Transcription
Meet Andrew, a breed who first moved to Malaysia in 1988 to work in finance and later started a theater in Koala Lumpur. After living in Malaysia for 15 years, he moved to Singapore in 2003 to become a TV presenter. Andrew shared the biggest shocks foreigners face when moving from Malaysia to Singapore, who are friendlier: Malaysians or Singaporeans, and why both Malaysia and Singapore are the most comfortable places to live. I'm Max Chernov, your insider to immigrant life. Jo, what people from abroad or from the West don't get about Malaysia.
I think every Westerner has the general, not everyone, but less well-traveled, less well-educated Westerner will probably not be able to find Malaysia on a map. If you went to the US and asked them to find Malaysia on a world map, I think probably less than 1% would be able to do it. I don't know. I don't think if you've not been to Malaysia, I don't think you know much about it, and I don't think necessarily that you would want to find out about it would really be on your radar. It's become much more so over the last 20, 30 years because of tourism, because of opening its doors, and obviously trying to, obviously realizing that tourism was an incredible revenue stream that the government really couldn't do without and shouldn't do without.
So, a lot of people, I'm surprised by the number of people that I meet at hawk in the UK said, "Yeah, I've been to Malaysia for my holidays. Oh, I've been to Thailand. I've been to Vietnam. I've been to Singapore." When I was a kid, it was unheard of. My summer holidays were Italy, you know, on a package tour, two weeks in Italy every summer, and that was it. The thought of getting on a plane for 14 hours and ending up in an Asian country was never even contemplated. So, are there misperceptions? Probably. Are there no perceptions at times? Yeah, probably. Yeah. So, it's difficult to say.
Malaysia and Singapore in many ways, I think people sort of delineate everything. They want to compartmentalize everything. So, China is China, and that's the proper Far East. And then you've got this kind of place in the middle that isn't quite as far away and isn't quite as Asian, which I guess is Malaysia and Singapore. People describe Singapore as being "Asia light." But that only reflects the fact that it is less difficult to live in than other countries that would, as a foreigner or as an expat, you would spend more time trying to get used to and assimilate the culture of. So, yeah, I think that's that. So I haven't really answered your question, but I think it's it's a really tough question to answer.
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I think people in the financial markets will have their say as to what has happened financially in Malaysia over the last 25, 30 years. A lot of people know about some of the things that took place among the government and prime ministers, etc., etc. Historians will obviously know the part that Malaysia, or Malaya as it was then, played in the Second World War and indeed in the history before that, the history of the British Empire, etc., etc. But that would be for historians, and I don't think there are many people in the UK who go into that in a great amount of detail.
Some like the common misconception that I hear sometimes from people that Malaysia is kind of boring. I don't agree with that, but people say, "Oh, Thailand is like fun, a lot of things to do." What would you say to these people? I'd say those people don't have very much imagination and haven't really put a lot of groundwork in. There's plenty to do in Malaysia. It's an absolutely beautiful country with some of the previously some of the best natural resources in the world. It also has some of the most beautiful virgin rainforests.
How was your relationship with Malaysia? So, you liked it straight away, or you liked falling in love with the country, with the place gradually, or how was it? Well, Kuala Lumpur, when I arrived there, was unrecognizable from what it is today. No high-rise buildings. There were a few, I think, the there were a couple of high-rise buildings that had recently been built, like at the end of the '70s or beginning of the '80s, but apart from that, nothing like it is today. The landscape has changed, has changed completely. When I first moved there, I looked out of my hotel room and I could see a racecourse, and first thing in the morning, there were horses being trained, and it was beautiful as the sun was coming up and the steam off the grass and everything, and horses trotting around. That whole area now is KLCC. So, you can imagine how much that has changed.
