6 Things I’ve Learned from my 4th Year Living in Berlin (away from Singapore)

It's cool being Singaporean, but it's awesome to be able to continue living abroad

Hey y’all, this is my annual reflections post on living abroad. For those who don’t know, I’m originally from Singapore and have been living in Berlin, Germany, for the last 4 years. It’s been an interesting journey, and I’ve reflected on my learnings every year. Read the 1st year and 2nd year reflections on my blog and the 3rd year on Substack:

Right, so, year 4 — let’s take a drive!

Driving my Fiat Ducato van with the daughter in tow to the Berlin Brandenburg Airport to pick up the wife with quite the sunset view.

1. Singapore is pretty cool and well regarded by Europeans

The number one thing that kept coming up this year was how well regarded Singapore is by people in Germany and the rest of Europe.

Not all of my conversations with Germans lead to the question about my origins; perhaps 50 percent or so does? Modern Germany is a very multicultural place and it’s not surprising at all to see people from the most remote parts of the world roaming the streets in cities, especially in Berlin.

Anyway, when the question does arise, I’m always surprised by people’s reactions to my answer.

Me: Ich komme aus Singapur. (I am from Singapore.)

Them: Oh, Singapur! Ein sehr schöne Stadt! (Oh, Singapore! A wonderful city!)

And you know what? Let me be a little immodest and say, I get it. I get why people have such high regard for our country. It’s down to one word: it works.

(If you’re Singaporean, you’re probably not letting go of the fact that those were indeed two words, not one. That’s a Singaporean feature, not a bug. Anyway, if you still can’t let go, the one word could be "efficiency.”)

Everything in Singapore just works, okay? I’m telling you as a person who’s had to go to crazy lengths to obtain our daughter’s birth certificate from the Standesamt (registry office) because their agencies do not talk to one another. Indeed, government agencies are forbidden to pass information to one another without express consent of the person.

In Singapore? Another word: Singpass. You put your damn information in once, and the government stores it securely for you and shares it among their agencies. Practically everything that a resident needs to do will be doable online and the agencies talk to one another. In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, you’re going to have to fill paper forms and hand them in person at offices. I find it unnecessarily tiresome.

I’m glossing over the many fine points about Singapore like security, ability of everyone to speak two major languages, cleanliness, affordability of housing, healthcare, transport, and food.

What I’m saying with this point is that there’s a lot that Singapore does right, and the world is actually paying attention, and for me, it’s only obvious because I’m seeing how things (don’t) work in Europe.

2. Seeing things positively in a mixed culture

I’ve been in a few occasions where people (not white Germans, actually) would make Chinky noises at me and my family (ching chong ling long something something). I don’t get mad but confused, to be honest, because I really can’t tell if they’re being friendly or hostile.

If you’ve been subjected to proper racism (I haven’t… the fact that I’ve been a majority most of my life shall be the subject of another post), you’d probably view this as overt racist hostility and respond at least with a polite Fuck You.

Me? I think from their perspective and ask, maybe in their culture it’s actually polite to try to speak the other’s tongue, no matter how terrible the attempt sounds.

For example, in Singapore, where I have plenty of Muslim friends, it’s a very nice gesture to greet with “As-Salaam-Alaikum” (peace be unto you) even if you’re not Muslim and have thought all your life that it’s pronounced as “Salam Balehcomb.” Yes, me, I had to google the spelling. Learned something today.

So… yeah. That’s that. I’m mostly an optimist and believe that they are racially profiling us with good intentions. My wife gets mad sometimes and makes a face as she walks away. I get that response too.

But, anyway, sometimes people are being racist or condescending, and I find it fun in the occasions when people stereotype you and you proceed calmly to shatter their narrow mindedness by, say, speaking better English than them.

I’ve started to grow in confidence as a person because of my bilingual education. I’m now somewhat trilingual with B2 German, too. I may look like I’m from China, but I guess I’m not? Does that confuse you? Good. Maybe we should all stop stereotyping people. There are many, many more folks with mixed backgrounds like me in the world today.

3. The biggest perk of being away from everyone

It’s the fact that nobody gets to tell you what to do. You have complete freedom to raise your child the way you want.

