That's the Point

So I’m just driving home after dinner at Robertson Quay with my boss. I’m tired. I had just spent the whole day working on a project we were bidding on. The Client’s German….. and boy do those Germans know their engineering. Let me tell you something about the Germans.. they are methodical, thorough, systematic, precise… and they know bloody well how to make a do good engineering… and beer. That’s also why they make the best drunk drivers in the world. :-P

But anyway, that’s not the point.

Robertson Quay is right next to Clark Quay, and together these two spots form what you can consider one of the most lavish and high end (read: expensive) places you can wine and dine in Singapore. It’s filled with Expatriates from all around the world; French, American, German, British, African, Japanese, Spanish, Italian… you name it.. they’re here… EXCEPT the Indian Expat.. those guys usually send all their money back to India and spend their hours eating chapatti in Serangoon road a.k.a. Little India.

But that’s not the point either.

You see… It’s a fancy little place. With fancy cars, fancy restaurants and people dressed in fancy cloths. A simple western meal cost what an average labourer would earn in a week. And this in a nutshell is what Singapore is about. The entire country is driven by money, because other than the fancy high life, the people here don’t really have anything else to aim for… except migrating overseas… which also requires money. When you dine in one of these restaurants, you’re treated like a king. The waiters are friendly and warm. The drinks are served to you with fancy umbrellas and the chef will gladly cook you another meal if you find the food anything less than satisfactory. You can find any kind of gourmet food you want here; Australian grilled steak, Belgian mussels, Italian pasta, Japanese sushi, French wine, Thai curry, German sausages… the best bits of the world are all gathered in this small but posh little area.

On the way home, there is this lorry in front of me. Its rear is filled with 20 labourers whose one week wage I had just consumed in one sitting. Most of them are from India. They sit in the rear of the lorry because ironically, it’s actually legal to transport people in the back of the truck like some sort of commodity or livestock here in modern Singapore. In the ‘backward’ country of Malaysia which many Singaporeans actually sneer at, it’s illegal because it’s actually dangerous for the passengers. If you go to the Construction Site they work at, you will see what they eat. Plain white rice; a mountain full of it, accompanied by a bit of dhall or curry sauce, a packet of diluted yogurt…. And that’s it. That’s all they eat. On weekends, for a night out they each contribute a little bit of money for one guy to have enough to rent the company truck for a day and pump petrol to bring them to town to walk around. They hang around Mustapha shopping centre, looking at the latest mobile phones and gadgets.. not to buy… just to dream.

Maybe it’s because the country is so small.. but it’s not uncommon to see these to sights within the same day. Put together, it’s like this juxtapose on Singaporean society. It’s a land filled with contrast. You come across lorries filled with lowly paid labourers trucked around like some sort of livestock and you come across flashy Ferrari’s and Maserati’s driven by young people just around my age looked upon by others with envy. I know because that’s what happened to me.

I saw a guy driving a stunning silver Maserati… and he look just about my age… and I couldn’t help but stare and wonder to myself if I could ever afford such luxury or earn such money in my life. Then I found myself driving behind one of those worker lorries… and ALL OF THEM were staring at ME. Many of them also looked about my age.. .and driving in my company given Toyota, I wondered if they were thinking the same thing I was when I was looking at the Maserati.

Everyone wonders about their lot in life. Everyone wonders how to move upward in society. Everyone thinks that’s where happiness and fulfilment in life is found…. upwards. And yet, I somehow believe that if you ever share a glass of Bordeaux wine with a man who is at the pinnacle of society, with money in excess, power aplenty and respect abundant, you just might find that he isn’t any happier or miserable than the lowly labourer and his diluted yogurt. Each will always find in his own life, things that trouble him and things that please him, things that he regret, and things he is grateful for.

Life isn’t about money. Happiness isn’t in things. A person’s true struggle in life isn’t about far upwards they move. The true struggle is learning to be content once you get there…. wherever that may be.

And that’s the point.


P/S: I don't know why, but everytime I'm in Singapore all I write about is money. I think it's the city.  A lot of people here love money.... and we all know what the love of money is right? It's evil. :-P