After more than 2 years of the epidemic, many new immigrants have left Singapore, and many people have gone against the trend, dragging their families and mouths to Singapore, which is already the norm with a daily increase of several thousand, and even a daily increase of 20,000 or 30,000.
A young couple after 85 who came to Singapore with a 4-year-old baby in October 2021 faced such a fierce epidemic when they first arrived, and also encountered a series of "strange things that refreshed the understanding of Singapore".
October 2021
When leaving Chengdu, a group photo of a family of three
What happened to them, did they regret it? Hear their stories!
Text | Be a mother
Edit | Avocado smoothies
Our family of three has arrived in Singapore!
The first Spring Festival in Singapore in 2022
01
The main reason to come to Singapore
It is a job change as a father
At that time, we had just bought a school district house corresponding to a famous school in the high-tech zone, and I began to slowly have more investment in my children's education. After all, I used to be a rather Buddhist mother, and I felt that it was up to him to read it or not.
But as children grow up, it is difficult for parents to restrain the heart of giving the best within their abilities to their children. So my dad saw that there was an internal transfer opportunity in Singapore and asked me for my opinion, and I encouraged him to rush when I thought that Singapore had what was known as the best education in Asia.
Written in Kindergarten in Singapore
And in 2021, Singapore's epidemic control can also be regarded as a model in Asia, with almost no community cases. That made us feel safe.
As a result, when the notice of the transfer came down, Singapore, as a small country, could not blockade for a long time, had changed its epidemic prevention policy, decided to gradually liberalize, and began to increase by about 3,000 cases a day in October when we set off, and then more and more...
It can be said that people are not as good as heaven.
Of course, I was flustered when I set out, Singapore is much smaller than Chengdu, Chengdu has at most a few cases of imports per day, but Singapore is increasing so much.
But the transfer was applied for by our own initiative, and at that time it was already on the string and had to be issued.
02
Whether the epidemic is severe or not
A family of three together is the most important
In October 2021, we set off with great trepidation.
Zuo Zuo Dad has mentioned that he will go first and wait for the epidemic to stabilize, and I will go over again. But I always believe that no matter whether the epidemic is serious or not, the family of three is the most important thing, until the night before the departure, they were still arguing about whether the three people could go or not, and finally they set off together.
The back of a small international student at an empty international airport
In order to ensure safety, I have three chapters of the Law of Engagement:
First, you must wear a mask when you go out;
Second, you must wash your hands before eating;
The third is that if you want to rub your eyes and dig your nostrils outside, you must tell your mother that you must disinfect your hands first (I know that children know the world by touch, that is, they like to touch the east and west, so even if they are afraid of viruses, I did not stop him from touching everywhere, but when touching the eyes, mouth and nose, they must strictly wash their hands. ）
Fortunately, when he was a countryman, he had just turned 4 years old, and he could be reasonable, and sometimes his face was already very itchy, so he would still hold back the itch and let me disinfect his hands first and then scratch them.
In each photo sent back by the kindergarten, the mask was well worn.
The child's understanding and cooperation actually gave me a great sense of security abroad.
Because of the epidemic, we did not dare to bring our elderly parents with us, so now our life is to work as a father, and I take care of the family full-time. This is actually the biggest test for me.
In the past, I was a lazy person at home who didn't help the oil bottle, and I relied on my parents to help the family. When I get here, I wash my clothes, I do the food, I clean the housework, and sometimes I don't understand what my point is. I have read so many books, and my previous domestic career can be regarded as successful, do I do these chores now?
Three meals a day are all done by yourself
But then, by setting short, medium, and long-term goals for myself, starting to apply for master's degree opportunities, and insisting on volunteering, I reluctantly got my rhythm of life back. Now is to wait for the results, to invest more time and cost, and to wait for some of the seeds I have planted to grow.
Maybe not a single grain will germinate, but at least I don't waste time while sowing them down. That's enough. I don't care about the outcome, but I care about whether every day is full or not.
