So I really do not like saying "good bye" those who know me well know that I prefer a short good bye and not a long painful one. It is difficult to leave those we love knowing that we are going to be half a world away. With the Internet and skype communication is easier but we still are not seeing our family and friends.
We said good bye to some dear friends this past weekend at a cook out. We are saying good bye to some family this week and next and it is hard to believe that we only have a week and a half left before we get on that plane and say good bye to all we know.
I was watching "The Muppets Take Manhattan" with the boys today and the "Saying Good Bye" song came on I thought it was just perfect for how we are feeling right now in our family. So we are keeping this blog short but including the video of the song for you.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Excuse Me Uncle
The way we address someone is an interesting cultural issue. Think about it, how do you address people? What if they are older than you? What if they have a title like doctor or pastor, what if they are a close family member.
Even in our own society we address people in many different fashions, do the kids call the teacher Mr. or Mrs. or just their name. I have found that amongst our friends and relatives there is a variety of acceptable manners in which people address each other. Some have their kids call adults in general Mr. and Mrs. some just go by first name alone both are acceptable ways to address someone.
In Singapore the society is very hierarchical and much more formal, someone ten years or so younger would never call the person who is older than they by their first name. You would call them Mr. or Mrs. if the person is of Chinese descent then the first syllable of their name is actually their last name like, Lee Mei Young, Lee is the last name not the first name so you could address them as Mr. or Mrs. Lee not Mr. or Mrs. Young.
In Singapore when you are addressing a man who is older than you weather you are a child or an adult you would call the man "uncle" and if it is a woman you would call her "auntie". The example used in our cultural training class is... the boys are taking a cab somewhere, they would say to the cab driver "excuse me uncle I need to go to...." if you are giving up your seat on the MRT for an older woman, you would say "here auntie take this seat"
In our family Aunt and Uncle are terms of endearment. We do not just call some one aunt or uncle unless they are related to us and we are referring to them or addressing them, it is like Grandma and Grandpa, not just anyone gets those titles in front of their names. It means something to say aunt and uncle something much deeper much more intimate than just addressing a stranger.
When we are in Singapore we will be calling older men "uncle" and older women "auntie". This will be very strange for us at first but I trust we will get used to it as we certainly want to be respectful of those whose city we are living in.
Even in our own society we address people in many different fashions, do the kids call the teacher Mr. or Mrs. or just their name. I have found that amongst our friends and relatives there is a variety of acceptable manners in which people address each other. Some have their kids call adults in general Mr. and Mrs. some just go by first name alone both are acceptable ways to address someone.
In Singapore the society is very hierarchical and much more formal, someone ten years or so younger would never call the person who is older than they by their first name. You would call them Mr. or Mrs. if the person is of Chinese descent then the first syllable of their name is actually their last name like, Lee Mei Young, Lee is the last name not the first name so you could address them as Mr. or Mrs. Lee not Mr. or Mrs. Young.
In Singapore when you are addressing a man who is older than you weather you are a child or an adult you would call the man "uncle" and if it is a woman you would call her "auntie". The example used in our cultural training class is... the boys are taking a cab somewhere, they would say to the cab driver "excuse me uncle I need to go to...." if you are giving up your seat on the MRT for an older woman, you would say "here auntie take this seat"
In our family Aunt and Uncle are terms of endearment. We do not just call some one aunt or uncle unless they are related to us and we are referring to them or addressing them, it is like Grandma and Grandpa, not just anyone gets those titles in front of their names. It means something to say aunt and uncle something much deeper much more intimate than just addressing a stranger.
When we are in Singapore we will be calling older men "uncle" and older women "auntie". This will be very strange for us at first but I trust we will get used to it as we certainly want to be respectful of those whose city we are living in.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Hi This Is Caleb
I am mixed about this move. I don't want to blog but Mom says you would be interested in knowing what I have to say. So.... here we go.
I'm looking forward to getting a cell phone and have been doing a lot of research on which one is the best choice for me. There are many factors to consider, a GPS and camera are really important for me. I found a really informational web site that has helped me compare phones and their features. http://www.phonearena.com/ you should check out this site if you are looking for a phone.
I'm not looking forward to leaving my family, friends and dog behind. We are coming back once a year so at least we will be able to see them but a year is a looooooong time. I am hoping to make some friends over there but then it will be hard to leave them when we come back home.
I wonder if Singapore has any kind of skate park, I have been practicing on my scooter and hope to be able to use it in Singapore.
I'm looking forward to getting a cell phone and have been doing a lot of research on which one is the best choice for me. There are many factors to consider, a GPS and camera are really important for me. I found a really informational web site that has helped me compare phones and their features. http://www.phonearena.com/ you should check out this site if you are looking for a phone.
I'm not looking forward to leaving my family, friends and dog behind. We are coming back once a year so at least we will be able to see them but a year is a looooooong time. I am hoping to make some friends over there but then it will be hard to leave them when we come back home.
