A place where I can live, breathe, talk and see

In Singapore, the position of foreign workers amongst the Singaporean society are a bit enigmatic, if not difficult. Singapore needs them, definitely. Since there's no Singaporean who'd like to trim the lovely 3318 hectares expanse of grass of this Garden City, nor laid brick by brick in a construction projects, or take the leaves & garbage out of the water reservoir's canal trap-gate soon after a heavy downpour rain.


It may seems like they were doing a measly job, but without them Singapore wouldn't look as effortlessly squeaky clean and well maintained as it is now. It's the small details that creates vast differences.

And on one sunny and windy day, on my way to the city, I saw a group of dark skinned man wearing red shirt & a safety vest crouching at a vast expanse of a well trimmed grass. That patch of land, was in the middle of nowhere. In Indonesia it would be just an unkempt government land, grow wildly and occupied with God knows what. But here, even the most remote piece of land is apparently, very well kept, thanks to the ever hard working and diligent foreign workers.


And it strikes me, that those guys looked very much like the Oompa Loompa. Physically & philosophically.


Oompa Loompas are the most devoted caretakers of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (from Charlie and the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory, written by Roald Dahl, my favorite writer :) ).

They're the factory worker, the entertainer, the cleaner, the guard, the gardener, the taster; everything! However invisible they are (because of their petite size) there's no doubt that they're the life and blood of Willy Wonka's factory.

And Willy Wonka pays them with nothing but chocolate. Because apparently, the Oompa Loompa worshiped chocolate.

Compared to the situation in our world, where as the only thing that these 'Oompa Loompa' (and the rest of the human kind) ever worshiped, is of course, the greatest God of all - money :)