japanese interior design singapore
i hear those who are listed as high-income taxpayers or producers are increasing in japan. many of the super-rich people who have more than a couple of billion yen are -- -- perhaps in their thirties and forties working in it and have been moving to singapore over the past 5 years. when i came back from singapore, the person sitting next to me on the airplane happened to be a friend of my old friend. he was one of those rich people. he said in singapore, he got his children into a local international school. for people like him, their popular hangout is a casino. i guess playing in the casino is generally for guys. what do their wives do? they hang out in a hotel lounge, where they talk and have lunch while their children are in school. then go shopping, and go home, and make dinner. the husbands work on their own investments at home, in front of their pcs.
their investments generally don’t keep them so busy since they just make investments to draw dividends. however, those super-rich live outside of japan and stay in singapore just for tax purposes. it seems that if they stay in singapore with their family for more than five years without paying resident taxes to japanese tax authorities, they will be able to gift assets to their wives and children with no gift tax. however, staying in singapore for five years is too long for them. it really bothers them. they want to go home. they feel this way because they get bored with being in singapore. husbands can enjoy golf, but that’s all. wives can enjoy shopping, fashion, nail care, hair care, cosmetic matters, women’s magazines, and… gossip. the women rent japanese and korean tv dramas on dvd. so they have plenty of stories to talk about.
however, since the wives always hang out with other japanese people, they can hardly speak english. i hear that they therefore tend to speak ill of others. on the other side, the japanese men don’t stick together so often. they miss japanese food so much and go shopping at the local japanese supermarket every day. while those guys are enthusiastically shopping for sashimi and pacific saury, they often run across others like them. it’s like, “hi, again.†their everyday life is just like this. it sounds a bit sad, doesn’t it? why does that sound sad? i guess perhaps the japanese love to live in japan. even though they give up on staying in japan and live abroad, their life doesn’t change so much as they expected.
the world is smaller than they thought. i think they can guess that life in singapore must be simple since the country has a small amount of land, and it doesn't have the four seasons. however, they choose to live there because of money. once they leave japan, they get tired of living abroad within a year. then they feel hopeless in the second year, and become desperate in the third. however, they will face a choice if they decide to come home – they have to let some money go. while we naturally enjoy activities such as seeing cherry blossoms, the moon, colored leaves, and hot springs over the four seasons, those super-rich feel sad abroad. they are lost in melancholy, like hamlet. i sort of understand their feeling, but i think they shouldn’t be money mongers. perhaps they should follow the example of edokko’s life.
when autumn comes, i recall those people and feel really happy that i am japanese but not super-rich.