Renunciation of Malaysian Citizenship (Stage 3)

So I returned to the High Commission of Malaysia to submit my documents.

Documents To Be Submitted:

1) Borang K ( Yellow Form) - 2 Sets (duly filled) 

2) Form (MY-RN1) 

3) Letter of Approval from ICA Singapore - Original & 2 photocopies

4) Malaysian I.C / Temporary Malaysian I.C - Original & 2 photocopies

5) Singapore Pink I.C / National Service I.C / Permanent Resident I.C - Original & 2 photocopies

6) Malaysian / Singapore Birth Certificate - Original & 2 photocopies

NOTE: Applicant who was born in Singapore is required to produce:-

i) Borang W (Malaysian Citizenship Certificate) ; OR - Original & 2 photocopies

ii) Pengesahan Taraf (Confirmation of Status) issued by Malaysian National Registration

Department; OR - Original & 2 photocopies

iii) Perakuan Taraf (Certificate of Status) issued by Malaysian Immigration Department

- Original & 2 photocopies

7) Applicant who was born before 31 August 1957, - Original & 2 photocopies

(Malaysian Citizenship Certificate)

8) Singapore Citizenship Certificate & Passport, - Original & 2 photocopies

(If applicable)

9) Malaysian International Passport - Original

10) Three (3) recent passport - size photograph - White Background

Note: i) All photocopies of documents must be in A4 size paper;

ii) Forms to be hand-written or typed. Mistakes to be cancelled neatly. Do not use Tipp-ex;

iii) Original Malaysian birth certificate to be laminated before submission;

iv) To photocopy front and back of Singapore Citizenship Certificate;

v) Applicant who do not have Borang 'W' / Pengesahan Taraf must produce 2

photocopies of parents' documents ie: identity card, birth certificate, citizenship certificate,

passport and marriage certificate

vi) Processing will take three (3) working days

vii) Registration fee SGD 10.00 (cash only)

viii) Additional documents may be required whenever needed

The bolded ones were the ones I had to pay attention to or submit. Do take note of the time for submission and collection:

Submission of application: Monday - Friday: 8.15 am - 11.30 am

Collection : 2.30 pm - 4.00pm

I reached at about 8.30am and this was the queue that greeted me

My younger sister was surprised. She said only 2 or 3 people were there when she went to submit her documents about a year ago. I commented that perhaps Covid makes people think harder about what they want in life.

The lady behind me said that she had been in Singapore for 27 years before she decided to convert. She's married with a 20-year-old daughter and her siblings and parents are living in Malaysia so it took her so long to decide to change. In my heart, I was thinking: ya man, people have valid reasons not to convert. What reason do I have not to convert? None of my family is in Malaysia. Don't know what the fish I have been thinking about! I literally was just born there and have nothing to do with Malaysia at all. I know nuts about Malaysia, its history, its language, its culture and its people. I don't even have Malaysian friends! I am just about the only Malaysian I know besides my own relatives. What identity am I talking about? I don't have a Malaysian identity besides that bit of Malaysian accented Mandarin only when I speak to my own family members. And it's not even half as strong as a native Malaysian. Nobody could tell I am a Malaysian if I don't tell them about it since we learnt to code-switch between Singapore-accent Mandarin and Malaysian-accent Mandarin since young. Yes, all these literally went through my mind after the lady spoke to me.

So I continued to queue till a man at a cart outside the Consular Office asked me to show him my documents. He checked through them, took out the extra copies that were not needed and put my thumbprints on the documents and asked me to return to the queue to get a number.

When I entered the office, I proceeded to get a queue number and waited again. There were about 20 people in front of me.

When my number was displayed on the LCD screen, I went forward to submit my documents and I was asked to wait to make my payment and get the date for collection at another counter. The wait to pay was quite fast, about 10 minutes. I was given a pink collection slip and asked to come back 3 days later.

Collection will be 3 working days later between 2.30 pm and 4.00pm. 

If you are not able to make it, you could write a letter and pass the pink collection slip to your family member to authorise him or her to collect it, or come on another day other than the given date to collect it. There is no need to give your IC or any form of identification to your family member for the collection.

