Inception

Why am I doing this?
Maybe as leverage on myself.
In the longer view; I have been thinking about this for a while. I am planning on moving to Singapore, and everyone in SG blogs...
In the shorter view; my niece said I should.

Okay, here I am; I am 45, I am single (have been for a few years), my career is growing at an astronomical rate - I should be happy, yes?
I'm not. I feel something missing, maybe a lot of things are missing.

You know how it is as an Australian (well you should, and it probably applies to all Anglos).
You focus your life on building your career, you get divorced, your ex gets 70%. That is the legal definition of 'equality' in Australia. Don't think that I am angry, upset maybe, but the division was actually my suggestion and the separation was amicable and we are still good friends and face it, I still love her. As she puts it; "in an exy sort of way". But it doesn't matter how successful a man is, after he has been through a couple of relationships he will be at square one.

But there is a lot more to it than that.

A few years ago, after I found myself single, well, after I spent a year and a half wallowing in sadness over the end of a fourteen year relationship, but found myself earning good money with no ties and no financial obligations, I decided to get a passport and see the world. Maybe in little steps at first. So I have travelled a few times since then and it has been incredibly eye-opening.
(I contemplate putting four excalmation points after that to drive home the statement.)
I swear, the day I came back from my second trip I went to a shopping centre for something and kept feeling something was weird. It took me nearly an hour maybe to figure it out - there were no women around!
In fact there were heaps, most of the people in shopping centres are always women, and this day was no different. But they didn't look like women, they didn't register as women to my subconscious that had been exposed to incredible women for the preceding few weeks.

This was the beginning.

After that I began to notice things more.
You grow up in a country, exposed only to that country's view (propaganda?).
You have to actually get out of it to experience anything else.

I think that I am unhappy with the way Australia is developing.
The ever increasing taxes that are only matched by ever decreasing government services.
The bureaucracy - apathetic is not the word, hostile is better - when you try to launch a business you get outright hostility from the public servants that you have to deal with.
The fact that trains cannot run on time and busses always miss their connections, leaving me with a half hour walk up a hill to get home.
The health system is collapsing, the education system is failing, the growing ethnic violence (a lot of it targeted against Anglos, especially women, but if you complain then you are labelled a 'racist').

There is the (very) high cost of living, rent aside, almost everything seems to be half the price overseas, with lost more choices available. So the reduced money that I have left over after the government takes half in income tax and then half the remainder in other taxes will only buy me half as much anyhow.

And then there is 'big fish, small pond' syndrome.
For the last few years my career has just blossomed. My income has doubled in the last year, and it increased nicely in the couple of years before that, and my rate looks to keep growing, seriously, doubling again over the next year is not impossible.
I have always known that I could get thirty percent more in Melbourne and fifty percent more in Sydney. But the cost of living in either city would increase by more than that, so I never took that route.

But as I said at the beginning of this; I am single, a business professional with a very mobile career focus, I have no ties. So why not explore? Experience the world as more than just a tourist? Actually try living there, see if I like it. And even if I don't want to stay, then surely the experience of living in another country, another culture, for a couple of years will be something that I might always cherish.

So where?

Not an Anglo country because part of this is that I want to experience a different culture.
Maybe not Europe, because methinks that the governments there are much like what I am getting away from.

So Asia.

Where in Asia?

If it was girls that was the main reason for this (as most people seem to assume) then undoubtedly either Thailand or Japan wouldn't it?
But that is only part of this for me.
I want a freer economy, so a lot of people have suggested Hong Kong.
And maybe Taiwan? But although I want to get away from Anglo culture it would be a lot easier if English was still spoken to some degree since I am not yet bilingual.
So I think Singapore.

So far my impression of Singapore is that I love it.
I have enjoyed the time that I have been there, and when coming back from other places to Adelaide I come via Singapore and feel a sense of homecoming when I reach Singapore, not when I reach Adelaide. (I feel a sense of dullness when I reach Adelaide, as most South Australians will have felt.)

Some time ago I decided to apply for a visa to live and work in SG.
My career, contractor/consultant, does not translate well into the options available for work visas though, but the Ministry of Manpower advised me to apply for an EntrePass - the entrepenuer visa for someone starting a business in Singapore, even though my business is just me, contracting or consulting.

So I will chronicle this journey here.