New summarises my whole experience in 2010. I thought of other words such as Change, Learning or Drama to describe it but feel New is just right. Indeed, 2010 has been a brand new year for me.

LONDON
My husband and I moved from our little paradise Singapore to The Big Smoke London in January 2010. Though I was a tourist in London for four days five years ago, I assumed living in London would be quite a different, new experience. I was both anxious and excited when I first arrived in London on 3rd January 2010. I wondered where, how and what our home would look like – would there be a private swimming pool and a Jacuzzi like our Waterina condominium in Singapore? I wondered how long it would take me to find a job – 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or even longer? I wondered if I would love London as much as Singapore and Hong Kong and even fall in love with the English weather? Thousands of questions sprang to my mind upon my arrival.

Now at the beginning of 2011, I know almost all the answers. After intensive flat hunting for eight months, we finally found our home in the North West of London and immensely love it. I found a job six weeks after I landed here and quitted it exactly after six weeks. It’s like a joke, a bad joke. I’d say with both luck and persistence, I found another job at salt PR quite quickly after my first job and am definitely enjoying it.

And for the question if I would love London, I would say ‘Yes’ to a large extent. London is unique. It’s a city but it’s not the same as other cosmopolitan cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney or Paris. London is most diversified in terms of people, culture, opportunities, activities and lifestyles. There are endless opportunities and choices for everything in London. For example, you can choose to live in a village-like environment which is just 30 minutes away from the city centre. During weekends, you can go to a park and spend the whole day sunbathing (if there is sun) and picnicking, visit a new exhibition (there are consistently new exhibitions in different galleries and museums), watch a nice musical in a theatre (you can get as much as 50% discount if you book the tickets on the same day), or have a nice dim sum Sunday brunch (I still need to eat Asian food regularly). There are so many things to do in London that we never feel bored.

However, I must confess that there are a few things that make me almost dislike London and want to move back to Singapore! First thing is the extremely unreliable transport system. Often trains here just deter in the middle of the journey without any reasons given or the entire train lines are closed during weekends. You need to be extremely flexible with transportation. You need to react fast and know immediately all possible alternative routes to your destination. It’s not fun when you’re in hurry to work. Not at all.

What I also don’t like about London is the absolutely inefficient public services, especially the UK Home Office. To get a visa, you need to wait for easily six months or even up to a year (no kidding) to get things done. They keep your passport during this time and you’re then totally stuck in the country. I am absolutely addicted to travelling and I just can’t survive without my passport. For one time I almost cancelled my Paris holidays because of this.

The last thing I don’t like about London is the ridiculously heavy income tax. Until now, I am still surprised by the low income level in London (maybe just for the PR industry?), and yet things cost at least double in London and the income tax rate is as high as 40% vs 8% in Singapore/HK. If I lived in London by myself, I would have never been able to meet my daily expenses and would not have chosen to live in this expensive city – unless I dramatically downgraded my living standard. This is the trade-off.

Overall, I am happy and grateful for the opportunity to work, live and play in London. I know this opportunity didn’t come easy. I know London will play an important role in my life. What I have encountered in London will shape my points of views and life.

“Tough times don’t last but tough people do.”


WEATHER
I am going to be very English and talk about the central topic of all English conversations – The Weather. Life changes with the weather. You do different things and feel differently with the weather change. More importantly, any English conversations must begin with the weather, as pointed out by Kate Fox, the author of “Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour” (a must-read book for all the foreigners in the UK).

English people are obsessed with the weather-speak not because they really care about it (though it does matter to daily activities) but it’s probably the easiest way to break the ice when addressing to strangers or even at business meetings. And remember, you never argue with what other people comment about the weather. That’s how you make the very first connection with that person. I guess it’s almost like how Chinese people greet people. Often we ask people “Have you eaten rice?” when we meet people but we don’t really want to know if they have actually eaten rice.

But I do quite enjoy the weather in England, surprisingly! Now I know what and how four distinctive seasons are like.

• In spring, it’s delightful and hopeful. It represents the beginning of the year, full of new energy and life.
• In summer, the daytime is admirably long, from 5:30am to 10pm. People are generally merrier, enjoying themselves in the pubs after work or being half-naked in the parks.
• In autumn, I thought it’d be very grey and depressing but it’s not entirely true. I like the autumn colours. The leaves turn reddish and the sky is charming, mixed with all kinds of colours.
• In winter, snowflakes may fall down from the sky at any time, and you feel warm and cozy with a cup of hot tea or Mocha in your hands when it’s freezing cold outside.

Just because of the weather change, you experience different things and do different things. It could be miserable. It could be enjoyable. It could be delightful.

The only drawback of having cold weather most of the time throughout the year is that I can’t swim everyday! The cold weather does discourage me to suffer from the relatively cold water in the public pool (though heated) and therefore I do much less exercise in London compared to Singapore. Well, people told me that I should try skiing instead which perhaps will be my 2011 goal.

Britons spend an average of six months of their lives talking about the weather.
(source: a Lloyd TSB survey in May 2010)


WORK
I want to talk about the working cultures in England.

