No change for us, thank you very much.

I just got back from my first ever trip to Singapore, and I'm having this mental constipation thing where I have so much to say that it all eventually clogs up and I have to find some way to release it all?

Yes you are all unknowing victims of my mental constipation. I spare no one.

First trip ever to this island, at the age of 20. My parents never bothered taking me because they probably figured it's so near I would go there myself some day, and I did ... twenty years down the road. (While you're doing that shock eye twitch face, I should also tell you I've never been to Thailand before. Yet. Never been to Thailand yet.)

I think the perfect word to describe how I feel about Singapore is: impressed. I like that word. It's safe, doesn't hold too much expectations, doesn't reveal too much either, and impression almost always depends on the eye of the beholder, when really what I'm thinking is this:

HOW THE FUCK CAN WE LIVE WITH NEIGHBORS LIKE THAT?

Seriously. How can any self-respecting politician visit Singapore in its full glory and come back to KL not feeling - a little, just a little - like shit? How can we live in a country just across the border that is moving forward at such speed and style while we stay put, fighting our petty battles?

Like, to change or not to change Science/Math back to Malay ah ... to abolish or not to abolish UPSR/PMR ah ... completely missing the point of education. HELLO SINGAPORE'S NATIONAL UNIVERSITY IS RANKED 30 IN THE WORLD, AND THEY HAVE ANOTHER ONE AT 73. I don't even want to point out where University Malaya is ranked, but it's somewhere between 179 and 181.

I don't mean to keep comparing Malaysia with Singapore, but the mind is stereotypical by nurture, hence anything across an ocean, like Australia, is considered a whole different world, so they have an excuse to be better. They have better resources, they had more time, different government ... and more convenient excuses for us to "not compare please".

But Singapore! A country accessible by just a bridge, subjected to the same situation, conditions, history, weather, people. A place close enough to be part of the country, advancing in a way no country in this region thought was possible... how can we not feel ashamed at ourselves, and disgraced to the world?

Even Stalin, in the Cold War days, had the good sense of shutting off East Berlin to the West because the poverty in the East was so marked that people looked over the Berlin Wall and saw the rich drinking and partying in the West, and wanted to escape there.

Do we not feel shame? And if so, does that shame not power us to do something about it?

At this point I would like to point out two things:

1. Sure Singapore is smaller than Malaysia, hence making it easier for progress or whatever insert convenient excuse here, but what is the excuse for KL then? KL is just as big, if not smaller, as Singapore. (I checked) When I'm asking for progress, I don't mean all 329,845 square km (I checked) of Malaysia. I'm looking to our capital city, where the weight of our country's image rests upon, the embryo of a nationwide progress, and I'm disappointed.

How much does it say about our country if we can't even keep KL clean and safe, and the Singaporeans can?

Wake up. Singapore is kicking our ass, not because they're smaller. If anything, Singapore's size is a handicap because of the lack of land and manpower, while we have so much of both but we rather let our people be stuck in jams and our land squandered to build yet another mall. Oh my God.

Singapore is kicking our rich(er) ass because they recognized their potential and used their resources well. We, on the other hand, like to either keep our resources stupid and ignorant, or drive them away to other countries by offering them shitty opportunities and no future.

2. Malaysia is not THAT bad, defenders say. We have roofs and roads and schools and malls, defenders say. We really are not that bad! defenders say.

I say, that is EXACTLY what is wrong with this country! Mediocrity! The problem with Malaysia is that we're not bad enough for the people to want to do anything, but we're not fucking awesome either, but Malaysians don't see that because they live what they think is a good life. They complain about the situation, of course, but then they go home to their big houses, their private-schooled kids, their big cars and they're happy. I know this, because my own family is like this.

Mediocrity is WORSE than living in adversity because at least poverty or an economic crisis forces people to want change, and work towards it. Vote a different party into power, maybe. Mediocrity makes you complacent with what you have, blind to what you can have better. (Eg. cars with cheap petrol instead of better public transport.) Different party? What different party? The current party is just fine, they guarantee our jobs and cars!

A nation that thinks like this ends up with zero progress, because everyone is stupidly content, and fat, and lazy, and unproductive.

If you ask me, Malaysia hasn't suffered a big enough blow, and that in itself is a suffering.

I'm going to pretend like I don't know how this became such a long diarrhea-like post.

Funny thing is I didn't even mention all the things I started out to say. Like how I haven't seen a single litter on Singaporean grounds in the past three days, or how I can walk everywhere or take the public transport without fear or embarrassment because everyone in Singapore is walking with me/taking the train with me, or how everything is so much more efficient and faster - even the escalators - showing that people value their time, or how people look better and take the effort to dress up - hence Forever 21 saw the market it needed to open three floors there, or how I felt a kind of security walking the streets or taking a cab at 3am that I don't feel in Malaysia, and got laughed at by a Singaporean friend ...

Me being properly bribed with food. Maybe this whole post is nonsense. Maybe my mind is ruled by my very last memory of Singapore ... which is a heavenly piece of foie gras. Maybe it's not about making your home a better place to live in, maybe it's just this piece of ... fuck I must have some more.

Ah fuck.