Wednesday 26 August 2009

The journey to find new friends and communities in Singapore

Having been in Singapore for almost two years now, I have joined several meeting groups looking for new environment and searching for friends: local, foreigners and fellow Indonesians. Because I believe life is much more valuable by having new friends and learning new cultures. And here goes the story, the journey to find friends and communities in Singapore (and along the story I'm gonna tell you a bit about each group I encounter or have joined).

The first group I tried joining was a group of Fellow Indonesian Moms in S'pore. It turned out my effort to join to be such a blunder, and the group's communication was limited only to an email mailing list, so it wasn't that worth it. So I continued my journey by searching for a group of mothers or stay at home mom, and I found this group: New Mothers Support group or NMSG. The group mainly consists of expatriates or ang moh (Caucasians or white people in hokkien) and their activities including talks and mom-baby socials in Gymboree and botanical garden. I found joining the group to be helpful because it consists of different nationalities and it's filled with informative sessions. I presume I was the first Indonesian to have joined the group.

After my daughter was big enough to be left at home with my helper, I decided to pursue my passions for writing. The journey started by taking a course in Feature Writing by NUS Ex. The teacher was nice and the class itself was fascinating. The class was filled with Mainland Chinese, some Singaporeans and two Indonesian students, including me. Realizing I need to have more discussion to sharpen my creativity skills (blah!), I joined a group called "Singapore Writers Meetup Group". Don't get me wrong, although it's called a 'writers' group, it's largely consists of writers wannabe or aspiring writers, including me, hi hi. During the group weekly meeting the attendants discuss about their writing process or do several writing exercises. Due to scheduling conflicts I have only able to attend one meeting, but I look forward to join the fruitful upcoming meetings!

And my journey continues. The latest group I joined is the Friends of Museum. It has several discussions cum study groups and it provides a course for becoming a valid Museum Docents in several Singapore Museums; the peranakan museum, the national museum of Singapore, the Asian civilisation museum and the Singapore art museum. So cool! I plan to join the course for peranakan museum but I need to hold back due to again, scheduling conflict (blah). And like an official course, it has a specific curriculum, some reading list and materials, a thesis (research paper) and a final presentation in front of a Panel. Whoa! Like NMSG, it's largely consists of expatriates and, like before, I have the feeling I'm the first Indonesian to have joined.

I still plan to join this group called Primetime, a group of working and professional women. I haven't joined just yet, so I still cannot give info on this one. I'd like to join the group though, if I got 'the' job *fingers crossed*.

My journey to find more groups or communities to cure my culture–thirst pangs still continues. I do wonder though, if I could find a group of 'Singapore-window-shopping' lovers, or better yet, 'singapore-discount & bargain-shopping' group. Let me know if you heard about them.

2 comments:

Hui2 said...

Hi turike! Hui2 from http://tanhui2.blogger.com here. Glad to see you're taking an active role in enjoying Singapore, quite unlike me when I was living in KL, I must admit.
Hope you would find a group you like & make lots of friends in your stay here!

TURIKE said...

Thanks for stopping by Hui and thank u also for the wishes... Singapore offers so many opportunities and I'm enjoying my stay here. Take care to you and baby Sam :)