What is perhaps most disheartening, is that whenever one speaks of the brain drain in Singapore, there is never talk of how one reverses the trend, but rather the focus is on importing “foreign talent” instead [...] Is it any wonder then that our disenfranchised, unlamented, and emotionally unanchored diaspora choose to pursue more attractive opportunities abroad?

- mleok, on Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, “We only have ourselves to blame“, March 17 2007, comment #5.

Regretfully, I’ve been extremely busy this month. I’ve been in and out of town at least twice already. Hopefully this explains why I didn’t participate in the discussion in the comments in my previous post about leaking talent.

But just because my discussion stopped there doesn’t mean that that’s the end of it. Despite the interest in this topic (at this time, there are nine trackbacks on tomorrow.sg on this conversation), there really hasn’t been that much interesting that has been written about the topic so far. Some of the comments on this thread are worth noting.

Curiously, there have been quite a few laundry lists of reasons why one would expect people to leave. Lucky Tan, in his characteristic fashion, has such a list.  J D Toh wrote briefly on how emigration offers hope for a better life for future children of Singaporeans. Socrates Reincarnate points out, amongst other things, the economic and technological practicality of cheap air travel.1 The topic of reservist liability has made also several appearances in connection with this topic.

But the best list I’ve seen is from Fox. His first and foremost reason, that literacy English is generally high amongst the post-independence generations, is perhaps the most underappreciated reason for why Singaporeans can do well abroad. Without having direct experience, it is very difficult to understand what it is like to visit, much less live, in a country where few people speak your language, be it Cantonese, Malay or English (for example).

Perhaps my experience as a graduate student in the physical sciences is quite atypical in this respect. In a field used to foreigners with terrible English, I’ve been complimented on more than a few occasions on my perfect command of the language. Initially I was amused and mildly offended at the ignorant insinuation that my English would be anything else, given our many years of schooling in it. Now I am beginning to appreciate how valuable an asset fluent English is in a field where foreigners form the bulk of newly employable talent, and where many of those foreigners stammer as they string a sentence together, or have thick incomprehensible accents.2

The general theme is clear - well-educated3 and/or well-qualified Singaporeans are highly desirable talent in any market around the world. Amongst our highly valued traits are English literacy sans thick incomprehensible accents, our highly honed skills at number-crunching4, our willingness to travel (in the jet-setting sense) and in many cases our pedigrees from reputable institutions. In certain markets such as the United States, lower visa restrictions are also a distinct advantage as compared to the hordes of Indians and Chinese workers waiting patiently in line for their work visas. Everything else is honestly quite insubstantial in comparison to these factors.

Again, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with working abroad. People who argue otherwise from some moral high ground (such as some commenters on this thread) are merely exhibiting a combination of ignorance, envy and snootiness.5 I have my doubts that we can ascribe categorically reasons for why people leave Singapore. Career and freedom of expression are doubtless important, but there are few Singaporeans I know who can claim any single one factor as the sole reason for becoming a quitter.

Postscript

Let’s not fall prey to false modesty here. Many of us reading this article are part of the highly qualified, mobile subset of the population who would have the least problems migrating abroad if we so chose to. For those of us who are, I highly recommend taking a step back and contemplating for a short while on the problems of the needy. This set of photos on Flickr, entitled “1 Room . 1 Love” in particular is very touching. It really puts a lot of things in perspective.

Footnotes
  1. Just think of having to travel to the UK by steamboat, coach class, for several months makes me admire the persistence of those of generations past who did make such trips.↩
  2. The Singlish accent, by the way, is very fast, flat and clipped relative to most accents. Most Singaporeans, however, adjust their speech to be more intelligible reasonably quickly. No doubt there are some who prefer the affectations of an ang moh accent, like a comment on this thread, but speaking English the way we do in Singapore is at best impractical and a hindrance to effective communication.↩
  3. Socrates Reincarnate also rightly mentions that academic credentials are not necessarily a  reliable indicator of true talent. I have sidestepped this issue not because it is irrelevant, but because I think my previous discussions on whether it is indeed possible to construct an objective meritocracy has already covered this quite well, and I haven’t heard any substantial arguments against it.↩
  4. But only in a very few cases, regrettably, can Singaporeans be said to be valued for their analytical logic and critical thinking.↩
  5. I would go so far as to say that in this respect, we’ve inherited more than we might think from the hypocrisy of Victorian morality, viz. our colonial heritage.↩