All in all, I spent 2.5 hours (8.30am to 11am) at the High Commission of Malaysia just to submit the documents for the Renunciation. 

Aside from the submission of documents, I actually met the couple I sold my flat to at the embassy! What are the odds of that happening? They were just a number right before me at the counter. I thought they looked like the couple but I dismissed my thought as I didn't think it could be that coincidental. Then when the guy saw me, with my mask on no less, he smiled at me! They were not there to renounce their citizenship. Instead, they were there to register their marriage as Malaysians.

It's as if a message to tell me that everything was 'predestined', that everything happened in its good time. 

I returned 3 working days later at about 3pm to collect a white document ('Application for Renunciation of Malaysian Citizenship (Processing only)') that I had previously filled up for the purpose of showing to ICA that I had submitted my documents for renunciation. It states that I will only be able to collect my original birth cert and other documents 8 months later when the embassy sends me an email to inform me about it. 

There was no waiting this time. I just proceeded to the Consular Office where I had submitted my documents to and the guy at the counter gestured for me to go to him and he exchanged my pink collection slip with the white document.

So my next step to Singapore Citizenship is attending the ICA appointment.

Futile Trip to the High Commission of Malaysia, but not that Futile

The Final Stage includes renouncing my Malaysian citizenship and attending an appointment at ICA after the renunciation.

At the advice of my sisters, I wrote in to High Commission of Malaysia to book an appointment for the renunciation after I completed Stage 2. This is what it replied:

There are no appointment slots available in June 2022.  You may walk in for Consular services (except passport and visa matters) without prior appointment from 1^st July 2022 onwards, Monday - Friday (8.00 am to 11.00 am).

I had heard that the appointment could take months so this piece of news made me a happy woman.

I meticulously prepared all my documents required for the renunciation and went on a school holiday early in the morning.

As I was walking towards the High Commission of Malaysia, I was filled with a sense of melancholy. Well, this is a part of my identity after all. Am I really going to give it up now? Sigh! Yet I know I have to. There is no reason for me to hold on to it anymore. 

As I was walking into the lane leading to the embassy, a steady stream of people holding a set of yellow documents was walking out. I wondered a little what they were there for. Passport-making didn't seem like it.

Guess what?

At the gate of the embassy, I was asked to join a long queue near the guardhouse to get the Borang, which was a piece of yellow document which I had to fill up.

I didn’t think it was too much to ask, until the lady who gave out the Borang told us to return on another day! I was shocked. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was indignant about it. I guess everybody there received the “no need for an appointment. Can just walk in to submit the documents” email. When enquired “what if I can’t make it on this date you have given?”, the lady simply replied, "Then you have to queue up again to get another number for the appointment." 

I persisted,"Can I submit my documents today?"

The lady said,"No. The appointment for today and tomorrow is all full."

With that, she went behind the gate and closed it after her, leaving me standing there feeling like a fool.

So it’s not “no need for appointment” but “have to come to the embassy to get a stupid number for the appointment”!

I was beyond angry within. What backward system is this? And an inaccurate reply too!

Do they think we are like the majority of the population in their country who don't need to work and can jalan jalan anytime they feel like it?

I was literally a picture - no, a playing video - of an super active volcano spilling lava, molten and ashes all inside me! It instantly made me regret not renouncing  my citizenship more than 20 years ago! What was I thinking all these years?!! No bits of the initial melancholy about having to renounce my citizenship was left. 

Still, I had to leave the embassy and come back another day.

Sigh!

Trauma of a Marriage

I woke up troubled and scared.

I had a long dream of myself remarrying my first ex in a haste. In the dream,  I was already remarried to him. It was a nightmare as everything was a replay of my life with William. There was shouting in the dream, endless doing of chores and the empathetic expression on his face. The Hong Kong show from three decades ago '大时代' ('The Greed of Man') was playing on the television in the background. It was so real, so real.

In the dream, I was scared and angry that I was entrapped in the same snare. It could not have been possible! How could I have got myself into the same trap again, and so soon too? What's going on? I was filled with the fear of having to divorce yet again, with the same person too. I literally saw the divorce cert in my mind in the dream.

