First Impressions of Singapore for French-Chinese Expat

Actually, it's a beautiful country. It's a beautiful dictature. It's not a democracy at all, which is fine. I'm from China. Dictature, I know that. It's very okay. Meet Cheng. He just moved to Singapore three months ago. He's Chinese, but he's lived in Paris for 20 years. After moving to Beijing in his 20s, he started a business in the fashion industry. Now, after 14 years in China, he moved to Singapore. And here are his first impressions. It's a little bit aseptisé. Aseptisé in French. I think we can translate it by boring. It was too clean. Every corner was too roundish. Nothing is sharp. Okay, nothing can hurt you. We don't want to be hurt, but still a bit of excitement in your life is good. And this time when we arrived, it's pretty true that things are well organized, but you really need to get into it to understand how it is organized. We tried to hire a Filipino maid. So we went to an MOM website, fill up everything, over process. Seems very, very clear, easy and all. Funny, by the way, because mom sounds like really mom. MOM, yeah. Yeah, and it is kind of because it's the website that you go always. So you feel like a kid and go to ask mom what you can do and what you cannot do, okay? And what you are supposed to do, okay? And in which limits, what is the border of what you can do? So we buy flight tickets for our Filipino maid to come. Except that we discovered at the very last minute that she cannot come because she needs a lot of papers from the Philippines. This, you can't find it anywhere. So it was a bit surprising that we envisage some small, okay, other things that tells you, yeah, Singapore works pretty well. It's pretty well organized, but you need to understand how it is organized. It's much different from China, how the things organized in Beijing. Beijing is very different over process and all. I would say on paper, it's much less organized, but surprisingly, sometimes can be very smooth. There is process where you really need. And sometimes there's much less process, but simply you don't need it. But over there, like to hire a maid, you don't need to ask mom if you can hire her or not. You just hire her. And this is another point that is quite surprising. It's really every single thing that you are doing are overlooked by the government. I don't say that other government doesn't do this. Big brother is everywhere. But here it's, yeah, I would say it's a bit surprising. For example, to open a bank account. The banker, they almost asked me my personal tax income. And I was like, why do you need to know that? I don't give to you, which is very personal. You are a bank, okay? They are like, oh yeah, you know, the law, et cetera. I said, no, I don't give to you. So I didn't give. I feel like it's very, very intrusive. For example, in France, you can do anything and it's way too loose. To open a bank account, you don't need to show your tenancy agreement. You don't need to show contracts, working contract. You have ID. You have electricity bill. Done. But voila, it's the first impression of somebody that just arrived here. The image of Singapore will be very egalitarian. To me, it was more like a democracy where the government will really take care of lots of things, okay? No discrimination. Actually, it's a beautiful country. It's a beautiful dictator. It's not a democracy at all, which is fine. I'm from China, dictator. I know that. It's very okay. But it's not the image that they had. Understandable if you want to keep the real order and if you want that nothing can go wrong. In a country, there's always things that is going wrong, right? Singapore gives me more the feeling that this is more a company than a country. People have a lot of rules even in their, I would say, private life. Guys, I want to create more content about life and business in Southeast Asia. I want to find more interesting people for you to interview them. So if you want to support my work, please subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. What's for you like one or two or three things you like the most about Singapore and you don't like the most about Singapore? It's not what I like the most, Hawker Center. The food. It's not only the food. The whole thing with Hawker Center. It's casual. And it's good. It's a real contrast with the rest of the city. And it's cheap, which is a thing that is quite difficult to find Singapore. And the fact that you can go in nearby countries very easily, Indonesia and all, even if we didn't do yet because we just arrived. But I know that we will enjoy this part. Weather so far was raining a little bit, but still, it's good. Yeah, it's pretty good. What do you don't like about Singapore? I think it's administrative and how the government is really giving you all these limits. You can see every signage and all. It's really like, be a good person. Do this. Yeah, like here's the sign. Pedestrians go this way. If you carry the boat, you go this way. You can mix, but it's like in California, they would never say like, okay, you go here or you go here. Yeah, exactly. I think the signs, they are kind of recommendation. It's not like you're being fined if you like going here or... Other people will kind of like look at you and judge you. You think so? Yeah, I feel that. It's almost modeling your personality. You have to be polite. You have to give your seat in the MRT. I mean, it's very good. It's just that if you want to be, I would say, a light