Singapore Expats

Hey all

So my soon-to-be-wife and I just made the decision to move to Singapore. She's Chinese from KL and I am a Kiwi.

Stumbled across this site and I can see i'm going to be asking a bunch of (dumb) questions and trawling through all the great info on this site, but thought i'd say hello to anyone who may be interested.

Will have to do all the basic things like find a job and somewhere to live.
Particularly interested in what the job market is like at the moment. I have a Post-Grad in Management from Vic Uni here in NZ and am contracting/consulting at the moment (so i'm aware i'm probably going to have to take a massive pay cut to come) and am a qualified Project Manager with particular experience in Finance. I'll start getting my CV out to all the agencies etc when i arrive (there seems little point beforehand by the sounds of it)

Also - hugely keen on music. Whats the Drum and Bass scene like in Singapore? anyone? don't mind a bit of dubstep (proper stuff), breaks etc if push comes to shove. Singapore better have some of this otherwise i'll have to tell the wife the move is off!

There's one club that occasionally plays drum n bass, but that's it, most people here won't even know what it is. My weekly fix of dnb comes from listening to fabio and grooverider on bbc iplayer.

For the other stuff, yeah just read plenty of threads and you'll get an idea of how the land lays. If you have plenty of experience as a financial project manager then I don't think you'll have a big problem finding a job here (those kind of jobs tend to be dominated by foreigners as the locals generally aren't able to do it), and I'm one of the few who thinks it's not that hard to get a job from abroad before you arrive if you get your CV out there and check on the usual job boars such as monster, jobsdb, efinancialcareers, jobserve etc... (I've done it twice, both HK and here)

JayCee wrote:There's one club that occasionally plays drum n bass, but that's it, most people here won't even know what it is. My weekly fix of dnb comes from listening to fabio and grooverider on bbc iplayer.

I am disappoint at this .. I'm hoping i'll be able to replace my equipment when i come - seems a bit ridiculous to lug turntables over there - is there a major music equipment chain that I can check ahead on?

Cheers for the advice on jobs.. a lot of the recruiters i am in contact with here in NZ seem to have SE Asia offices and there seems to be no lack of expat sites to go through so i might just have to throw my CV out there as you say

Good luck on this but right now Singapore is a dodgy market to enter.

Mainly because the government is clamping down on foreigners trying to enter the market, mainly there is a lot of pushback from the locals.

You also have the issue of getting your employment pass approved.
Once you have a job offer the company has to prove to the govt. that they need to hire a foreigner and that they cannot find a local to do the job....

So if you have some strategic skills that are required by a MNC or a company hiring lot of locals then you have a good chance.

Generic Project Management skills are too many in the market now so try position yourself uniquely and do not bank on the PM role.

FaeLLe wrote:Generic Project Management skills are too many in the market now so try position yourself uniquely and do not bank on the PM role.

Sweet - cheers for the info! i'm probably underselling myself on a bunch of fronts here.. but yeah i think i'll check it out from here before i come over. i'm not after some cruisy expat package or expecting big money - we are still young and we're coming for the experience of living in a different place!

JayCee wrote:There's one club that occasionally plays drum n bass, but that's it, most people here won't even know what it is. My weekly fix of dnb comes from listening to fabio and grooverider on bbc iplayer

Seen groovrider a couple of times in a club in Stoke-on-Trent.
Much prefer the Carl cox sounds.
They were the days.

Home Club by the river (Clarke Quay/Boat Quay) sometimes does some good D&B nights. There is also Blu Jazz cafe on Ophir road in the Arab Quarter (near Beach Road) which does D&B on some friday and weekend nights...

JonOfArimathea wrote:Home Club by the river (Clarke Quay/Boat Quay) sometimes does some good D&B nights. There is also Blu Jazz cafe on Ophir road in the Arab Quarter (near Beach Road) which does D&B on some friday and weekend nights...

Blu Jazz does dnb does it? I will have to check that out, not been there in ages

longstebe wrote:

JayCee wrote:There's one club that occasionally plays drum n bass, but that's it, most people here won't even know what it is. My weekly fix of dnb comes from listening to fabio and grooverider on bbc iplayer

Seen groovrider a couple of times in a club in Stoke-on-Trent.
Much prefer the Carl cox sounds.
They were the days.