I woke up with my eyes widened. I checked the time. 5.55am.

I sat up. I was part-relieved, part-scared. I tried to get it out of my head. It's not true. It's not real. I will not let it happen to me again.

But I was still scared.

I went to bathe.

I closed my eyes and buried my face in a towel to calm myself down.

I opened my Facebook and saw a cousin titled an album 'happy family'.

I looked at her pictures with her husband and two sons and wondered in resignation why a marriage comes 'easy' for others yet never for me.

She hashtagged 'everythingwaspreparedbymyman'.

It's a luxury that I would never know. Not even in my dreams would I understand what that means.

I thought of the friend who told me he would not marry to risk giving half his fortune to his ex-wife. 

He's probably right. He would never have to go through the trauma of a marriage.

Journey of My Singapore Citizenship (Stage 2)

My youngest sister, who was the latest family member who applied for the citizenship, told me that her approval did not come even after 1.5 years. She applied via her spouse (which we have quite an opinion about) and her husband went to meet the MP (Member of Parliament) to enquire about the outcome. “After that, things moved very fast.”

So I thought I ought to do the same to expedite the application. I wrote in to the MP at the height of the Covid situation when meeting in person was out of the question. It was 8 months into my application. The reply from ICA was that an application usually takes 1 year to process.

So I waited. When May came this year, I got Coco to go to the Meet-the-People session to enquire about the outcome. This time, my in-principle approval came in during early June in the early hours through my SingPass app.

My elder and third sisters who had converted decades ago told me that they were invited to go to a session for half a day to do a mini tour of Singapore and listen to some talks about Singapore before taking the pledge. Obviously, my experience was not going to be the same. 

I was given 3 online tasks to complete:

1) Singapore Experiential Visit

2) Community Sharing Session

3) E-learning Journey

The first two tasks were completed in a jiffy through watching a video about living in Singapore and its community (including its belief in community projects) and filling up a survey with an open-ended question about why you want to be a citizen and what you appreciate Singapore about.

The third one was indeed an E-learning experience. It requires one to watch a series of videos divided into 7-stage. Each stage consists of about 7 to 10 short videos that last between 2 minutes and 6 minutes. After the video-watching at the end of each stage, there would be an MCQ quiz based on the videos. The passing mark is 8 out of 10. For the first quiz, I thought it must be chicken feed and didn’t take it seriously. I got a 7 and had to retake it! Lol! Subsequently, I paid more attention to the videos so that I could complete the task more quickly. 

For someone who had taught Social Studies, I actually learnt a few new things via the videos although I definitely had fewer things to learn compared with a “new” citizen. The videos are made succinct and use infographics to make the viewing more palatable.

After I submitted the last survey, I waited for the next letter which came a few days after. 

Musing about My Journey to Singapore Citizenship

After close to four decades of being a PR, I have decided to become a citizen.

I do not have any reason to retain my original citizenship anymore. I am the only one in the family who haven’t switched sides. My kids are Singaporeans. It doesn’t sound plausible for me to retire in Malaysia alone in a place I am unfamiliar with, with nobody I know. 

Looking at how Malaysia has degenerated with each generation of politicians (if you can even call them 'politicians') who are just interested in lining their pockets with billions, you feel that Malaysia is a hopeless place. The 20/20 Vision I heard about in 2003 - whatever that means, never came to pass and I have no doubt it ever will. Putting a monkey or a pig up there is anytime better than putting some corrupted people on the seat who are always thinking of how to pocket big money with their cronies. 

The biggest push, or pull, factor is I need to get a place of my own after my divorce.

Sure, I can put Coco as a co-buyer and buy one with her. However, I am just not comfortable using her name. As far as possible, I hope not to implicate her in property ownership at this point in time.

