Seeing Home from the Outside
A Reflection on Perspective
I came across a LinkedIn post today about preparing students for global platforms through overseas immersion programmes. One comment caught my eye, which went something like this: "We can only truly know our own country after we've been on the outside looking in."
That hit me because it's exactly what I've been experiencing over the past few years while living in China.
A friend shared something fascinating earlier this week. Her Japanese neighbours recently visited Singapore and went to our National Museum. There, they came across a section about Singapore under Japanese occupation during World War II. They were shocked - it was history they had never learned in Japan's education system. It was through Singapore's perspective that they came to understand a part of their own past.
It reminded me once more: our truths are not the only truths. Sometimes we need other people's stories to fill in our own.
What Distance Reveals
Before moving to China, I believed I knew Singapore well. I thought we were the best — the most efficient and advanced. I ran a wedding planning business and felt comfortable setting client response times at three days. That seemed reasonable, even professional.
Then I started living in China. Here, businesses respond within two hours. Not as a special service, but as standard practice. Suddenly, what I thought was "efficient" looked slow. What I thought was "competitive" looked comfortable.
The gap extended beyond just response times. I began to see how Singapore's support systems - the grants, safety nets, and predictable pathways - had built a form of protection. Not a bad thing, but still protection. We didn't have to compete with the same intensity. We didn't need to innovate out of necessity in the same way.
Living abroad showed me something uncomfortable: I had become entitled without noticing it. Not in a spoiled manner, but in the way that occurs when systems operate so smoothly that you forget how challenging things can be elsewhere.
I had to learn to speak up for myself more. Back home, things usually went smoothly without much effort. Here, I needed to be more assertive about my needs and requests. When you're far from family and friends, you have no choice but to stand up for yourself.
Even my healthcare experience surprised me. Everyone expected horror stories about giving birth in China. Instead, my experience here was much better than in Singapore. The anaesthetist stayed with me throughout the delivery, adjusting medication as needed. In Singapore's private hospital, he left after the initial injection. The level of attention and care I received in China challenged everything I thought I knew about medical standards.
Friends visit us in China with outdated ideas about what they'll find. They expect something less advanced, less sophisticated. After a few days here, their perspectives change completely. Some even realise that in many ways, China has moved ahead of Singapore.
But here's the thing - I couldn't have convinced them of this from a distance. They needed to see it for themselves. Just as I needed to live it to believe it.
The Gentle Truth
The honest truth is this: we all have blind spots about the places and systems we believe we know best. We can't see them from within. Sometimes, we need the Japanese neighbours in Singapore's museum. Sometimes, we must move somewhere else to understand our own country's pace.
Sometimes we need to step outside to really see home.
The question isn't whether our home is good or bad. The question is: are we brave enough to look at it with fresh eyes? And what might we discover about ourselves when we do?