Being Thankful

Today in dance class we had a guest hip-hop teacher who was very good and I liked her a lot. Halfway through the class a girl started stretching out her shoulders and moaning about how "hip hop is so tiring". For whatever reason, this made me stop and think. I've heard complaints before, and I certainly complain about being sore as much as the next dancer. But when complaints at SAS go from sore shoulders from a guest teacher's class to that there aren't enough European Interim Trips, I can't help but start to wonder if we expats really having anything to complain about. There are the aches, pains, and blisters the size of 10 cent coins in dance that are all painful, and understandably painful. But interim trips? And that the cake sold in school is twice the price of a bakery's cake? What about how Facebook loads really slowly in school on the laptops our parents bought us for learning?

There are difficult aspects of being an expat. It's hard to figure out a new culture, where exactly you are on Orchard road, and making new friends. It's hard to have parents travel (though I'm pretty used to it) to places you can't even say or find on a map. Broken families are relatively common, moving is often frequent, loneliness is a constant state. And I understand that to the best of my ability.

What I don't understand are the spoiled kids that have forgotten the good fortune that has brought them to Singapore, or China, or where ever in this world they've lived. Singapore is a beautiful country and to be a live-in guest of the country is a privilege. It is not a right to be able to get bubble tea whenever you want, be surrounded by sky-scraper malls, and experience a mixture of cultures just by walking down the street. So even though I can't tell them this, I do hope someday they realise how good they have it now and that it doesn't really matter where you go on interim, from Japan to Thailand to London. We expat kids are so fortunate and I feel thankful every day to be here. I wish they were, too.

Here's a picture of me and my friends using a Japanese photo booth. It's a bit random, but whatever