push and pull

The last time I went for therapy, I admitted that I don’t feel safe in Singapore. After all these years of journalism and activism—and the repercussions that follow such work—this country now often makes me feel anxious and paranoid and jittery, trapped by constant feelings of precarity and a learned hyper-vigilance. I compulsively read and re-read my writing, beyond the point of what’s necessary. I imagine all sorts of scenarios of legal letters and police investigations and harassment and, most terrifying of all, inadvertently leading the eyes of the state on to others. More and more often these days, I’m followed through life by a baseline panic that threatens to burst through the surface at the slightest provocation. I’ve been able to manage all this and keep myself from paralysis, but it’s an overwhelming way to live.

“Maybe it’s time you made a plan to move,” the therapist said, ever patient and rational and reasonable.

I couldn’t argue with that. The logic was perfectly sound. It wasn’t even an idea she’d plucked out of thin air; earlier in that same session, I’d been talking about the increasing likelihood of leaving Singapore for good. The past decade has made it clear that my husband and I won’t be able to make a home here. Leaving is the only sensible, right option. My therapist wasn’t wrong.

But it felt incorrect to agree. 

There used to be a home video of me, on my third birthday, running around my grandmother’s HDB flat in the cotton singlet-and-underpants combo that just made sense for a baby of the tropics. I had a red-and-white pull-on skirt—probably something my nanny sewed from leftover material—that existed solely for my regular sessions of make-believe. In some shots, I’m wearing that skirt, adding to its imagined fanciness by sticking a similar white skirt over my head to approximate the effect of a wedding veil. A little girl raised on a steady diet of animated Disney films, I was obsessed with brides because their puffy gowns and sheer veils were the closest I came to seeing princess garb in real life.

I don’t have any memory of the day itself, only a very fragmented recollection of watching that tape years later. The details are fuzzy but I can still imagine what it must have been like; those same tiles still line my grandmother’s flat, the low bookcases are still pushed against the wall, the same grills guard the low windows. In the video, my smile is bright, and my giggles erupt from inside me like I’m hiccuping bubbles.

This video comes to mind when I think of my childhood: cute, joyful, blessed, loved. I am fortunate, in so many ways, to have been born in this country, to this family. The earliest years of my life were so sheltered, so comfortable and so at ease that I was lulled into a complacent belief that everyone in Singapore lived this way. My charmed life made it easy to accept the notion that Singapore was singularly safe, successful and superior. I was an adult before I realised this wasn’t the case. 

I have another, very different memory. In this one, I’m about eleven or twelve years old. It’s early in the morning; the sun is only just creeping over the horizon. I’m in my primary school classroom, but it isn’t time to go down to the basketball court for the flag-raising ceremony yet, so we’re just milling about, chatting, playing, scrambling to complete forgotten homework. The principal comes by, strolling down the corridor, peering into each classroom, surveying her domain. She steps into our classroom and frowns. There are bits of paper and other little bits of trash here and there on the floor. “Why is your classroom so dirty?”

She raises her voice: “Don’t you see all the litter on the floor? Pick them all up now!”

We shuffle into action. My classmates pick up dusty bits of paper between their fingertips and drop them into the plastic wastepaper basket by the door. It’s an obviously slow and laborious process, so I opt for a different approach: I pick up the broom and dustpan and begin sweeping. 

The principal’s frown deepens. “Did I say you could use the broom?!” she barks. “I said, pick them up! With your hands!”

That morning, I learnt that, despite what we like to tell ourselves, life in Singapore isn’t always about what makes sense. It’s much more often about power, and how people in positions of authority can wield that power over you. And sometimes punishment and humiliation is the point, becoming so normalised that people really do believe that it’s “for your own good”. 

There’s a binary that appears often in Singaporean political talk: you either count your blessings for all the things you’ve enjoyed and demonstrate gratitude to the PAP, or you’re a wretched ingrate who can’t do anything but complain. 

I fit the first category to a T as a child: I was a little model Chinese girl from a middle-class Chinese nuclear family, two parents two kids two grandparents living in HDB neighbourhoods within a ten-minute drive of each other. Singapore embraced me then, because Singapore was built for families like mine, and I loved it back with a fierce defensiveness that sprang to the fore at any hint of criticism from outsiders (even if I had some gripes of my own). Then I grew up, grew political, and suddenly the cookie-cutter lost its edge. I no longer fit the state’s concept of who and what a good Singaporean should be; I am now the ingrate, the troublemaker, the traitor.

