Disillusionment, Eating Less to Save Money

The car took us all the way from the airport to Balestier.

My first home in Singapore was an apartment on Jln Rajah.

It was a small two-bedroom apartment. Sister Feng and her boyfriend shared one room, while the four of us international students shared the other.

We briefly introduced ourselves to one another.

"My name's Sun Qirui," a tall, skinny guy said first.

He seemed lively and outgoing, always ready to laugh and joke, yet there was a hint of scholarly refinement about him. Beneath his gentle manners, you could sense a warmth and softness. He was quite a character.

"Lu Chang." He had a dark complexion and looked like an earnest kid who did nothing but study. His personality was a little like mine: not much of a talker.

"Du Le," the chubby guy said with a grin.

It was the first time I'd seen someone grin like that while introducing himself, as though he'd just told a hilarious joke.

"Wang Sanhe," I said.

We were all around the same age. Through our conversations, I learned that Sister Feng had helped more than twenty of us get visas this time.

Only the four of us lived in Balestier. The others were scattered across different places.

Our room was tiny, so small that two sets of bunk beds barely fit inside.

The monthly rent for that little room was ten thousand yuan, split four ways.

Classes hadn't started yet, so we spent our days getting used to life in Singapore, figuring out how to get to school, completing enrollment procedures, and so on.

Whenever we had nothing to do, we often went out exploring together.

Lu Chang hardly ever joined us. He said his English was poor and he needed to review it at home before classes started.

So it was just the three of us wandering around.

But the farthest we ever went was the nearby subway station-Toa Payoh MRT.

For one thing, we needed to familiarize ourselves with the route.

For another, we didn't know anywhere else to go.

Singapore was a remarkable place, both highly developed and down-to-earth.

After just a few days of exploring, we realized it was hard to say whether things here were expensive or cheap.

Two Singapore dollars could buy you a meal, or even a piece of clothing.

Of course, a bus ride also cost two dollars.

In other words, the money you spent taking a bus somewhere could buy you a piece of clothing.

Singapore was on the equator, with little variation in temperature throughout the year. There was no spring, summer, autumn, or winter-it was summer all year round.

It was also an island nation, and very humid.

When I first landed in Singapore, it felt as though I'd fallen into a steaming pot of buns. I hardly dared take a full breath.

The water vapor in the air was so hot it almost choked me.

Fortunately, after a few days out and about, my body gradually adjusted to the climate.

Durian was sold everywhere in Singapore. Du Le was so curious that he insisted on buying one and treating Sun Qirui and me to a taste.

That was the first time in my life I'd eaten durian.

"How do you eat it?" I asked.

"Nothing to it. I've seen people just scoop it out and eat it with their hands," Du Le said.

Sun Qirui took him at his word. After prying it open, he pressed down on the flesh and dug in hard...

All five fingers sank into it...

Yellow, soft, sticky, and stinky.

It was painful to look at.

"Why does it look so disgusting?" I asked, frowning.

"Don't be so picky. They say durian's the king of fruits, the most nutritious of them all. Come on, eat!" As Du Le spoke, he reached in and started scooping too.

The three of us fought back our disgust, licked our fingers, and swallowed it down.

Back then, everything seemed new and fascinating. We were genuinely excited for several days, feeling that we'd arrived in a developed country and already broadened our horizons.

But before long, we couldn't stay excited anymore.

The exchange rate was more than five yuan to the Singapore dollar.

That meant ten thousand yuan would only get you a little over a thousand Singapore dollars here-not even two thousand.

Before coming over, I hadn't saved much money myself. The tens of thousands of yuan I'd paid in tuition upfront had all come from my parents.

I'd asked them for another ten thousand yuan for living expenses. After paying the rent and deposit here, then buying necessities like a transit card, a phone card, and a plug adapter, more than half the money in my hands was gone in one fell swoop.

I was too embarrassed to ask my family for more.

Back home, a monthly salary was only a little over two thousand yuan. After everyday expenses, saving ten thousand would take more than a year of scrimping and saving. Yet here, it only exchanged for a little over a thousand Singapore dollars. It barely went anywhere.

As the saying went, with food in reserve, you had no reason to panic.

We'd been hanging around here for half a month, but there was still no word about the well-paid jobs we'd been promised.

We gradually began to panic.

We asked Sister Feng several times, but she kept hemming and hawing, telling us there was no rush and that we should get settled first.

We had to eat every day.

Our money dwindled by the day.

Our anxiety grew by the day.

Finally, after we'd spent ages pleading and pestering her, Sister Feng did at least arrange jobs for us.

"Great, we've got jobs!" Du Le bounced around happily. "Let's have a nice meal tonight to celebrate!"

"Let's wait until we get paid before celebrating." Still feeling uncertain, I gently tried to talk him out of it.

"That works too. Once we have money, we can have an even better meal!" Du Le said happily.

"When I get paid, I'll send some money to my parents first, so they won't worry," Sun Qirui said, looking forward to it.

We spent the whole evening excitedly discussing how we would spend our wages.

The next day.

Du Le and Sun Qirui went to hand out newspapers by the roadside.

Lu Chang and I went to wash dishes at a hot pot restaurant.

We could earn a few hundred Singapore dollars a month.

Forget rent, tuition, or the rosy prospect painted for us before we came of even sending money home.

After deducting the cost of getting to and from work, what remained wasn't even enough for food.

It was time to wake up from the dream. If we didn't, we'd starve to death!

There were only two ways to have more money: earn more or spend less.

But for people like us, who couldn't find a way to make money, spending less became the only option.

We started thinking of every possible way to save.

A bag of white bread cost a little over a dollar. Eaten plain, it could last several meals, saving us a week's worth of breakfast money.

We combined lunch and dinner into one meal, saving the cost of another.

Even then, we couldn't stop the few coins in our pockets from dwindling day by day.