Besides home ownership, I am starting to feel the impact of being a non-citizenship as age catches up with me. There are many real and practical concerns that citizens would not know or feel the impact of. I am not even talking about the right to vote, which has been the salient difference between a citizen and a non-citizen. Something as simple as:

- being able to be the first buyer of a BTO flat

- being able to buy a resale flat in the open market

- being able to qualify for all sorts of grants

- being able to qualify for HLE

- having a 30% discount off the polyclinic medical charges

- getting $9000 for the self-employed Covid grant versus $1200 for PR

- getting GST vouchers, CDC vouchers and whatever vouchers

- some jobs are only available to Singaporeans

All these add up. I am not even talking about school fees for a degree or post-grad programmes.

As I am journeying to become a citizen, I am starting to understand why new citizens, especially Malaysians, could or would vote for the ruling party.

There's just zero benefit to be a Malaysian, as compared to being a Singaporean, if your family members are in Singapore. Zilch. Zee-loh. In fact, we pay to hold onto this useless citizenship. Every five years, we pay to renew our re-entry permit, not to mention the hassle involved if it's expired. And it's super easy to have it expired without you realising it as the date is no longer stamped on your passport. It's an invisible date only available on the ICA website. Well, you can print it out but you tend to keep it so well you forget where you kept it.

So I submitted an online application via the ICA website for the Singapore citizenship in June 2021. 

"I got Covid."

Day One of Chinese New Year.

Due to Covid restrictions, we had discussed the who-goes-where for CNY visitation.

For me, I would visit my fifth sister together with Co and Baby. So did my mother and elder sister.

I went to the columbarium before the visit.

Past noon, I felt fatigued.

I lay down on a mattress my fifth sister put out on the living room floor. Co joined me as she was tired too.

Then the living room air-conditioner got too cold for me.

I retreated to the niece's room where I lay down on her bed and covered myself with a duvet. It was also very cold but my niece insisted that it was very hot.

My kind Second Nephew offered to let me have his bedroom.

So I changed venue and went to his bedroom instead.

Came night, when we got home, Co told me that she was running a temperature and had some flu symptoms. I thought it could be the air-con and did not take heed of what she said. By the next morning, her forehead was burning hot. I was quite sure she had Covid.

I got her to take a panadol and headed out to Guardian Pharmacy and bought three ART test kits, thinking that if either one of us ruined one, there was another one as a back-up.

I decided to do the ART test for myself since I thought it unusual for me to feel fatigued in the middle of the day the previous day, and I was a close contact of Co.

I was half-surprised. No symptom except fatigue.

I immediately woke Co and asked her to do the ART test.

Of course it was positive.

I didn't know what I should do for the next step so I posted the image on my Facebook and captioned it with 'Law of attraction. Everybody has been telling me to be positive.'

Friends advised me to go to the clinic to do PCR for a record, so that I didn't have to take the booster shot. I didn't understand what it meant at that time but I knew I had to go to the clinic and it would only cost $10 for the diagnosis and the medicines.

It sounded straightforward alright, but as it turned out, I went on a wild goose chase before arriving at the right clinic for my diagnosis. 

Clinic 1: 

It was Day Two of CNY. The four clinics within walking distance were closed. I took a bus to the next closest clinic. I almost fainted. The registration queue that remained stoic for ten minutes before it advanced by one step could be mistaken for a $8 million Toto queue! See the tiny red man right at the front? That is the next person in line to enter the clinic to register!

I thought it ridiculous to stand for so long just for registration. I surmised it would take at least two hours before I might see the doctor. I decided to give up and go to the doc the next morning.

Clinic 2:

I was happy that all clinics were open on Day Three of CNY. I walked to the clinic I usually go at the MRT and waited to be registered. After 15 minutes or so, I was called and I told the receptionist that I was "ART positive". She immediately told me they did not do the test for Covid and gave me a piece of paper which stated the two nearby clinics for Covid patients. She said they would have to refer me to one of these clinics for the test anyway.

I was flabbergasted to know that not all clinics accept ART-positive patients when Covid is so rampant now. What happens to the 'We will fight Covid together' spirit?

Clinic 3: 

So I walked over to the two clinics across the road and was stunned to see one of the clinics having a Covid crowd sitting on plastic chairs and standing outside!

Naturally, I chose the other clinic which was comparatively less crowded. The man before me said he was "ART positive". After registration, he went away.

I said the same thing but the lady asked me to take a seat. I was quite happy that I was asked to wait. That would mean the consultation queue was not long, right?

