The foreign workers.

I guess many Singaporeans do not associate themselves with foreign workers, especially the construction workers. At the sight of them, many  of us think that they are loud stinks and may be even rapist.  People go on complaining about how they crowd our public spaces and overload the transport system, yet forgetting the fact that are the ones who are willing to do jobs that almost no locals will do. 

I guess I'm more biased towards the foreign workers cause I always tends to feel unfair by the way they are treated in relative to the amount of work they contributed. ( In this post I'm referring to the Low end wage workers.) Paradoxical as it is, I wouldn't deny the fact that I always subconsciously avoid the area where a group of foreign workers gather at, eg. Void decks whereby they take afternoon naps. Until something happened earlier this afternoon made me into re-thinking about my perceptions of them all over again.

 So I was on my way home under the scorching sun this afternoon and as I was stepping out of the lift, there was this worker scrapping off the dirts on the cement floor using thinner beside the lift. Initially I just smiled at him as he looked up. But later on after I got home I decide to just pass him over a can of 100 Plus, I mean, working long hours under such strong sun rays isn't easy. To be honest I was pretty much timid ( Not like I had ever even smiled at any of them before. ) and took almost fifteen minutes to finally step out of my house and pass it over, he was in fact quite shocked when I walk towards him, this honestly made me feel real good afterwards that I've passed him after all. So well I thought that would be the end of the story. To my surprise after I bathed I realise he was actually cleaning off the dirt on the living room windows facing the corridor, which I believe was obviously not part of his job. It was then I approached him, thanked him, and partially inspired by this article on Fb not long ago about a group of youths approaching some foreign workers at the void deck, I had a short chat with him. I have to admit that I was sort of astonished to learn that he actually graduated from accountancy in the National University of Bangladesh and speaks rather fluent English. My perception of them was that they are uneducated and thus came over Singapore to take on these jobs. He earns 27 dollars a day and work from 8am to 6pm, that's equivalent to my hourly wage rate for tuition. I wonder if there's any locals who is willing to work for less than $3/hr. Oh well. What a disparity. Power of knowledge.

 So anyway as to not drift my post off away and goes into the Study-for-money cycle again, I will sum everything up here. There're much more I learnt from him about the working conditions and his monthly spending etc during the conversation which enabled me to gain a better insights of foreign workers in Singapore. Despite that it will be a hasty generalisation to make any assumptions, but I'm inclining to believe that most of the foreign workers are friendly. Despite so, I found myself keeping a distance away from them still, near the end he asked if we could be friends to which I agreed without any thought but there's a long pause and reluctance when he asked if I mind him taking down by number. No matter how acceptable of them I seems to be, there's just barriers that I can't go across. Or maybe I will, ten or fifteen years later. Just,not now.

Lastly some food for thought, I came across this interesting article on the internet; how true. 

Why the mentality shift for overseas projects?Such unhappiness lies in stark contrast when we voluntarily live amid poor and ‘dirty’ foreigners. This seismic shift in the Singaporean mentality comes when we do overseas community projects. Going overseas for community service projects is almost always seen as a good thing.
We may, for example, go overseas to build houses for the poor. But the very people whom we help on our overseas community projects may have friends or relatives building our houses in Singapore. The only difference is that we, tired of our too-comfortable lives, choose to go overseas to ‘suffer’; but they, the foreign workers, are forced to come to Singapore because of their poverty.We pat ourselves on the back when we do overseas community projects, but distance ourselves from the foreign workers here. This is hypocrisy at its finest.So there are two very similar groups of poor foreigners – one group in their homeland, the other group in Singapore. But our attitudes towards the two groups vastly differ. We pat ourselves on the back when we do overseas community projects, but distance ourselves from the foreign workers here. This is hypocrisy at its finest.We help the alien poor because it gives us a sense of satisfaction. It is a social exchange. We pay for the products that foreign workers in Singapore assemble on factory lines. It is a heartless business exchange. But have we forgotten that in both cases, we are dealing with people?
A person with a true heart for people and the overseas community would not have drastically varied responses to the two groups.
Selfishness behind the “altruism”
Perhaps the scenario that I just painted betrays the fact that despite doing community work, we are all self-serving people at heart – we only want what benefits us or makes us feel good.It is the ‘cool factor’ that the exoticism of this project brings, that truly attracts us.There is a similar selfish mentality when it comes to doing overseas community projects. It is the ‘cool factor’ that the exoticism of this project brings, that truly attracts us.If one truly desires to help, there are no shortages of volunteer opportunities in Singapore. Why not help our fellow Singaporean first? Because we are in it for that short holiday that makes us feel morally good.
And to what extent are we willing to help? Spend a lifetime overseas like Mother Teresa? No, we only want a ‘quick fix’. Help to the point where the foreigners’ living standards match our own?
I do not doubt that there are people who do overseas community for altruistic reasons. But the reasons for some are never purely altruistic – there are definitely some selfish reasons.
So let not the person who does community work overseas trumpet his good deeds. And let not the schools, which so often encourage their students to go overseas for community work, beat the drums of pride. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
I am not requesting Singaporeans to take concrete actions to help the lives of the poorer foreign workers in Singapore. But at the very least, remove the scorn from our minds. Stop associating them with dirt and filth.
Whether you are Chinese, Indian or Malay, remember that your forefathers came here as foreign workers too.