Singaporeans are romanticizing every country except their own. And it's the dumbest trade in the world. You're trading the best functioning city on earth for a Netflix version of America that doesn't exist. I'm Singaporean. I grew up in Singapore and now live in San Francisco for @ADPList. And my friends who moved to London, Melbourne, NYC. I love them, but here's what's actually happening over there. SF's single bedroom will cost $4k a month. Melbourne is great if you like waiting forty minutes for a tram that's late. NYC is a hundred dollars before you've even left the apartment. Meanwhile in SG, you tap on the MRT. The next train is in two minutes. You eat a Michelin meal for $6 at a hawker. You walk home at 2am and it's safer than most cities at noon. Healthcare works. The government replies to your email. And here's what nobody wants to say out loud. The reason Singaporeans romanticize abroad isn't because abroad is better. It's because Singapore works so well that we forgot to be impressed by it. We confused "boring" with "functioning." We thought sterile meant soulless. But every country I've been to would kill to have what Singapore made normal. You don't need to move to SF/NYC to feel alive. Go to Geylang at midnight. Take the bumboat to Pulau Ubin. Eat at a kopitiam down your HDB. You're romanticizing the wrong country. It's the one you're in.