I have, for the most part, resigned myself to this characterisation, even though I strongly disagree. But it still throws me sometimes, when it sinks in that important, powerful people in my country have singled me out, portrayed me as some sort of threat. The gap between who I am, what I do and what I want, and who they say I am, what they accuse me of doing and claim that I want, is a yawning gulf that I struggle to reconcile. It’s too surreal. I’m floored by the bad faith. I don’t know what can be said to people who only listen long enough to twist my words into weapons to lob back in my direction. It hits me that my country doesn’t love me back—probably never really loved me at all—and very likely doesn’t even want me around. They have made it impossible for my family to have a life here. In my own country. My own home.

For better or worse (usually both), I was raised in Singapore and also raised by Singapore. It’s a connection that can never be severed, regardless of where I end up in this big world. I have no desire to hide or escape from this legacy. Whenever the words “I’m Singaporean” pop out of my mouth, it feels solid and certain. This is where I’m from. This is who I am. This is what I know. There’s a sense of ownership that can be both affirming and empowering. It makes me want to plant my feet and hold my ground, to remain in Singapore where I feel, by virtue of my birth and citizenship, entitled to my voice. 

But there comes a point when I have to wonder if enough is enough. How long should I cling to a country that doesn’t love me back, whose government has gone out of their way to make my life more difficult? It’s hard not to think about parallels with toxic lovers and abusive parents—at what point should one walk away? It’s never straightforward or simple to leave unhealthy relationships. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

It’s not easy to come to terms with the notion that the home I’ve grown up in might no longer be good for me. I can’t even decide if that’s really true. There are days I spend with loved ones, hanging out in a room with my mum swapping funny videos and recommending songs, that tell me, yes, this is home. There are days I spend with my friends, working or gossiping or eating, and I’m engulfed in the warmth of purpose and belonging. There are events I attend where strangers come up to thank me for my work, to express care and support, and I’m comforted to know that there are people in my corner, even if they can’t say so too loudly. I love the easy familiarity of Singlish, and sometimes when I’m tucking into chye tow kway and chicken rice I wonder if I could survive long-term without them.

I’m not going to lie: it’s a relief whenever I’m out of Singapore. It’s like a weight lifts off me. But then, after a little while, I start to yearn for home, and the conflict rises and constricts in my chest. I want to go home, but going home also fills me with anxiety. Push and pull. I can’t stay. I can’t leave. 

I can’t stay.

If I’m being really honest, the yearning doesn’t just happen when I’m away. It happens even when I’m in Singapore. Last month, I attended the gala night performance of Wild Rice’s National Day Charade, a play by Thomas Lim riffing off the scripted nationalism of the annual National Day Parade. I’d been interviewed for it, but the minute-long clip they’d wanted to show of my interview wasn’t approved by the Infocomm Media Development Authority for inclusion in the show. (I wasn’t alone in this ‘honour’; another short video, featuring a same-sex family, received similar treatment.) Audience members ended up watching these videos off YouTube on their own phones during a couple of pointed pauses inserted into the play. It was just so Singapore: the creativity and love and talent bursting with potential on stage, hampered by petty authoritarian bureaucracy reminding us that there are some people, some topics, they want us to see and hear of as little as possible.

It’s an honour to be blacklisted by authoritarians. But it still hurts when authoritarians manipulate the levers to make your country feel like a hostile place to be in.

At the end of every show of National Day Charade, the actor Andrew Marko performs a song with lyrics written based on audience contributions. It comes out differently every night—but there’s a version made up of highlights from the whole run here—but there’s a refrain:

Are you there, my country, my home?

Can you hear me singing this song?

Hearing it that night brought tears to my eyes. More than all the witty punchlines and the satisfying in-jokes, this one resonated deeply. I yearn even when I’m in Singapore, wishing things could be different, that I could feel safe and at home in my home. Wishing the things I want for Singapore—things that really aren’t unreasonable, and would be good for us—aren’t treated as unimaginable or beyond the pale. Wishing that my friends and I could have space without having to fight for it at such high costs to ourselves. Wishing we could be heard without being beaten down.

Can you hear me singing this song?

I’m publishing this just before National Day. I’m not in Singapore right now, but my complicated feelings follow me everywhere. And as I sit and contemplate the possibility—likelihood, even—of emigrating before the next National Day, I don’t know what to do with this conflict between logic and emotion; the knowledge that this is probably what I need and that I’ll be okay, and the deep sadness of feeling like a child shut out of home.

Are you there, my country, my home?