After waiting for a few minutes, and not seeing the doctor calling for the next patient, I decided that I must have been mistaken.

I asked how long I had to wait. I almost fainted for the second time: 2 hours.

I said I would come back and walked home.

Then it suddenly occurred to me I had a clinic just next to my flat.

Clinic 4:

No greater joy was known than when the clinic assistant said they accepted Covid patients and there were only 2 or 3 patients before me!

Dubbed (by me) 'The clinic with the quack', but saved the day for me!

The doc did an ART test for me but did not do a PCR. According to the clinic assistant, PCR is not mandatory for Protocol 2 (with mild symptoms). PCR is only required for people exhibiting distressing symptoms eg. breathlessness (Protocol 1).

My 'first day' of getting the positive ART test result was reset to the day I visited the doctor.

After that, I was asked to stay home for the next 5 days and to do the ART test myself. I would be allowed to return to work if my test showed a negative result.

Symptoms set in

Cough, runny nose and sore throat set in on the second and third day. I gargled with warm water and salt as the sore throat was quite painful. Lozenges were not helping. Each time I used the toilet, I covered the lid before I flushed so that the germs, bacteria and virus do not fly or splatter all over the place. I changed and washed my bedsheet, pillow casings and blanket every other day or as often as I could.

My mother and siblings were worried about me. They bought different types of cleaning agents, hand washing liquid, Redoxon and drink powders supposedly to boost immunity for me. They bought food for me since I could not go out. I cooked porridge with chicken mid-wings for a few meals as I didn't have much appetite. It helped with the slimming for those few days.

I got a little depressed by the fourth day (third day counting from the day of visit to the doctor's) when I saw that my ART test result was still positive, although the line was faint. I didn't do the ART test on the fifth day as my Medical Certificate (MC) indicated that I would still be on medical leave the next day. I figured that even if it's negative, people would be unlikely to allow me to return to work.

On the sixth day (fifth day by the doctor's instruction), my ART test result was finally negative. By then, I was trying very hard to find a faint line at 'T'. I didn't want to rejoice just to be disappointed later. I checked with Co that there was really no line.

However, Co's result was still positive.

By her seventh, or eighth (by the doc's instruction), day, it was still positive. She went out anyway since the MOH directive was such that by the seventh day, a Covid patient was no longer infectious even though the result was positive.

Since I didn't lose my sense of smell or taste and my sore throat came and went away within two or three days, a clinic assistant acquaintance and a doctor friend told me it's likely to be Omnicron.

Aftermath of a positive ART test result

People were wary of me when I told them that my ART test result was positive even when I had got well for one week. My elder sister asked me to wear my mask throughout my visit to her house. My mother would hide in her room throughout my visit or stay a few metres away from me if she had to emerge from the room.

My elder sister would check with me if I had touched this and that in her house. She insisted on me using a different set of utensils and bowl for easy identification. 

Baby avoided me and didn't talk to me during the whole period, probably under the instructions of you-know-who.

I had no idea how I caught the virus. My siblings were sure it was Co who passed it to me after getting it from her friend/s since she was meeting up different friends at different places for meals before that. Co deduced from my faster recovery that I must have caught the virus first.

Covid is everywhere now. Baby's piano tutor got it. Two of my students got it. I got it. Co got it. My elder sister just got it. 

Perhaps when it was new to our system, it was deadly. Now it seems it's not lethal to most people. That being said, my third sister transferred my mother to her place immediately when my elder sister's ART test result turned positive. We didn't want to take chances.

Covid is settling down to be a way of life. We do what we can to keep ourselves safe from the virus. Other than that, I leave it in the hands of God. If God be willing, let me see my loved ones again.

Volunteering Stint

I have always wanted to do some volunteer work.

When I was a teenager, I was actively involved in church activities. My church friends or cell group mates had done street-witnessing (approaching strangers to talk to them about Christ), gave out pamphlets for our church rallies, crusades and different services on the streets and door-to-door in housing estates, helped out with area cleaning, meaning cleaning the church office and rooms and baked cookies to raise funds among others.

