Home

I remembered marvelling at the committment and desire of my Kenyan friend at the U21 summer conference, Maggie to return home to live after she finishes with her degree at Edinburgh in Scotland.

Her sense of obligation to her country was something I found admirable especially since I found it difficult to comprehend why she would want to return to a society which she readily admits to being oppressive towards women.

"But it's home," said Maggie, who is as "Western" as you would expect of a young person who has been studying in Scotland since high school.

But she also added, after hearing how I wanted to leave Singapore because I feel so alienated by the politics and society of this place, that it is awful that my home country cannot accomodate the way I am after investing so much money on ensuring I get a decent education.

I wished I had that same sense of obligation towards Singapore, but while I cannot say I do not, I also cannot say I do. In anthropological terms, I am "betwixt and between" in what is known as a "liminal" state, a state of limbo.

5 days after I returned home from the land of the free, I am finding myself grappling with reverse cultural shock -- and to think I have only been away for 3 weeks. I cannot imagine what it would be like for me if I had been away for a longer period of time -- I probably would not want to come back at all.

But things are not as simple as it appears to be.

While tucking into a familiar-tasting lunch of chicken and barbequed pork rice at the coffeeshop near my apartment block yesterday, I felt a distinct sense of unfamiliarity amidst a deep-seated familiarity.

My home estate feels so familiar and comfortable, yet I feel so displaced and discontent. It's like I am familiar with the mundane aspects of everyday living in Singapore, but unfamiliar with the dominant ideologies and the overarching social structures that seem to oppress my being.

And it is not as if these emerged overnight.

I always had these sentiments, it's just that being in America the last 3 weeks has made things so obvious and pronounced it is just not possible to even remotely live in denial about these sentiments anymore.

And no, it's not that I am being ungrateful, or being a quitter. Make no mistakes about it. I am immensely grateful for a system that works here, for the generally okay material life I have and I do, contrary to popular opinion, have a healthy regard for the things PAP has achieved.

But there are some things money cannot buy.

I have never felt so "free" when I was in the States. This sense of "freedom" is something words cannot quite fully explain, but while I know there are no perfect societies, despite all the subtle racism in the American everyday life I have experienced and all that Bush is doing, I do increasingly want to move to the States after I am done with school here next year.

I have no idea whether I want to be American, but I do know that I want to live abroad for a bit. And since I am also not quite done with school yet, graduate school in the States appear to be a viable option for me.

Like I told some people in the last few days, I don't think I am utterly enthusiastic about America. Or to borrow Travis' terms of reference, America for me is "good, not great" -- but "good" is good enough for me at this point.

Because beggars cannot exactly be choosers, and for me, it seems like I am more being pushed out of Singapore, than being pulled over by America. My dream is not so much the quintessential American Dream, but a dream that just happens to be, in my opinion, more able to materialise in America than in Singapore.

Somehow or rather, I do sense there is a lot more room for me to find myself and do what I want to do in the US of A, than in Singapore. I do not get told what I should be doing or should not be doing. Society and community are not as distinct entities as it is here in Singapore.

Rather, community is being seen as a collective of individuals -- and as such, individuals are encouraged to dream and pursue their dreams. Here, I feel I can dream -- but only in the areas deem appropriate by either the government or some authority, imagined or otherwise.

Maybe it is just a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side" for me, but this is largely immaterial to me because even if it is the case, I reckon I would have gotten that out of my system in a couple of years.

Maybe only then, would I be better placed to decide whether I want to be an American. In the meantime though, home is where the heart is, and I better get my wondering heart back to Singapore -- for the next year at least.