Long time ago, when I first arrived, I loved it. I'd been brought up in the UK, and so I'd been through however many 20-odd UK winters, and I used to go to school when it was dark, and I used to get home at the end of a day's school when it was dark and raining and cold. And then all of a sudden, I'm in a country where, for me, it was like summer holiday every single day. You go out in the streets, and it is warm, stroke hot, whatever. So that was that was kind of exotic. But I got to realize that I became surrounded by just incredible people that I know that I wouldn't have met their kind back in the UK or even in Europe. So it was a sensibility that I didn't tap into necessarily, but I definitely appreciated it. And the more I got to know them, and the more I got to know about Malaysian history, Malaysian culture, the Malaysian diaspora, how the sort of ethnic mix had occurred over the course of time, just made me absolutely, you know, fascinated because it is it's such a cliché that Malaysia is called a melting pot, and Kuala Lumpur is called, you know, a cosmopolitan city and a melting pot, a mix of so many different ethnicities and nationalities, and it is all that, and I'd never experienced anything like that before. All the places that I'd lived around the world were pretty, I guess they had a degree of homogeneity that I became comfortable with, and then I got to Malaysia and I realized, well, that's not how it is at all, and that was absolutely fascinating.
What about sense of humor? What Malaysians may find funny versus... That's a good question. I think Malaysians, again, it's just it's just too easy to say and simplistic to say that Malaysians and Southeast Asians quite like slapstick comedy. It's just not true at all. I mean, does it do they like visual comedy? Yes. Doesn't everybody? One of the most successful comedians in the history of the world is probably Mr. Bean, who is nothing but visual comedy and slapstick comedy. And yet he's everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. People like him. He may not be your personal cup of tea, but there is no doubt it's a real, it's a craft. We did very little slapstick comedy when we started the theater company. Wasn't what I wanted to do. I don't think it was what anybody else wanted to do. We use our words more than anything else.
Difference in sense of humor. That would be one, but again, too simplistic. The other one would be that I grew up in a society where political satire was endured, and nobody made a fuss about it. To being in Malaysia where political satire was dodgy, a little bit dangerous, a little bit edgy. And I don't think that we said anything too controversial. I mean, we did, but not on a regular basis. But the fact that people would go, "You can't say that." I'd never experienced that. Living in the UK, you can say whatever you want. In fact, a lot of people do. And that's one of the problems with UK society, in my opinion. But yeah, let's not go there.
What's the biggest difference in life in KL versus Singapore for you? You're really trying to get me into trouble, aren't you? Yeah. Let's try. Okay. I mean, okay, obviously, I don't want to upset anybody. I don't want to get myself into trouble. I don't want to get stopped at the border. I mean, I would say if there was if there was one, I mean, size makes a huge difference. So, I've been told, and efficiency, organization, everything works in Singapore. And that was, I got to be honest, a blessed relief after living in Malaysia for as long as I did.
Safety was a huge factor. You didn't feel safe? Um, the house I was living in in Kuala Lumpur, the last 6 months that I lived in KL, that house was broken into three times. Oh. So, yeah, that doesn't make you feel particularly safe. When you get into Singapore, you kind of like you feel a lot safer. I know public safety is hugely important to the government, to the people, to the society. And we have that. A number of times I've left my front door open all night and not had an issue, not had one single incident in the 20 years that I've lived in Singapore. So, after some unpleasant experiences in Malaysia, it was nice to be able to not worry about that.
I don't want to get into too much detail about how I've been critical of various Malaysian governments in the past because that's just not what I do anymore. When I came from Malaysia to Singapore, I had my political satire glands quarterized. I knew that, you know, I came here for a completely different reason. So, that was that was the end of that part of my career. Malaysian governments have been criticized for waste, not using the natural resources to the best of their ability, for a level of corruption. So, I don't want to say that I'm disappointed that Malaysia has turned out the way that it has because I still think it, there is hope. There is a chance. But because of all the political machinations, because of the corruption, and because of the, you know, general inefficiency, I don't think it is in terms of its development where it should be. And I think that every Malaysian would feel the same way. They should be one of the richest nations per capita on earth, and it's not.
There are things that Malaysia has that Singapore doesn't, for sure, and vice versa. So, at that point in my life, it became what were my priorities? And having left one career and gone into a completely new career, all I wanted to do was focus on my work. And I wanted everything around that to be as seamless and as easy and as non-confrontational as possible. And Singapore provides that brilliantly.
