By Sylvia Toh Paik Choo

WE HAVE always had to compete with "foreigners" because we are a country of immigrants. I am an immigrant.

My father and mother left their native Malaya and brought me from my birthplace of Penang to settle in Singapore 60 years ago.

The way we feel now is the result of what we've become, and where we're at.

Today, there is a full-blown Singapore Identity, thanks to all the years of hard work and the joint effort of the Government and the people to upgrade ourselves from third world to first.

This patriotic sense of identity, the pride of achievement of Singaporeans, of Team Singapore have made us forget a basic fact: That the survival of this place depends on having an immigrant population.

Fertility rate. We don't want to reproduce. So others will have to do it for us.

Manpower. We need unskilled labour to do the work we do not want to do. We need skilled labour to meet the demands of the MNCs.

At five million, Singapore has reached a critical mass - a respectable population number in the league of countries like Norway, Ireland, Finland, Denmark. (Finland has Nokia, we have our Creative Technology.)

Rewind your NDP tapes - We Are Singapore, This Is Home et al - and you begin to comprehend why the citizen of Singapore suddenly feels he is being squeezed out. By what he perceives is an equal number of imported people.

"We are Singapore,""We gave up our dialects," "Our parents came from nowhere, but we are first-generation Singapore."

"Why are our trains and malls and food courts and buses jammed with foreigners?!"

By giving vent to our disgruntlement, we miss the point that the DNA of this country is to be at the crossroads of the world, to be cosmopolitan, to be open and welcoming to fresh new talent and ideas and minds.

When Singaporeans voice their annoyance at having to wait for the second and third train, they are actually, metaphorically, saying to the Government, "Why have you abandoned me?"

The other day I had to wait for the fourth train, but I have never felt, in my entire life here, a second-class citizen. (Choy! Touch wood, but hospital first-class ward also quite lonely and frightening lor.)

You could argue that I am from a different era. I started my career in journalism in 1970 (still at it in 2010; some of us don't travel far) when we were at the two-million population mark.

My parents worked with foreigners, expat bosses.

Life for most of us was overcrowded. We were all large families, in homes of one bathroom and two bedrooms. So the overcrowding was indoors (rather than outside, as it is today).

There were so many of us, we had to eat on the run, leisurely meals confined to weekends and festive occasions.

Now I think nothing of sharing a hawker centre table.

We took buses and had to change buses at least once to get to school or office. Now we have the MRT. Do I feel squeezed out? Not really.

Blending and integrating

The immigrant population blends in and integrates very quickly. They become us very fast. They do their job.

Mandarin today and "yes lah, no lah" soon enough. The service staff who speak English provide excellent service. They have introduced us to their foods and cultural quirks.

Instead of viewing the new crowd as a nuisance in your path, look upon them as an opportunity. Aha! What can you sell them? Potential customers and neighbours! And as for overcrowding, what are you thinking? Be smart, not kiasu.

You don't have to go into town (Orchard and Scotts Roads) when you've got your own neighbourhood Central.

And if you must venture into the city, go before and after peak hours. Plenty of elbow room then.

This article was first published in The New Paper.