I wonder if Singapore has any kind of skate park, I have been practicing on my scooter and hope to be able to use it in Singapore.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Culture Training
We had 8 hours worth of cultural training yesterday for our move. The guy who was helping us understand Singapore culture was born in Indonesia, lived in Singapore, moved to Canada, back to Singapore and back to Canada, for a total of 14 years in Singapore. I like that he was not Singaporean by "blood" but yet he definitely felt that Singapore was his country.
Singapore has a very diverse mix of culture on one little Island and understanding how the different cultures think and the things that are important to each culture can really make your time in Singapore easier. Here is one example, it is a good thing to bring a small gift to your host if invited to someones home an example of the gift would be some pears or some oranges. If you are visiting a friend who is Chinese, you should bring and even number of pears as even numbers are considered good luck, if however you are visiting a friend who is from India you should bring an odd number of pears as this is considered good luck. You have to think before you go who am I visiting and what is meaningful to them.
Oh and don't forget the feet are dirty but the head is considered sacred so do not touch the baby or a child on the head! That might be a hard one for me, I am really going to have to be on my game to remember that.
Singapore has a very diverse mix of culture on one little Island and understanding how the different cultures think and the things that are important to each culture can really make your time in Singapore easier. Here is one example, it is a good thing to bring a small gift to your host if invited to someones home an example of the gift would be some pears or some oranges. If you are visiting a friend who is Chinese, you should bring and even number of pears as even numbers are considered good luck, if however you are visiting a friend who is from India you should bring an odd number of pears as this is considered good luck. You have to think before you go who am I visiting and what is meaningful to them.
Oh and don't forget the feet are dirty but the head is considered sacred so do not touch the baby or a child on the head! That might be a hard one for me, I am really going to have to be on my game to remember that.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
On The Truck
I have been getting things together and trying to think things through with the limited space we have.
However, when they came with their big truck everything felt ready and right and so the day began at 8:50 a.m. the truck pulled into our driveway.
They brought all of the packing materials and the sound of packing tape permeated our house for the next four hours. All of the staff was really polite and organized.
Keegan's room went really quick and he was happy to be able to have things like his electric drum set, knife collection, football, scooter and conga drum be able to go in the shipment.
As they were loading the truck we thought man, those three crates look a lot bigger than the back of three SUV's, that is the size we thought we had, the back of three SUV's. Well as it turns out they brought the wrong shipping containers soooo... they agreed to fill two of them up for us. This means we got to bring our patio furniture too, what a blessing since we do have a nice big patio at our new apartment.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Amazing Service Provided
So we are working with an agency called Movers International Group. They have been great and I am surprised at all the different services they are providing for us, things that would be hard for us to do in a new and foreign land, they are taking care of.
Last month Scott and I went to Singapore for a 9 day survey and house hunting trip. We were greeted by Asia Welcome, a company in Singapore hired by the MI Group to look after our needs. The housing agent picked us up, took us around and showed us many different places we could choose to live. The service did not stop there, we filled out some basic paper work and they secured our apartment for us, this took them several weeks to negotiate with the land lady on our behalf. They are getting all of the utilities turned on, and they have arranged for temporary furniture to be placed in the apartment by our arrival.
We have been contacted about what phone and Internet service we want, there is a guy in Singapore right now getting our phones for us in fact I think we will know our cell phone numbers for Singapore before we even leave the U.S. he is also signing us up for Internet and cable, yes, cable, we have NEVER had cable, the boys are very excited about this part of our move. Cable in my opinion is completely necessary in a foreign country otherwise there may be no English TV at all.
The first few days in Singapore the company will come and take us to look at and pick out our "permanent" furniture rental pieces for the apartment. Then they will come and remove the "temporary" furniture and put into place the new stuff.
MI Group has also provided a moving company aspect of this whole deal. We just have to tell them what to pack, a bigger job than it sounds in fact we have been working for weeks on this part of the move, but they pack it in the U.S., fly it to Singapore, get it through customs, get it out of customs, bring it to our apartment, unpack for us and remove all the packing materials from the apartment. Thank you :)
I must say with as much work as we are doing to prepare for this big move for our family I am ever so grateful to be working with a company like MI Group, they are taking a lot of the stress of this move off of our shoulders.
Last month Scott and I went to Singapore for a 9 day survey and house hunting trip. We were greeted by Asia Welcome, a company in Singapore hired by the MI Group to look after our needs. The housing agent picked us up, took us around and showed us many different places we could choose to live. The service did not stop there, we filled out some basic paper work and they secured our apartment for us, this took them several weeks to negotiate with the land lady on our behalf. They are getting all of the utilities turned on, and they have arranged for temporary furniture to be placed in the apartment by our arrival.
We have been contacted about what phone and Internet service we want, there is a guy in Singapore right now getting our phones for us in fact I think we will know our cell phone numbers for Singapore before we even leave the U.S. he is also signing us up for Internet and cable, yes, cable, we have NEVER had cable, the boys are very excited about this part of our move. Cable in my opinion is completely necessary in a foreign country otherwise there may be no English TV at all.
The first few days in Singapore the company will come and take us to look at and pick out our "permanent" furniture rental pieces for the apartment. Then they will come and remove the "temporary" furniture and put into place the new stuff.