Some people say Singapore has less soul compared to Malaysia. Singapore is about money. People are robotic. They only want to work. What's your take on it? I do think the culture is different. I think it's too, again, simplistic to just sort of say Singapore has no soul, because I know that it does, and it's a really, really easy sort of button to push. Yeah, Singapore's got no soul. Malaysia has soul. Well, what does that mean? What does that actually mean? Does it mean that people's sensibilities are different? Does it mean that what they're looking for in life is different? Because I don't think it is.
I think the main difference between Singapore and Malaysia, I can see, is that the majority of Singaporeans have what I call they bought into the social contract. And the social contract exists between the population and the government. And it works along the lines of saying, "We will provide you with this, this, this, and this as our population." But in return, you provide us with this, this, this, and this, and you don't worry your heads around this, this, and this. But it implies an integral trust between the people and the government. And the vast majority of Singaporeans trust the government to look after them. I think that was all part of sort of Lee Kuan Yew's thought process. He turned around and said, "I know what people want. Don't..." The West was lecturing him on the lack of free speech in Singapore in the early '60s through to the '70s. And he turned around and said, "I don't care what you think people want, and I don't care how much importance you attach to free speech. Let me tell you what people want. People want safety, good infrastructure, good education, good healthcare, and prosperity. The roof on the roof over their heads, housing." Yeah, of course. Key that should have come up a lot earlier. And I think he's proven to be right.
I think that would you say the vast majority of people in Singapore are happy with their lot, happy to have signed that social contract where they trust the government and the government in turn trusts the people? I don't know. In Malaysia, I don't think that social contract exists, because I think that there's not been that level of political stability that has enabled that kind of contract to be signed.
Speaking of Singapore, the country, the system, and the social contract is structured the way, for example, HDB is like highly subsidized by the government's accommodation for locals. And you kind of automatically after you graduate from school, then uni, then NS for men, and then you kind of, if you don't go for it for like having your HDB, probably you would like feel missing out, because like that's your money, that's the money for you. So you sign for it, and then you need to work for it. So you kind of locked through this benefits of the system right away, and then it's hard to maybe get out of this like a typical path.
I'd say you've got two, there's two points here to discuss. One is the fact that in terms of home ownership, Singapore is, I think, one of the highest in the world, if not the highest. Not the highest in terms of people who actually own their own homes. But yeah, I mean, prices of HDBs, as we all know, are going up, and I think more and more people are finding that they can't afford them. And I think it's a concern, and I think the government is concerned by it as well. I just, in a sort of free market capitalist situation, it's difficult to know what to do about it in a way where you're not, I don't know, being too interventionist or being too calculating as to what you think the economy should be and what you think the housing situation should be, because it has become a supply and demand situation, and obviously prices reflect that. But I think it is going to be a bit of a problem going forward, I feel.
How has your personality changed through this like 20-plus years in Singapore? I've always been able to work extremely hard for short periods of time. But never over a sort of concerted period of time. And I think for the first year, year and a half where I was trying to establish myself at ESPN Star Sports, I had to work really, really hard. And it was head down. So, as I said, politically not interested. I do not want to get involved at all. I'm not going to do any political satire. I'm here doing something completely different. I'm doing sports broadcasting. Leave your political issues behind you. And so that's what I did. So there was there was a certain amount of drive, I think, that this country definitely instills in you. The fact that in order to be successful, you've got to work really, really hard. The motivation, I think I know for a lot of people is for a lot of people is money and status. I get that. That wasn't for me particularly. Not being a Singaporean, it didn't really matter. I was not comparing myself to anybody else. I think it gave me a great opportunity to change career direction and to absolutely focus 100% on what I wanted to achieve in that job. And I'm not entirely sure that that would have been the same in many other countries. It facilitated that. It enabled me to go on that journey and not have to worry about anything else. And I really appreciated that.
If I ask you where's your home, would you say what? My home is Singapore. Singapore. Yeah. And has been for 20 years. Yeah.