Because I am afraid of failure and not doing one thing, this kind of thing will not happen to me at all, and I have always only worried about doing nothing, and people will be abolished.
The picture on the left is to learn to sail at the yacht school, the picture on the middle is to learn yoga, and the picture on the right is to volunteer in the library.
As a dad is the same, the age anxiety in this side of the workplace is indeed alleviated a lot, for him a 35-year-old IT man, it is the second spring of his career.
It can be said that in Singapore, our family of three has found room for growth and progress, even if the epidemic is current, half a year later, when I wrote this article to review, I still feel that we have no regrets when we come out.
03
Then again, education in Singapore
Is it really the first in Asia? Is it worth it?
When I first came to Singapore, the rental market was tight here, we had been staying in the hotel, and the rented house had to wait for a month before it was vacant, so I found a kindergarten near the hotel to temporarily go to.
In kindergartens in Singapore, my first feeling is that they are international and have small classes.
In the first kindergarten, two teachers (a Chinese teacher and an English teacher) circled around six children, his classmates with different skin colors, some from Australia, some from India, some from Singapore...
But when the work first came, the English foundation was not good, limited to a single word, and even a short sentence could not be said.
If we were going to Europe and the United States, I would be worried that he would be overwhelmed. But in Singapore, it is very good, Singapore implements bilingual teaching, he can not fall behind the roots of his own culture, enhance self-confidence in Chinese classes, and be able to subtly hone in English classes to be more international.
The concentration of the work to learn is good and the willingness to take the initiative
Study, often turn over the exercise book yourself to take the initiative to do
I have always believed that in children's education, stimulation is good. The differentiation stimulus given by the same local background will be small, but the stimulation of different cultures and races will be a valuable asset for children to understand the world.
Of course, I would like to have a more open vision, and language is a necessary tool to explore the world.
However, kindergartens in Singapore are not "rounder"
Eat cold meals in the fridge
After only a short month in the first kindergarten, something happened that left me speechless - the child brought cold food from home to the kindergarten refrigerator, and the teacher gave the child food directly when it was not hot.
In fact, I still can't figure out whether it is a cultural conflict or the negligence of the teacher. For the sake of comfort, I understand the former.
Some of the sisters may remember this: coming to Singapore for an international education! As a result, I ate cold food in the refrigerator the next day after school...
Schematic of a bento box
Fortunately, the frozen rice in the refrigerator has only eaten two or three times, as a boy I have always paid attention to his physical exercise, the body is very strong, did not see any impact. After leaving the hotel and moving into my new home, I switched to a new kindergarten.
It is expensive for foreigners to go to school
At that time, because of the serious epidemic in Singapore, in fact, many families did not send their children to kindergartens, resulting in more empty seats in each kindergarten (usually need to queue), and we as foreigners were lucky enough to rank in a public My First Skool position.
Public in Singapore will of course also be cheaper than private ones. However, that is limited to the nationals, there are various government subsidies, for foreigners is the original price.
I thought about it at the time, our foreign status is not discounted, just add a few hundred new to go to private, plus public school teachers are easy to Singlish (Singaporean English accent), I did not understand very well, and finally chose a private Montessori kindergarten.
Later, it was learned that this private kindergarten had Singaporeans who drove a few kilometers to send children to it. I felt like I had hit the wrong one by mistake.
Every day I send it as a way to school
04
The epidemic is serious,
Why send your child to kindergarten?
After coming to Singapore, I met many moms and learned that some families were worried that their children were not vaccinated (children in Singapore cannot be vaccinated until they are five years old. However, adults have Kexing and Chinese medicine inactivated vaccines to choose from, but children do not. Most kindergarten children are not yet old enough to be vaccinated), and there are not a few children who choose to leave school.
There is a characteristic of kindergartens in Singapore, many schools must also pay tuition fees when they are suspended, otherwise they will not retain their degrees.
