志异 Draft by Drama box december 2013 (english) | Page 34

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g u es t c ol u mn
m e m o r y x s p ac e
d ra ft v ol 2 i ss ue 2

Malay Peninsula), and had to spend over
10 dollars on visa application each time. I
was also unable to apply for a Housing
Development Board ?at, and had to apply
for a work permit if I wanted to get a job.
As a non-citizen, I would also have had
to pay high school fees for my children.
Fortunately, my wife was a Singapore
citizen, so we could still access some of
the bene?ts of citizenship.

There were about
200,000 people
in Singapore like
me who lost
their citizenship
overnight and
became without
nationalities.

I endured these days of being without
nationality for 20 years. I persisted in trying
to recover my citizenship rights, applying
year after year. In the latter half of 1983, the
authorities restored my citizenship, and I
?nally became a proper citizen of the
Republic of Singapore. One of the important
reasons I was able to regain citizenship was
my employment at Lianhe Wanbao as a
reporter and editor. Lianhe Wanbao and
Lianhe Zaobao belonged Singapore News
and Publishing Limited (later merged into
Singapore Press Holdings). The general
manager Ung Gim Sei and Zaobao
editor-in-chief Mok Lee Kwang were very
sympathetic towards my predicament,
and Mr Huang wrote in his official capacity
to appeal for the reissue of my citizenship. I
found out later that citizenship applications
at the time had better chances of approval if
they were accompanied by recommendations
from big organisations or companies. I
remain very grateful to Mr Mok and Mr
Ung for their help.
With citizenship, I also received my ?rst
international passport, and had my ?rst
experience of travelling abroad by plane.
A lot of friends ?nd it hard to believe my
story. There were about 200,000 people in
Singapore like me who lost their citizenship
overnight and became without nationalities.
They were born in Malaya, but had been
living in Singapore from a young age.
Singapore broke away from Malaysia
very abruptly, so there were no proper