Foreign Workers vs Serangoon Gardens

Foreign workers and Serangoon Gardens both have special places in my heart. Both are special and it's hard for me to see what's happening there.

I spent a large part of childhood, teenhoon and my early adulthood in Serangoon Garden. As toddler or as far back as my memory can bring me back. I used to cycle on my little tricycle in Grandpa's backyard while he was fixing millworms to be fed to be birds. Sometimes Joanne would be sitting in the back of my tricycle. I even remember grandma pulling peas off the plants to cook for dinner. And then from one house in Serangoon, Grandpa and Grandma moved to another house just a couple metres down the road. In this house, I have more memories. Every Sunday, we'll piled into Daddy's car and we'll head to have dinner in Grandpa and Grandma's house. We'll play like wild kids. But it was also this house that I remember saying my last goodbye to Grandpa without realising that it was my finally goodbye. Grandma's house was always filled with plants and catus. Mum would bring her catus to Grandma and she'll fixed them. The neighbours that grandma had were very nice people. And then towards my early adulthood, Grandma moved to Ayi's house as the house was being pulled down to be rebuilt. Grandma moved again. This time to another part of Serangoon Gardens. I love Serangoon Gardens. And if someday we have enough money, we'll get a place in Serangoon Gardens.

When I was growing up, i spent quite a bit of time in Dad's office and factory. He had foreign workers working for him. He had Thai, Bangladashis and can't even remember where else they were from. There were times that Dad even invited them over to our place for dinner. We were always taught to respect them. Even with the maids that we grew up with. Everyone of them we love and had respect for. Except for maybe a couple....That's besides the point. Foreign workers helped Dad to complete his jobs, put bacon, ham, bread, char siew and whatever else on the table. Even as Dad's business was crumbling, the foreign workers were paid first before Dad. This impressed upon me very much. Dad taught us that all humans have value. It doesn't matter where they are from or what they do for a living. There's nothing like we are more superior than the foreign workers.

I remember Mah Bow Tan saying this,'We were all foreign immigrants at one point of time. Our forefathers came to seek a better future and they stayed.' Yes, precisely. And it makes me sad to see and look at Serangoon Gardens looking at foreign workers at disdain. How many of them have seen how they lived in their tiny cramped dorms with creepy crawlies everywhere? Have they seen these poor workers sitting at the back of trucks in the pouring rain going to jobsites? Do they have hearts to feel for them? Yes, I'm not in Singapore and not, I'm not in Serangoon Gardens now, but these poor souls have a right to somewhere to live. And its sad to hear, that people will say they can live anywhere except in my neighbourhood.

After living in Australia and now in Hong Kong, people have asked me, have you come across racism? I always tell them, I take everything with a pinch of salt. And now, racism is becoming glaring in Singapore. Babe works closely with foreign workers now and they are nice people. Geninue and willing to help. They are just here to earn a living. There are more times that they are cheated than they actually commit crimes. Why can people learn to love and understand that we are all people, it really doesn't matter.