Tuition fees of thousands of Singapore dollars per month are actually huge losses. It can be said that parents who make the decision to suspend school have paid a great deal of energy and price. I can't do it myself, so I respect the efforts of such parents.
I never let the work stop. (In February, when the epidemic was at its worst, Singapore did not let schools close, and the choice of sending or not sending babies was entirely up to parents.) ）
It can be said that I am selfish, after all, taking a 4-year-old baby at home is really a tragedy of Fei Ma. But I also feel that education can not stop, the younger the age, the faster you learn, the outside world a little different stimulation, can stimulate a child to grow up quickly.
I don't want to lock him up at home during the goldenest of times.
Even when Singapore's 2022 Spring Festival increased by 10,000 or 20,000 a day, I just decided to pick him up during lunch breaks at noon, avoid taking off my mask at school, and then sending him back to school in the afternoon.
There are risks, but I think there are always things to risk in life.
To be a parent is to raise their children high and raise them again.
05
In addition to that, I would like to talk about Singapore
Kindergarten is a human place
01
First, school hours are relaxed
You can go from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., of course, the study time is only 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but in order to take care of the commute time of dual-career families, the school can accept students at the earliest 7 o'clock and 7 o'clock at the latest, which I think parents in Singapore are too happy.
02
Second, there is no winter or summer vacation
No winter or summer vacations!
To be honest, when I was in China, my biggest headache was the winter and summer vacations, even if it was a holiday, I would send my work to the nursery to continue school, there were too few things I could teach at home, and I did not have the authority of the teacher in his eyes, and he did not necessarily listen to the things he taught, and in the end it was the mother who cried angrily.
According to my observation, the composition is like to go to school, interest classes, one is to have playmates of the same age, the other is that the current education is generally based on the interests of children, the classroom is very interesting, professional things really have to be handed over to professional people to do.
Only on the usual weekends and holidays, you can take your work around. So it was full every weekend.
03
Support study abroad at a young age
If you want to send your child to Singapore for education early, as long as the school has an available place, you can help you apply for your child's student visa and your mother's accompanying visa.
Basically, as long as you can afford this side of life, there is no threshold for studying abroad.
Accompanying mothers is a very common group in Singapore, but I feel that it is still too hard for two people to live apart, and it is best to be a family together.
04
Not as rolled as domestic
How to say it, many people tell me that singapore education does not have a domestic volume, and coming to Singapore is to escape the domestic internal volume of education competition.
But I personally feel that the whole of Asia is actually still relatively literate. In my current personal experience, the volume of the kindergarten stage in Singapore does not cost a mother. Unlike domestic parents, they often have to do kindergarten homework on their behalf.
Writing in Singapore, the teacher basically does not arrange homework for parents to do, every time he comes back from school, he brings the Chinese and English practice books written in school, drawn pictures, finished handicrafts and written mathematical problems. I didn't have to stare at all, and I knew he had learned a lot in school.
Learn math, English and Chinese in school.
05
It's also good when springboarding
Chatting with local parents in Singapore, he told me that although singapore's education is not as domestic as domestic chicken, it is more stressful than in Australia and the like. He was the worst student in his class in middle school, but when he arrived in Australia, he became the first. If his daughter can't leave in Singapore in the future, he will also consider sending it out.
I think it makes sense, after learning English in Singapore, there will be at least one less language barrier in Europe and the United States.
To be a parent is to think long-term for the children.
To be selfish, I don't want my child to have to squeeze the canoe bridge, I want him to have a lot of bridges in front of him, and he has the opportunity to choose which bridge to go on, and he can choose several times.
The experience of studying abroad in Singapore is not exhaustive. For private kindergartens in Singapore, I still have a lot to talk about how to integrate the composition into the English environment.
Wait for the next time to continue to talk with everyone, you are also welcome to leave a message at the end of the article and communicate together.
Author's profile: As a mother, Chuan Meizi, "doing" is not a "homework" work, really not so chicken, but "do not stop, but become a gentleman".