Finance

Just got back from a short trip to Singapore. I meet my good friends there 3-4 times a year, all of them are Malaysians who studied in NUS, some may have married other Malaysians or Singapore girls. Plus I worked in Singapore for 3 years in the early 90s, mixing with the same group of friends.

I do not have many good friends, maybe less than 20 but the group in Singapore (some taken on citizenship there even) has evolved like Darwin's best pets.They are still inherently the same people but the stuff they talk about PISSED me off no end:

a) "waaa... so cheap" - everything to them is so cheap, one must be empathetic enough to visualise how their attitude or even genuine statements make themselves appear in the eyes of other

b) "flaunting of brands, labels, airline miles, etc.." - you can be a consumerism victim, you may even say what things you bought or which ski lodge you holidayed at ... BUT NOT ALL THE FUCKING TIME ... these are THINGS. If I come to visit and have dinner, talk about you and your family, your aspirations, even your troubles or happy stuff. Things are things are things.

In terms of being successful in the careers, most of them are, my friends in Singapore but I also have a similar group in KL, just as successful, but do not engage in pathetic marialistic talk ALL THE TIME. It gets very tiring when you talk about queuing up for LV bags, how many you are limited to buy, the bloody ski holiday in Korea and planning your next ski holiday in Europe, getting enough Biz Class frequent flyer miles, where to get the most expensive ham, how you attended the expensive Chinese dinner drinking S$300 soup ... ALL IN the first 20 minutes of dinner ....

Real friends, good friends when we have little or no money .... the trouble is when some of us get a bit of money. I know my friends, if they read this they know what I am talking about and why. Is it the recognition, the need to be validated, the high life you are living, you need people to know ... Just like the ostentatious HK rich man who said, when asked why he keeps flaunting his wealth: "IF I DON'T DO THAT, HOW WILL PEOPLE KNOW HOW RICH I AM ... IF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW, WHY BOTHER GETTING RICH".

If you can find ten things wrong about that person with that last statement, you can be my good friend.

It is sad and it makes me angry, but I guess they have been Singapor-ed ... I hope they realise before I give up on them.