Most mornings I go for an invigorating swim in our condo pool. Other reasons to hate me include the fact that I claim to understand NFTs, that I get free wine as part of my job, and that I say ‘condo’ instead or ‘flat’ or ‘apartment’.
Expat life is full of such trappings, among the worst of which turns out to be writing blogs about expat life. To my dismay, there are at least 150 such examples that I’ve discovered, with names like Sleepless in Singapore, Tail of a Trailing Spouse and Living in Sin. I was hoping that my own monthly exercise in self-scrutiny might absolve me of the worst expat sins, but in reality I’m a repeat offender.
Live in a condo? Guilty. A condo with a pool? Guilty. Go to free-flow champagne brunches? Guilty. Member of a wine club? Guilty, although to be fair that’s my job, hence the free wine.
Every expat gets sucked into the same bubble at first. It’s a bit like The Blob: all-consuming and frequently repulsive, but entirely possible to escape with enough effort.
Like many new arrivals to Singapore, we were recommended Robertson Quay when looking for a place to live. It’s a riverside neighbourhood close to the centre of the city, where restaurants have slogans such as mindfulness, community, food and community dining space inspired by a dynamic gastronomic lifestyle. Once upon a time, Robertson Quay was a busy wharf, with warehouses lining the riverbank. Today, there are three nail salons, two co-working spaces and a trampoline park within a five-minute walk of each other.
Not that ex-pats actually walk anywhere, of course. Standard practice is to move from air-conditioned condo to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned community dining space, like vaccines that must be kept chilled to avoid denaturing their delicate constitutions.
In those first few months, the expat network introduces you to dozens of people, many of whom are exactly the types of people who you left your home country to escape. There are Facebook groups called Real Singapore Expat Wives and Crazy Expat Parents in Singapore. Multiple meet-ups are arranged so that old-timers and newcomers can size each other up for potential friendships. It’s like Freshers’ Week but with fewer hormones.
Before long, the trappings of expat life are well established – including, for most families, a live-in helper that will cook, clean and look after your children. They don’t cook your children. You know what I mean. Anyway, it’s little wonder that so many expats are happy to stay firmly within their bubble.
But for anyone with a curious outlook, Singapore goes far beyond trampoline parks and dynamic gastronomic lifestyles. Next door to our first condo in Robertson Quay was the Singapore Buddhist Lodge, a huge temple full of beautiful golden buddhas. The aroma of burning incense and the sound of baritone chanting would float in through our windows. We would watch visitors quietly worshipping.
On the opposite side of the road, hidden away in a nondescript former school building, was a bar that we stumbled across one evening. It served great craft beer and awesome food with a little outdoor space in the front - we had found our own place to worship. It’s run by a group of impossibly young and unspeakably beautiful people that have since become proper friends.
We were on the path to discovering the Singapore that too many expats miss. Don’t get me wrong, I still swim in my condo pool most mornings. But sometimes bursting the bubble feels even more invigorating.