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To live in another land is both gift and education
Shuttling between Singapore and India allows me to learn and take from two diverse worlds.
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To travel between lands is to see them clearer, from inside and beyond, their flaws, charms and peculiarities, says the writer.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: UNSPLASH
A person I’d rather not name, from a nation you don’t need to know, on a blind date both of us should forget, left a fleeting impression on me. In the many years of living in Singapore, she seemed somewhat untouched by the land. As if this city was just a terminal, a safe harbour, a place of utility, and that was all.
I find it strange for people to live in a country different from theirs and not let it affect them. Do they live in enclaves of the familiar, surrounded only by their own? Do they leave a land and carry nothing with them beyond a chipped replica of the Merlion? It seems like time scorned.
