Migrant Family Drama Revisited: Mainland Chinese Immigrants in Singapore‪.‬

Long, a thirty-eight-year-old man, came to Singapore in 1997. He had been an engineer in China. Through friends who were working in Singapore, he learned of a job opening there and relocated. A year later his wife Jian joined him. Jian, a doctor with more than eight years of medical practice, was unable to recertify herself in Singapore; she gave up her medical practice and now works part-time in a Chinese language school. (1) Their son, Guang, arrived with Long's parents, who had taken care of him since Jian's departure, the following year. Now eight, Guang attends a local primary school near their flat in the eastern part of the island. After school he is taken care of at home by Long's retired parents. In 1992, Le, in his late thirties, came to Singapore from Australia, where he had studied and worked for three years. His wife joined him in Australia in 1988, a few months after his arrival there. Their daughter Lydia, who was then only a year old, was left in the care of her maternal grandparents in China. Le did not know about this childcare arrangement until he met his wife at the airport. (2) When he was recruited to work in Singapore, arrangements were made for Lydia to rejoin them. While Le continued to pursue his career, his wife gave up her job as a human resources manager. The woman, who never had any intention of becoming a full-time homemaker, was forced to become one.