What's your view on the UK right now? Like when you go back, what's your thoughts about it? I think it's a country kind of broken and very divided. I think we've been in this ridiculous two-tier political system for longer than I can remember. I don't feel that if you're voting that it should be a binary choice. You either vote for that party or another party. And when you think about it, it's a bit like the US as well. Please don't get me started on the US, otherwise we will be here all day. I just think that people should be better represented than they are currently in the UK. I think the political system is broken. I think that again, the general elections are kind of broken as well. I believe in proportional representation. I believe that if you get the most votes out of the people who vote for you, irrespective of where they live, that should be the party in power. But that's just me. Brexit, I think, was a killer, but I think it reflected the zeitgeist. And it reflected the opinions of a lot of disenfranchised and disassociated British people who just, you know, wanted to screw everything up for the next generation. Okay, that's very cynical, but yeah, I honestly think it was like, yeah, our time. This is our opportunity to make our point. Don't you tell me that we're going to be in Europe.
So I'm not going to do impersonations yet. Can I ask how old are you? I'm 63. 63. How does it feel to be 63? It feels old. I played football last night against a bunch of guys who are like half my age, and a couple that I think I would be old enough to be their grandfather. I promised my partner that I would stop playing at 50. I've broken my promise regularly every year for the past 13 years, and I'm still going. Every time after a game now, when I wake up in the morning, it's getting harder and harder. Injuries that I get are getting harder to come back from. But I still absolutely love it. And I think it would be time to give up the ghost on the day that I realize that I'm just too old to even be competitive in a game of five-a-side football on a Wednesday evening. Yeah. So still do that.
I had a commission to do a piece on Tasmania a few months ago, and I went there, and I climbed mountains. And I was the oldest member of the group, I think, and it was exhausting and shattering, and I almost couldn't do it, but I kept going, and it was a great experience. I don't know how many more of those I have in me. Not many, I suspect. But I'll keep playing football, or trying to play football, until I can't play anymore, until I literally the following morning cannot get out of bed. Like this morning was tough, but I had gravity on my side. You just kind of roll over, and eventually you'll come off. You'll come off the end. But yeah, I mean, stiff limbs, sore limbs, everything. But it also reminds me that I'm still alive and I'm still kicking. And I guess that's, you know, that's something. When I can't do it anymore, that will be that will be difficult. So I'm kind of like I'm prolonging the inevitable, as I think all people do. I mean, I'm very, I'm very sanguine about the prospect of life and death, and not a religious person, which either helps or doesn't help, depending on how you look at it.
Yeah, I mean, it's been a wild ride. It's been a great life, an exciting life. So, yeah, we'll see what the rest of life has to offer. But if it's nothing, yeah, I'll have regrets, but I'll also, you know, be able to look back on a pretty an interesting life. Not the not the best life ever. I've never made money. I've never been rich or anything like that, because it hasn't motivated me. I've never been interested in it really, which is just as well, because money is not interested in me at all. We have a terrible relationship. We hate each other, effectively.
What's the meaning of life for you, if you figured it out? The only thing that I would say, and what I, how the way in which I try to lead my life is to be nice, be kind, think about others. Don't always think about yourself, and get your priorities right. Get your values right. What's important to you as a human being from a moral perspective? And also as a values-based perspective, and that will be different to everybody. But there is one thing that I think is irrefutable and incontrovertible, which is you got to be kind to your fellow human beings. You can't be selfish. You've got to be giving. Just be nice. You know, if if I had to sum it up in two words, it would be "be nice." Don't always look to sort of further your own ambitions at the expense of others. Just be empathetic. I know this is all so sort of touchy-feely and sort of new age and god knows what else. But I do believe in that. I think you should try and put yourself in other people's shoes as much as possible. Again, massive cliché, but I try to do that. I try to look at things from other people's perspectives, and also how they would look at me.
And I have, but if I had one piece of life advice that I would give people, it is don't judge people by your own standards, because if you do, you will have a lifetime of misery. And that doesn't mean to say that your values are correct, but it just means that if they're your values, that's what you respect. And if other people don't share them, you can't judge them for that, because that's just it's just too easy, and it alienates you. Don't judge other people by your own standards. And I try to keep to that. I'm not very good at it. I don't think anybody is. It's very hard to do, but that's what I try to do. And when I get angry, because I do have a temper, I try to calm down. I try to look at things from the other person's perspective and I say, "We don't have the same values, so don't judge."