Sleep training by letting them cry it out for 10 minutes at a time. One week later, they sleep on time every, single, day. This right here? Impossible to do with family around. Your parents will think you’ve lost your marbles, that you’re abusing your children. Your friends will judge you.

Not us! We don’t have to deal with that shit, and god I’m so glad.

My wife and I get to let Charlotte sit on the dirty street when she suddenly feels like that’s something she wants to explore. Want to touch a muddy puddle? Go ahead. Want to climb up some place high and potentially fall? Be our guest. We’ll be here when you inadvertently do, and we’ll tell you that we know it hurts, but the hurt will go away and you’ll have the chance let the pain remind you what is OK and what might not be.

That’s our parenting style, and it’s shaping Charlotte into the kind of human we’d hope she would be. We face very little resistance to this in Germany (the random Oma still wags a finger when she sees us letting her do “dangerous” things). On the other hand, I think we would have to fend off a mob in Singapore to do this.

4. Our stay is still conditional

Our residency in Germany remains contingent on me working (i.e. paying taxes). This was a hard to ignore fact this year when I got suddenly laid off with half a day’s notice from Shopify. I had to scramble to find another job within 3 months or risk being made to leave. Yep, that was a stressful time. Luckily it’s behind me now.

This is one of the things that you don’t ever think about when you’re living in your home country. It’s also something that you don’t really need to think about when you believe you’ll be the last to be made redundant in a recession… until you get told, “today is your last day.” Then the ground, you notice, has been a thin sheet of ice all along.

Now that I’ve clinched a new job at a startup (one that I like a lot, because I’m learning a lot), I’m going to make sure that I apply for the permanent residency as soon as I qualify. That way, if I lose my job again, the burden won’t be so heavy and I can live off my savings while I regroup with my wife on our next steps.

5. A better childhood in Germany

This is an opinion I’m still forming, but for the moment, I believe Charlotte’s going to have a much better childhood in Germany. The main reason I believe this is because people in Germany are much more relaxed in general.

Yes, Germans are stickler for the rules, but have you met Singaporeans?

When I say relaxed, I mean they’re not focused on earning as much money as they can. Earning enough money is enough. Not more energy is spent on/thinking about work than is necessary. There’s also a much bigger emphasis on enjoying the outdoors when the weather permits here. Singapore is basically too hot to be enjoyed outdoors. Come to think of it, the weather determines a lot of how your childhood is spent.

There’s also the fact that it’s a much larger country with a lot more experiences to offer. There are tonnes of things waiting for us to try in every direction from Berlin, within the country and across borders in the EU. We bought a campervan last year and this year drove some 3,000 km to the south of Spain. We didn’t need to plan anything other than book an apartment for 3 months at our destination ahead of time.

Less planning and worrying; more doing and experiencing and observing and learning and living.

6. Dirtiness is a mirror

“Singapore is SO clean” is the biggest trope about the country. I used to hate it when the first thing that comes out of people’s mouths when they talk about Singapore was how clean it was. To me, “clean” was equivalent to “sterile.”

But no, now that I’ve seen Berlin — by no means the filthiest city in Europe, but in certain parts rather trashy — I know that clean is not a euphemism for sterile or soulless. It simply means the streets are clear of empty Caprisun packets, dönner foil, broken glass bottles, tissue paper, bottle caps, and used condoms.

What I’ve learned this year as I watched my 1.5 year old daughter, every single day, stop every two steps to pick up a new piece of rubbish is that cleanliness has an effect on the psyche. I now see that it’s a mirror of the state of people’s lives. Chaotic inside, chaotic outside; orderly inside, orderly outside. Singapore’s orderly, Berlin’s chaotic. My favourite quote of all time is by a dead French author:

Be steady and well ordered in your life, so that you may be fierce and original in your work. — Gustave Flaubert

I never read his books; the quote just pierced right to my heart the first time I read it. So, I’m quite fond of orderliness, which is a prerequisite to cleanliness. That’s one of the reasons we’ve decided to move to another city in Germany this year:

So… that’s it. The 4th year ends with a statement: I’m excited to be moving to a smaller, cleaner city this year where our adventure abroad continues.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions about living abroad. I’ll help if I can!