I do find English people are largely fair, respectful and opinion-led based on my one-year work experience with two different public relations (PR) agencies in London. People seem to be very expressive and use flowery terms in their daily conversations, e.g. everything seems to be ‘lovely’, ‘amazing’ or ‘fxxking brilliant’. This is something that I am adapting to and hope not to sound too blunt without losing my own characters or myself (i.e. I mean what I say). Having said that, I think I said the words ‘amazing’, ‘excellent’ and ‘brilliant’ 1,000 times more than what I had said in the past. People surrounding you do have an impact on you.

In terms of working hours, I like the flexibility here. People arrive at office between 8am and 10am and finish work between 5pm and 7pm or 8pm at most. If needed we may leave office early (say 4:30pm on Friday to catch a plane at 8pm) and work from home, though of course we can’t do it all the time and still work very, very hard. I heard of terrible stories in HK where clients call you at ridiculous hours like midnight and my urgent advice to HK employers is: don’t take things for granted. Be human.

I do find the PR industry in London is more advanced than that in Asia. Largely, the principles are the same everywhere but I feel the standard does seem to be higher in London probably because of more fierce competition among companies and talents as well as the tougher economic climate. That’s why recruitment agencies here are highly professional.

My current agency seems to have an even higher standard than our peers. I reckon it’s because we do lots of global strategic work for our clients, e.g. Unilever and Manpower, and therefore we must be able to provide the highest possible level of strategic advice to our clients as well as the country-level brand managers and local PR agencies across the world.

I am especially impressed by the fact that our company has co-created a new set of behavioural framework with an external HR expert to improve the quality of people in the company. I am unaware of any other PR agencies have invested on this kind of HR resources but in any case, this evidently shows how forward-thinking and people-focused this company is. Indeed, people are the assets of any organisation and it’s so right to invest on people.

One last thing about the working culture in London, I have to say people love cuppas (i.e. a cup of tea) and love serving cuppas to others. Drinking tea is such a strong culture at office and outside office. As for lunch, there is no such thing as proper lunch. People normally take their lunch quickly at their desk or within the office premises. Only on special occasions or happy Fridays, people go out to eat together in a restaurant or a pub. This is of course very different from Asia where people do take an hour for lunch every single day despite their very busy schedules.

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”


ENGLISHNESS
I must confess that I am still learning hard about Englishness and will continue to be amazed and surprised by Englishness.

There are a few things about English people or Englishness that I have observed over the past year. First, it’s about the pub culture. The pubs I have been in London this year are definitely more than all the pubs I had been in Asia over the past 27 years. Pubs dominate English life. People like going to pubs after work and during weekends (for meals too). In pubs, there seem to have no hierarchy and you can talk freely with your bosses (at least you feel ‘equal’). Honestly, I still don’t enjoy drinking especially when English people like drinking without eating, which is unbearable for me as I will simply get drunk immediately without eating anything. I can go to pubs with colleagues and friends when I need to but still prefer to have good times over a nice meal. Perhaps it’s also because I am still very, very poor in English jokes and topics and that’s why I don’t find going to pubs very enjoyable.

English people say: “You are what you drink.”

Speaking about English jokes, I think it’s the toughest thing for me to ever master or even just to understand them. Like what the author Kate Ford said, English people tell jokes in their daily conversations without even realising it or making a minimal effort. It’s inborn. Sometimes I just couldn’t get it and find it all confusing and not funny.

If I can ever stereotype English people, I would say (no offence): they are hugely diplomatic. It seems they always try to avoid direct conflicts or disagreements and yet admire controversy and practise hypocrisy (i.e. self-deception in English context). Sometimes it’s arduous to tell if they are really meaning what they are saying. It’s hard to read their faces (to me). They are fair or equal.

At workplace, performance is fairly judged by ability, not by your background, age or nationality. They are also appreciative. I do feel they often look at things positively or at least talk about the positive sides of things rather than the negative sides and constantly express appreciation or gratitude for anything. Lastly, I found Brits are generally extremely articulate and they all seem to possess unbelievably strong story-telling skills. They can tell a tiny thing for good 20 minutes or longer.

In general, English people love gardening, tea, barbeque, drinking, gossiping (sometimes too much), flirting, good taste, cycling, football, cricket, jogging, fish and chips, pudding and most recently the TV programme X Factor (which I have no clues) – as opposed to movies, shopping, dining out, dim sum-ing, working too hard and hiking in Hong Kong.

“If we keep doing what we have always done, we will get what we have always gotten.”

IDENTITY
When people ask me where I am from, I always end up a long reply:

So that’s how a simple question about “Where are you from?” could turn out to be a long story. Sometimes I asked myself: Who am I? I do feel I am quite clear on it. In fact, I have the desire to protect and preserve my identity and feel obliged to live up my identity – especially when I am living in a foreign place. I do feel while integrating into the society is so important, it’s equally important to keep my own virtues and heritage which have shaped who I am today. To me, keeping my own identity is about building trustworthy relationship and being helpful, grateful and respectful.

Regardless of the external environment, it’s of utmost significance to remember who you are, what you value, what you want to do with your own life and do it well – otherwise it’s merely dishonest or fake. It’s equally vital to reflect what have been achieved well and what could have been done better and that’s exactly why I am writing this article.

Now I’ve learnt: only if you believe, you will get there.

Life follows you.