A common sight in the Paris metro stations.

Funny how many people so far have expressed regret on my behalf at having to return to Singapore from Paris. It’s almost as if to say, okay, the dream is over, back to reality.

It’s one thing to say you love another country, because of its culture, people, sights and so on. Everywhere has something to love. But to say that it is of great tragedy that one has to return to, gasp Singapore, is worrying on a whole new level.

The truth is, I don’t think anyone can gauge how it is to be in another country and compare it with home without having lived in the other for an extended period. People have been saying to me, “Oh, but Paris has the Louvre,” Which is fine and dandy, and is very beautiful, et cetera et cetera, but if you lived in Paris, how often would you go visit it? “Oh, I’d go every weekend,” some people say. To that, I say a big “Yeah right”, because frankly, if you lived in whichever country had whatever attraction, the novelty would get old very fast.

When you’re on holiday in another country, that’s what you’re doing. You’re on holiday. You’re looking at new things, which is always fun. So you’re doing two fun things: you’re learning something, and you’re spending time off work. That, in itself, is magic, no matter where you are.

I have a friend that loves Hong Kong, warts and all. That means she’s okay with the dirty roads, the typhoons and rainstorms that trap people in, how impossible it is to drive there (being a car-lover, at that), how expensive housing is. Just as long as she lives and breathes Hong Kong, that’s cool with her. And that’s love, for better or for worse.

Coming back to Singapore, I’ll say it isn’t perfect. It’s far from perfect. But this slight self-resentment I’ve been detecting on the parts of many Singaporeans, I wonder if it’s healthy. I’m boring, I’m a country bumpkin, I travel and miss home all the time for inexplicable reasons, so it’s hard for me to be objective, that I acknowledge. But looking at this extreme wanderlust in many Singaporeans, is it because we’re educated/affluent/eager to see more? Or is it because we really just hate home so much?

When I was there, another Singaporean said, about the rickety old subway trains, that they had a much more “efficient” train system than we do. On that, I truly beg to differ, since our trains arrive on the minute, and are clean and air-conditioned. (Open-air trains in tunnels, packed with people in the middle of summer wasn’t my idea of pleasant.)

Perhaps the word is “extensive”, instead of efficient. Well, we do have buses that go everywhere. And as for the trains, I think we’re working on it. To be fair, Paris has had a little more of a headstart for building their transportation network.

Nobody seems to hold it against them that they don’t have an efficient, grid-like road layout in the heart of it, with circles forking out five-ways, seven-ways and so on. They’re an old city, after all. So why don’t people see that we’re young?

We need funding for the Arts, we need this, and we need that. We know it. But if we can’t be patient with ourselves, no one’s going to stick around till the end. I suppose that’s the point—nobody wants to, it seems.