Living in the cultural hotspot- Singapore

“A place is only as good as the people you know in it. It’s the people that make the place.” (Lore)

I was send to Singapore by my Company- the Swiss postal services- to have a peak into the E-Commerce market in the southeast Asian market. Therefore, I was presented the opportunity to experience how life would be in a place where the cultures mix as though they were put together into a blender. This unique situation puts people into the position to meet people from all over the world and gain perspective about various cultures.

This mix of cultures makes friendships in Singapore quite different from a more monolithic culture but also a learning experience on how to communicate across cultures. The cultural subtext that everyone carries to Singapore exposed us to different mindsets on way of thinking, which I personally would not have had to that extent in Switzerland.

The quote in the beginning was the accompanying theme for me. It is nice to live in such a place, but the people made it an very memorable experience.

This picture is from a Meetup called Mundo Lingo, where we all met. It is a language exchange group and the flags represent the languages a person is able to speak. Evidently everyone in this picture is really interested in learning about different cultures, which is a base we all built our friendship upon.

We all shared our cultures with each other, be it from party games of different countries, our foods, our discussions about politics and work ethics. Naturally we had small conflicts due to our different backgrounds and viewpoints in political matter, but in the end what united us, was our common goal to learn about different cultures and have a good time.

I can honestly say that living in Singapore has been one of the greatest experiences of mine, and I would like to thank all the people I encountered on the way, who all had a part of making it very worthwhile. For me there is 2 ways to handle being exposed to different cultures: either one can block it away and live in a bubble of one’s own culture and one can embrace it and learn from it and eventually grow as a person. I am glad that I chose the second option and I am really glad that I chose the second option and am really thankful to have encountered people that also did the same.