Welcome Home

It’s always great coming back to Singapore.

Particularly because of the priority a local has, being equipped with a biometric passport, to simply flit through a few barriers while the hordes of foreigners are frozen in endless, snaking queues. A screen above the automated exit says “Welcome home”.

Not to mention the enigmatic persona that addresses you, saying “Welcome Home, Yixuan”. Even though there is really no one behind that statement, just a computerized formula to copy over details from ones passport, it is comforting nonetheless.

It is comforting to step out of Arrivals into the open space filled with anxiously waiting people. It is comforting to see Singaporean faces and hear Singaporean voices holding placards and calling out the names of the people they were assigned to receive, and walk past them, knowing that you don’t need no receiving. It is interesting how in the foreign country we recognize these people disembodied in their role of the tour guide but on local soil we see our fellow countrymen.

It is comforting to see the pristine streets and lush greenery and neat, presentable buildings. It is comforting to know that I can drink a cold drink later without worrying about whether the ice is made of mineral water.

It is, ultimately, comforting to go back to a familiar place where you are not constrained by a certain arbitrary number of days where you have to see all you want to see and taste all you want to taste. It is comforting to go back to normalcy even though novelty is exciting.

It is comforting to be back home.