Yeah, stoke on trent isn't exactly the dnb heartlands. I used to go to Sankeys in Manchester back in the day and some of the dnb nights they had on then were storming. Stoke's always been more about house and trance, Golden started there etc....

Never seen Carl Cox live, nothing against just was never prepared to queue for 2 hours to get in

JayCee wrote:

longstebe wrote:

JayCee wrote:There's one club that occasionally plays drum n bass, but that's it, most people here won't even know what it is. My weekly fix of dnb comes from listening to fabio and grooverider on bbc iplayer

Seen groovrider a couple of times in a club in Stoke-on-Trent.
Much prefer the Carl cox sounds.
They were the days.

Yeah, stoke on trent isn't exactly the dnb heartlands. I used to go to Sankeys in Manchester back in the day and some of the dnb nights they had on then were storming. Stoke's always been more about house and trance, Golden started there etc....

Never seen Carl Cox live, nothing against just was never prepared to queue for 2 hours to get in

I used to hit Passion at Coalville back in my Uni days........and when we really felt like pushing the boat out we used to do a trip to Derby to Progress. I bet we looked like a bunch of student tw*ts given that the usual dress code involved wearing some sort of kitchen utensil on your head.

Quadrant park came a little to early for me being about 15 or 16 at the time so Wigan pier it was. Club Kinetic in stoke became our stomping ground though, like you say Billy the dress code was madness back then.

JonOfArimathea wrote:Home Club by the river (Clarke Quay/Boat Quay) sometimes does some good D&B nights. There is also Blu Jazz cafe on Ophir road in the Arab Quarter (near Beach Road) which does D&B on some friday and weekend nights...

Good info - cheers very much! Keen to meet like minded individuals over there or even find a shady little club somewhere that will let me take over the decks on one of their quieter nights

cognizant wrote: I'm hoping i'll be able to replace my equipment when i come - seems a bit ridiculous to lug turntables over there - is there a major music equipment chain that I can check ahead on?

No, not in Singapore, but there are a ton of specialist places that will sell what you want from turntables to serato etc.

I've used Valentine a lot. http://www.valentinemusiccentre.com/

No affiliation, just a happy customer. Remember to ask for a discount

curiousgeorge wrote:

cognizant wrote: I'm hoping i'll be able to replace my equipment when i come - seems a bit ridiculous to lug turntables over there - is there a major music equipment chain that I can check ahead on?

No, not in Singapore, but there are a ton of specialist places that will sell what you want from turntables to serato etc.

I've used Valentine a lot. http://www.valentinemusiccentre.com/

No affiliation, just a happy customer. Remember to ask for a discount

This man speaks the lingo! will prob bring serato and maybe my mixer with me.. so yeah just need some sort of deck. Thinking about the move to CDJs cos of the footprint. I've visited mates in Singapore before and seen how much room one has to work with in your std apartment

Thanks very much for this!!

cognizant wrote:
This man speaks the lingo! will prob bring serato and maybe my mixer with me.. so yeah just need some sort of deck. Thinking about the move to CDJs cos of the footprint. I've visited mates in Singapore before and seen how much room one has to work with in your std apartment

Thanks very much for this!!

Well if you plan to gig, you can be pretty sure that a club will rock CDJs, whereas TTs are not always available.

We've had a lot of good times with the Pioneer CDJ-2000 but it ain't cheap here...the CDJ-900 is good enough

And to answer your next question... The Adelphi Centre. Opposite Funan Digital Lifestyle Mall on North Bridge Road. There are a ton of decent Hi-Fi/Home Theatre places there, some very expensive/exclusive brands (style over susbstance) but some decent vendors with a good range of amps and speakers. The local HT amp of choice is Onkyo (I have a 608 for sale ) - offer the best bang/buck.

Paired with a couple of Dali Lektor 6 floor standers and a 10"Tannoy sub I can piss off the neighbours for about a kilometre in either direction Singapore apartments are more suited to bookshelf spkrs...