MI Group has also provided a moving company aspect of this whole deal. We just have to tell them what to pack, a bigger job than it sounds in fact we have been working for weeks on this part of the move, but they pack it in the U.S., fly it to Singapore, get it through customs, get it out of customs, bring it to our apartment, unpack for us and remove all the packing materials from the apartment. Thank you :)
I must say with as much work as we are doing to prepare for this big move for our family I am ever so grateful to be working with a company like MI Group, they are taking a lot of the stress of this move off of our shoulders.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
It's Piling Up!
It is a delicate balance of what is practicle to bring with and what do we want to purchase when we get there. Scott and I recently bought Kindles from amazon.com and as I was going through our books today I was really glad for the Kindle as we have shelves and shelves of books in this reading family and there is no way we can bring them all with us.
We will be in Singapore for two years. Next week Wed. we have an 8 hour cultural training class for our whole family to attend. I am looking forward to learning and exploring our new city, this class should help us understand a few things. For example from my reading I learned that people in Singapore do not say "I'm Sorry" when they bump into you etc... they do not say it becasue that would indicate that they are indebted to you and they don't want to be indebted to anyone. I will be sure to blog about some of the cultural differences after our class.
Our family is in fast forward right now and each day the impending move is more real. Today the boys closed out their local savings account, we will be opening an international account for them, as we check each thing off our list and as the days to the November 8th departure creep up on us we realize how blessed we truly are to have our family and friends surround us. It is the little things, the phone calls, the stopping by to see how we are doing that really are making a difference in our days.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
The Movers Are Coming!
Well we have about 9 days and the Movers International Group will be here to pack up our shipment container. This is tricky. We only get one container that is about 1250 pounds plus we will get 12 suit cases to take with us. (I think my shoes alone can take up our suit case room, just kidding) but really it is a trick to decide what we are bringing. We have to live for two years so if we don't bring it and we need it, we will buy it, but if we bring it and we don't need it, those items will take up precious space in our shipment.
Our family just spent four days with some friends on a backpacking trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was beautiful and we brought in all the things we needed for those days on our backs. Really you can live very simply. I was not at want for any thing during those four days.
So in 9 days they come, they said they would be here for about 6-8 hours packing our container. We will live with out the stuff we ship out for about a month but we will get our things soon after we arrive in Singapore.
This next week will be very busy with sorting through and organizing the things we think we want to bring with, finishing some major dissection projects with our home schooling and trying to maintain some family time in the midst of it all.
It is never a good time to leave. We have had some developments in one of our families lives this week that may make it very hard for us to leave. Please pray with us that all turns out well and that we will not be leaving at a time when we are needed here.
Our family just spent four days with some friends on a backpacking trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was beautiful and we brought in all the things we needed for those days on our backs. Really you can live very simply. I was not at want for any thing during those four days.
So in 9 days they come, they said they would be here for about 6-8 hours packing our container. We will live with out the stuff we ship out for about a month but we will get our things soon after we arrive in Singapore.
This next week will be very busy with sorting through and organizing the things we think we want to bring with, finishing some major dissection projects with our home schooling and trying to maintain some family time in the midst of it all.
It is never a good time to leave. We have had some developments in one of our families lives this week that may make it very hard for us to leave. Please pray with us that all turns out well and that we will not be leaving at a time when we are needed here.
Monday, October 4, 2010
A Place To Lay Our Heads
Yahoooooo, the land lady signed out tenancy agreement a few days ago and now Rockwell has also signed the agreement. This means we have a place to call home, a place to lay our heads, a place to minister to others while we are in Singapore.
We feel very fortunate to have gotten this place, it is close to a bus stop allowing for easier access to public transportation for the boys and I. It has a pool, how cool is that? There are also tennis courts but honestly do you play tennis in 88 degree weather?? Maybe if you plan to jump right into the pool when done.
We will have to stay in a hotel the first few nights we are in Singapore in order to set up house. You know the essentials like sheets, which we have to buy there because the bed size is different. Speaking of sheets they do not use top sheets over there, so you lay on a sheet but just cover with the blanket. We will be bringing top sheets with us in our shipment.
There is much to think about upon arrival, dishes, toilet paper, food, soap, etc... will all have to be found and purchased in the first few days. Where is the BEST place to buy it? I have no idea but what I do know is we have a place to rest our heads and for that I am very grateful.
We feel very fortunate to have gotten this place, it is close to a bus stop allowing for easier access to public transportation for the boys and I. It has a pool, how cool is that? There are also tennis courts but honestly do you play tennis in 88 degree weather?? Maybe if you plan to jump right into the pool when done.
We will have to stay in a hotel the first few nights we are in Singapore in order to set up house. You know the essentials like sheets, which we have to buy there because the bed size is different. Speaking of sheets they do not use top sheets over there, so you lay on a sheet but just cover with the blanket. We will be bringing top sheets with us in our shipment.
There is much to think about upon arrival, dishes, toilet paper, food, soap, etc... will all have to be found and purchased in the first few days. Where is the BEST place to buy it? I have no idea but what I do know is we have a place to rest our heads and for that I am very grateful.
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