Family Support and the Flight Over(seas)

I have been told that behind every man’s success is a woman.  

My wife has certainly been that woman for me. Without her support and encouragement through every chapter of my career and life, I would not be in this position writing these articles.  On many occasions, she was the driving force.   When I had doubts, she provided the positive motivation.  

Imagine the anxiety of moving the family to Singapore, halfway around the world to a new country, and a new lifestyle.  

Once again, adaptation will be required.  Very fortunately, Singapore is a very modern, metropolitan city with English being the primary language.   Singaporeans are predominantly bi-lingual because they speak English as well as their mother tongue which could be Chinese, Malay, Bahasa, or Hindi.   Singapore also boasts an excellent infrastructure for telecommunications, transportation, financial services, and medicine.  Shangri-La Hotel Singapore where I report to work is one of the finest 5-star hotels in the world.

At the time, our two precious daughters were one and half and two months old.   We had four suitcases and two infants to venture 7,000 miles to a whole new world.  Traveling with an infant is full of complexities and challenges.   My wife and I were so very impressed with their behavior on board a very long flight across the Pacific Ocean.   Our trip was uneventful and we had a transit stop in Hong Kong where we stretched our legs.

A driver from the hotel met us at the Paya Lebar airport in Singapore.  He was a polite gentleman, senior in age, and a fatherly figure.   The drive to the hotel was very pleasant on tree-lined streets.   Singapore being in the tropics is warm and people have described it as a place with three temperatures, hot, hotter, and hottest.   Being in the tropics, you can also tell time by the rain.  Every day at 2 pm, it would rain, oftentimes, very heavy.   They called it monsoons.  The rain would last upwards to two hours and then the sun would appear, like clockwork.  

Our driver was friendly and spent most of the 25 minutes on the drive instructing us on how to behave in Singapore.  

At first, I found this odd but then realized that he was helping me to understand the lifestyle in Singapore.   Above all, he was sharing with me the “Dos” and “Don’ts.”  There were many “Don’ts.”  One fascinating anecdote that I remember from him was “Singapore is a FINE country; you get fined for everything.”   The country and its people were well-disciplined; it seemed like a wonderful place to raise a family.   I truly looked forward to life in Singapore and growing my career at the Shangri-La Hotel.