdain towards foreigners?
- And if that is true, does the Singapore government (by proxy through the media) feel it’s in the country’s best interest to continue encouraging negative feelings in Singaporeans towards foreign talent?
It’s pretty insulting to think that there are actually some people that believe the answers to the above questions are all “Yes”.
It’s a shame, really. Perhaps this all could of been avoided if the government didn’t openly sing the praises of foreign talent so much during the past few years. Or even stop the prevalent use of the term “foreign talent”, which according to Mr. Biao, has contributed to demoralizing Singaporeans and over-qualifying foreigners.
If you constantly tell your firstborn son how much better his adopted sister is, naturally he will start hating his sister. Start showering the adopted sister with love, toys and perks that the son doesn’t have, and naturally she will develop an ego and a superiority complex.
What do you think? Is the foreign talent vs. heartlander dynamic really more pervasive than we think?
Latest Comments