It was meaningful, fulfilling and fruitful. Now that I look back, I think the church was right to engage energetic teenagers in lots of activities. 

A churchmate mentioned that she was giving out a pamphlet at a flat when one of the adults who was playing mahjong asked her in Chinese,"Girl, do you get paid doing this?" When she said no, the aunty turned to her mahjong kaki and said,"See? What do kids know about money?"

Although I had been a parent volunteer in Baby's school and joined a friend in her outreach to distribute food to the needy families, I didn't feel that it was out of an altruistic desire. I benefited from the activities in the capacity of a parent.

William would never think that it was a good idea to do work for free. To him, anything that involves work ought to be rewarded monetarily. Incidentally, Dr Ramani, a psychologist who specialises in Narcissist Personality Disorder, mentions in one of her videos that narcissists place a value on everybody around them. They measure everything using money, which is grotesque.

I didn't want to give myself too much pressure or create problems for others I was trying to help, so I decided to pick a seemingly easy job.

I volunteered as an assistant to help seniors redeem CDC vouchers in hard copies.

It was a 4-hour shift from 2pm to 6pm on a weekday. I turned up at the community centre 15 minutes earlier to be briefed on what to do.

I was partnered with a 31-year-old lady who was doing volunteer work for the first time as well. Through the small chat, I realised that I am not the only one who worries about the emotional impact and commitment of volunteering at children's home or old folks' home. I guess people who volunteer are like-minded at this level. 

The job was quite simple and there was a Community Centre staff who supervised the work done so it was not very stressful.

We were to ask the senior or whoever turned up if they wanted the CDC vouchers in paper or digital form. Most of them preferred the paper form.

After checking with them verbally if they had claimed the vouchers before, we would get their IC from them to scan their identification number into the system and key in their address and phone number. After that, we printed the CDC vouchers out and explained that the vouchers came in denominations of $2, $5 and $10. They would cut out the vouchers or QR code and use them accordingly at hawker stalls or coffeeshop stalls that allow the use of these vouchers. After the hawker has scanned the voucher, they should discard them.

I met an ex-colleague who came for the paper vouchers too.

While waiting for people to come in, the ladies talked about their experiences dealing with nasty people. There have been people who lodged police reports or banged tables over similar vouchers. An old uncle came the previous day to redeem the vouchers but realised that the daughter had redeemed them earlier. As each household is only entitled to $100 worth of vouchers, he would not be able to have a new set of vouchers. He said that his daughter and him were not on talking terms although they were living together so there was no way his daughter would share the vouchers with him.

Afterthoughts:

Spending a few hours at the venue gave me some insights on Singaporeans' behaviour and attitude towards these vouchers.

I used to think that most people would not be bothered about these vouchers since it's quite a lot of hassle to claim them or the amounts are too small for the affluent population to bother itself with. What I gleaned from these ladies' conversations was very enlightening. It sounded to me that these vouchers are a big deal to many people. GST vouchers, Singapore Discovery vouchers, Singapore Rediscovery vouchers and the CDC vouchers are often claimed very early and quickly. It made me feel ashamed for thinking the way I thought. $100 CDC vouchers, if properly utilised, are a hundred dollars saved for a year. At that moment, I was inspired to save more for the next year, and be as frugal as I can. 

By joining just one activity makes me realise that volunteers look like they are the giver but actually, the volunteers reap greater, intangible benefits by doing volunteer work. For instance, being inspired to save cannot be taught. It has to be caught. I may have been taught to save when young, but when you are not entirely convinced of the benefits, and saving out of needs, you tend to splurge when you grow tired of saving. After listening to those stories, I suddenly felt that I had not counted my blessings and should start saving properly. This is not something that can be compelled or taught.

I also realised that many of the people I came across soliciting donation of money or items were actually volunteers. I used to think that these people were paid. Now that I know they did those works for free, I have a sense of respect for those people. Time is really a precious resource for people living in Singapore and most people really have the mentality that you must be crazy to want to do something for free.

Just by volunteering for a few hours has enriched my mental well-being and opened my eyes to the common realities. I will try to look out for such volunteering opportunities in future.