When you live on your own without help from a domestic helper or part-time cleaner, there are certain things you’ll have to learn. But I think societies like Hong Kong and Singapore don’t encourage independence as some services are just too convenient and thus people would rather pay others to do it for them.
Many Singaporeans and Hong Kongers have grown up with a full-time domestic helper at home, making them clueless about many things even through to their adulthood. In Hong Kong, a newspaper article reported that many children these days no longer eat homecooked food, simply because their parents don’t know how to cook as they had grown up with domestic help and never learnt how to do it. It’s sad, really.
For the most part, being on your own will usually need you to do or learn the following:
1. Cook – you can survive without cooking in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, but definitely not in cities in most Western countries. In the latter cities, unless you’re earning big bucks and can eat out every day, you’re going to have to cook for yourself to save on food costs.
2. Use a washing machine – I know friends in Singapore who can’t operate one ‘cos they have never had to. Laundry service in Hong Kong is cheap because many households don’t have space to have a washing machine so there are laundromats at every other street corner. But Hong Kong is an exception rather than the norm.
3. Read washing labels on clothes – failing to learn how to do so will result in shrunken clothes and/or clothes that have been stained with cloth dye that has leached out from other non-colour fast clothes.
4. Clear hair from sinks and bathroom floor – do it or risk having blocked pipes and foul smelling water running into your house. If you’re staying at my place, I expect you to clear your hair from the shower and sink. I don’t even like picking up my own hair, not to mention others.
5. Wash the toilet – well, unless you want to be living in a shit hole, I guess there’s no avoiding it, is there?
That’s all I can think of at the moment but I’m sure there’s a whole lot more I can add to the list. But my brain’s tired now after an afternoon out on a nice yacht coupled with some wakeboarding (Woohoo! Good fun!!!). Bedtime.