asshole, people look at you as a big gangster. In Singapore, from what I feel, it's a little bit difficult to go into the kind of different groups. They are on the surface very friendly. Hey, hi, how are you doing? Ah, not bad and all, but it stops there for now. Okay, for now. I don't know for later on. I feel like it's quite comparable to Paris, I have to say. People are sometimes grumpy, okay, but overall, they are quite easy to talk to. At the beginning, but to be accepted in their community, I would say it's very difficult in this clan here, clan here, and clan here. And if you want to enter in one of them, it takes a lot of time and work. There is mix where people are hanging out. Hockey center, for example, you have Indian eating there, you have Chinese eating there, you have everybody, but you don't see Indian and Chinese at the same table. Only at Spikeball group. Only on Spikeball group. It's like people coexist with each other, but they don't mix as much. Such in Paris, they coexist, they don't mix. Did you have any other cultural shocks moving from China to Singapore? Maybe a cultural shock is how expensive the country can be. This is one of the main difference. I thought that it was only for newcomers because you always compare prices. And after doing our Spikeball, after our Spikeball session, we go have food and discuss with those locals. You guys have how many kids? Three kids. Tell me how it's like moving to a new country, having three kids, having a full-time job, running a business. How is it? Not good. You have really good moments with kids. You have some moments when you are more like, **** it. What's the most challenging? Feeding them. Food, washing everything, new food again, washing again. Food again for the dinner. And you go and buy things. And when you buy, you figure out that 40 hours later, there's nothing left. Because they have to eat. And they eat a lot. So you go buy again. It took some time to be really able to settle. At the beginning, you are always very optimistic and say, fine. We'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. After two weeks, you're like, oh, I spent time with my kids. It's wonderful. Third week, you are more like, hmm, I can do some help. Fourth week, ah, that's hell. But no, it's still OK. I survive. I saw one of your kids. This one, actually. And he spent some time with us when we played spikeball together. Yes. He's like really, really well behaved. You know this book, like French kids don't spit food. So you think, is it because you're French? Is it like a French way to raise kids? I do believe there's a little bit of that. I can compare the way we raise kids in China. Or now I can see a bit how it is in Singapore, OK? And how we raise kids or have been raised in France, OK? It is quite different. We're not so protective. We're not so behind them, I would say. And we try, in France, I mean, we try to give them lots of freedom to be. We teach them to be independent and all, OK? Not all French families, of course. It's a trend, I would say. This is what I try to do with them. Asking them their opinion, see how they can decide, making them independent, giving them responsibility. For example, at home, they finish the meal, OK? I ask them to take the plates, to take it to the kitchen. It sounds like a small thing, OK? But a lot in Chinese family, the kids won't do anything. They finish, they just go. And for them, it's totally the way it should be, you know? That somebody come and clean everything, OK? And this kind of habit, OK, leads to some very passive behavior, OK? And they always wait that things are happening. And also, when they play, yeah, when I take him to spikeball, he keeps himself busy, OK? Simply because I always think that letting kids get bored is a good thing. Because in that way, they will have more creativity to find things to do. If you always feed them, they're very passive. You give them a game, when we finish, they come to you and say, what can I do? And then you give them something else, OK? And you give them something, and you give them something else. So you feed them like that, so they don't know how to entertain themselves. I often let them to get bored, very often, and on purpose. Look. I don't think it's typical French, but yes, we have more of this tendency. And also because in France, we don't have allies, we don't have helpers. You need to take care of them, OK? If you don't, nobody will. You need to have them independent. And when you have three kids, if none of them are independent... What's the monthly budget for you in Singapore to raise kids? That's quite a lot, because we send them to international school. International school for the older ones, when you do average, almost $2,000. For this one, it's a little bit less, because he doesn't go to French school now, he goes to a smaller one. It's $1,600. For the smallest one, he stays at home. But very soon, it's going to cost $1,500 or something. Added all together, it's already quite a budget. Did you expect it before moving to Singapore? No, we didn't expect that. We didn't expect that, but it's not like we have a choice. When we decided that we will move here, we didn't do the math. We did the math only after when we told ourselves, oh, maybe we have to find school and all, and all. And when we saw the prices of the school, we were like, oh, wow. It is really, really high. YouTube thinks this is the best video for you. If it's bad, it's not my fault. Blame YouTube. So go check it out.