I have settled in Singapore for quite a few weeks. Below are some of my observations to this country although I didn’t go out a lot due to tight work. So far so good.

Positive

1)         Efficient/friendly government and no corruptions, compared to china.

2)         Easy to come and get PR or citizenship, compared to US/CA/UK etc. Once you get this, you have much bigger freedom to travel around the world. Moreover, you can easily bring your parents to Singapore too.

3)         Income normally higher than China, and normally can match HK, in some cases can match US/CA/UK.

4)         No need to pay tips ever.

5)         No one child policy. You can even have some tax allowance if you have more kids.

6)         Low tax rate, even lower if you have more kids or if you are PR/citizenship. Most people pay less than 10% of annual income as tax. Each year you pay tax for previous year so I don't need pay any tax this year.

7)         Better social welfare. There is a CPF fund for PR/citizen, which is for pension, housing, and medical stuff. It's tax deductible contribution and employer also pay its part. China learned it from Singapore but in a less efficient/friendly way.

8)         Housing here is not expensive and similar level as Shanghai/Beijing but with higher income. Most people here bought HDB flats, which is developed by the government so cheaper. You can apply mortgage from CPF fund, whose interest rate is as low as 2% now. Right now government also offers some allowance to buy flats, say, pay you $40k if you buy HDB flats during this recession time. It is better and cheaper than HK, no matter whether you buy or rent an apt. Government will help those who need help.

9)         Food here is cheaper, although not the same taste as what we ate in China. There are many food courts around so very convenient to have some food. Normally it is around $3-8 per person.

10)      Stronger tie to Chinese culture and influence. Here most people speak Chinese though official language is English. Meanwhile no time zone difference from China.

11)      School system is very good. Not very expensive.

12)      Natural environment is great, better than Malaysia, China, and Thailand etc.

13)      Taxi is cheaper. Most of time, only less than $10, given the small country. Public transportation is very convenient. Traffic is tolerable, compared to Beijing, Shanghai, HK, or even Kuala Lumpur.

14)      Shopping is ok but I have no time to explorer this out. Supermarkets are easy to access throughout the country.

15)      Sports facilities are easy to find and price is within reasonable level.

16)      A lot of parks, zoos, coffee shops or pubs to sightseeing or resting.

17)      Banks are reasonable in terms of accessibility, interest or even loans. They are more service oriented and offer more competitive products, unlike the banks in China.

18)      Few crimes and people well behave.

19)      No big natural catastrophic hazards in this country such as earthquakes, storms, typhoons, droughts, floods, blizzards, snowstorms, sandstorms, or tornadoes etc. The only hazard here is lightning.

20)      No scandals about food poison, drugs, milk formula, cosmetics, air/water pollution etc. Of course if something goes wrong, government will take actions on it and should fix it soon.

21)      In office, people are more straightforward, honest and professional. They all speak good English, not as scary as Singlish I have heard of. Maybe it's because better education than normal people you see in the street. From my observation they are easier to cooperate and less office political fights. They are willing to help within their job responsibilities.

Negative

1)         Less friends so sometimes get bored, which is common if live abroad. Even so, here it's easier to set up your own network if you like to.

2)         Too many rules around so the joke is that you don't need discipline your kids because the government will do it for you.

3)         The names of some places or people are hard to read, either Malaysian, Cantonese, Fujianese or Indian.

4)         Always summer and rains a lot. Good or bad.

5)         More crowded in CBD than most of US/UK/CA areas, but much less than HK/Beijing/Shanghai etc.

6)         Not many places for sightseeing given the small island. (but you can travel abroad very easily such as China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, HK, Korea, Taiwan etc.)

7)         Beer and cigarettes are very expense, beer around $2.5 per can and cigarette around $10 per pack.

8)         Need to have a license to buy a car. This license is around $30k-50k alone, to scare away some buyers and control the traffic. Also you need drive on the left, different from China.

9)         Small economy so very dependent to exports/imports. Market is less fast growing than China so less jobs and less career advancement speed in terms of positions and compensation.