By Elizabeth Zhou Sagor Mohammad and Abu Bakar (pictured above) are Bangladeshi nationals working as construction workers in Singapore. Not their first time here, both work permit holders are seasoned and familiar non-citizens[1] of Singapore with a close and allied network of friends and “family” -- relationships they have forged and accrued over the years.
By Alex Au One afternoon late March 2015, an employer came to Transient Workers Count Too to see if we could help him. "He was almost in tears," said my colleague Russell Heng who devoted more than half an hour lending him a sympathetic ear. He was a contractor with over a hundred workers, but he
By Shona Loong It is a sunny Saturday morning, and I am having a coffee with Jamail—a 32-year old Bangladeshi migrant—in a kopitiam on Veerasamy Road. As we talk, I can sense the uncle at the next table sneaking glances at us. Surely this is a curious sight: there are other Singaporean women and Bangladeshi
By Shona Loong Sandir’s story Standing together in Lembu Park Open Space (the ‘Minimart’), 32-year old Sandir points to a spot on the ground and reminisces. In 2008, on the first of three migration trips to Singapore, the Bangladeshi man was caught for littering here. He professes to remember it clearly: after chewing on some
By Shona Loong It is 7.30pm on a Sunday evening, and I am making my way through the heart of Little India. Although this route is familiar to me, everything looks different. Streets that are normally silent and empty are transformed by the presence of large numbers of migrant men chattering away in Bengali. A
Have you ever seen anyone spit in public? Have you ever done it yourself? That’s what I thought: most of you have seen people spit and some of you have done it yourself. It’s more common among older people, and more common among men than women. I’ve seen many people spit, but I’ve never known
By Alex Au The above photo was taken around 11:30 am at a void deck below a block of flats. It shows packets of lunch on a broken chair. There were roadworks going on nearby and these packets were almost surely lunch for the crew. What's not in the photo was a Town Council cleaner
Headlined Singapore is keeping an eye on its foreign workers, the BBC did a report (14 April 2015) on Tuas View Dormitory, said to be the largest in Singapore, housing 17,000 migrant workers. While showcasing its facilities, it also discusses the surveillance system incorporated into its design and operations. The question of its location, at
By Walter Wadiak As I sit down to do my first interview with a migrant worker, I’m looking for problems. Perhaps a story about an uncompensated injury — I have already seen plenty of these in my few visits here. Maybe I will find a man whose meagre salary has been either underpaid or not
Once in a while an anonymous Singaporean posts something nice about migrant workers. Here, a little tale that first appeared on Singapore Stomp: This is the link to the original.
