 Think Tech Away, civil engagement lives here. Good afternoon, welcome to Glover Report. I'm your host, Valee Ong. We have with us today Henry Bit. He's an ex-backed child here in Singapore. Welcome to the show, Henry. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on the show, Henry. Now, Henry, reason I invite you on the show is because I want to learn more about the life of an ex-backed child in Singapore. How old are you now? I'm actually 17 years old. I'm turning 18 this year. And how old were you when you came to Singapore? I was a baby. I was two months old. So I practically lived in Singapore my whole life. If I don't count it two months, I don't live in France. So, yeah, I've been here my whole life. But you still have a very strong French accent. How did you maintain that? I maintained it because I did most of my studies in Singapore at the French school. So I studied in French from preschool to grade 10. And preschool starting at age three? Age three, yeah. In French. So I was possibly exposed to the French language. And even at home, because my parents are French, which means that I still speak French at home. So at a French school, everything was instructed in French? Everything was instructed in French. Except for the, yeah. Do you do English classes at all? We did English classes five hours a week. Five hours a week. Is it daily? It is early, yeah. Well, that's amazing. If you did it just one hour a day and you speak French at home, that you're able to... Well, that's probably not the reason why I can speak English pretty well right now. I've actually changed school to an international school at the end of grade 10. Which means that I spoke 75% of my time in English. So... How many years have you been at the international school? For two years now. For two years. Well, that's still pretty amazing. That's just two years in. Wow. Do you have any siblings? I do have siblings. So I have two sisters and one brother. My brother is 21 years old and he lives and studies in France. Whereas my older sister, she's 23 years old and she lives in Sydney. And then my smaller sister, she's 15 years old and is still a student at the French school. So your older siblings, did they move with you when you first came to Singapore? They didn't move with me yet. My whole family moved. And do you know how they like it? How was the transition for them? I think that they still prefer Singapore because when they moved here, they were pretty young. So they were seven years old maybe. Which means that all they did in France was go to school and go back home. They didn't really spend time outside of... Which means that I think they still prefer Singapore because as they grow up, they just started to feel more of an environment in Singapore which is stronger than in France. So Singapore is feeling more like home to them than France is. Now what brought your parents to Singapore? What was the motivation behind the big move? My dad's work. He got a job here in Singapore. Which is the reason why we all moved to Singapore. And when he moved you guys out here, he knew that you guys were going to stay here for... And it was a surprise for every three years basically if you were going to stay. So we were supposed to stay here for just a few years. But it turns out that the contract got extended. Which means that we stayed in Singapore for seventeen years. But every two to three years, we wouldn't know if we would go back to France or not. So we stay here for seventeen years but it's unexpected. So whenever it's extended, does your family cheer or you're kind of wishing that you could go back to France? We're happy to stay. Now what has your parents or your school done or yourself have done to keep the French culture alive in you? What my parents have done is to make sure that I speak French at home before. Also the French culture, as you said, food is a big part of the culture. So we eat food 30% of the time. Does mommy cook or do you have a helper? We have a helper but sometimes my mom cooks too. So does the helper know how to cook French food? You teach her. How is it? Is it pretty authentic? She picked it up well. She's a pretty good cook. And then I stayed at the French club for 13 years. Which means that I spoke for the whole time. I was exposed to the French people the whole time. Which made me have that French culture. What about in a French school? Do they sell French food too? They do sell French food sometimes. We do have maybe two times a week French food. Do they have dormitories? Do they make you guys stay there? It's not like a boarding school. I don't think that the French school is a boarding school. One of the only boarding schools in Singapore is UWC. Where you can actually board a school. My school does that too. But you need to find a place to sleep. But the French school didn't do that for sure. What's the population of the school? Is it a large school? What's the percentage of local kids to international kids? Local kids from a closer Singapore and China. I would say it takes approximately 50% of this school. 50%? 50% 50% 50% of this school. Including mainland China? Mainland China. At the French school? No, at the Canadian school. At the new school? Okay, at the new school. But at the French school, what was the composition of the nationality? I'd say 95% of the students were French. Oh wow, okay. I mean, it was pretty hard to get into the school if she didn't know how to speak French. And if she weren't French. I see. So this is what... What's that prerequisite? You've got to speak French to get in there. I mean, all of the classes are in French. You need to speak French. I see. Or you will struggle. I see. I see. Okay. Alright, and with the new school, it's more mixed. You mentioned it's about 50% of Chinese. 50% Chinese. And from the people from Vietnam, from the Philippines, you know. 50% of the school, I would say. And then from Europe, I'd say it's 30% of the school. And there's 20% from the USA. Or from other places. Do you enjoy studying in a school where it's mostly people of your own language and culture? Do you enjoy studying in a school where there's such a strong mix of nationalities and cultures? I prefer the diversity of culture. Especially here in Singapore, there's a big mix of cultures. Yeah, there's a big mix of cultures between Chinese culture, between the French culture that isn't that big here. But there's a lot of different places in Singapore. We should present a country. So there's a big mix of cultures in Singapore. And this is what I mainly like about Singapore is this mix of culture, which means that I prefer to be in a school where there's a lot of different people. Not all the same people. Now, do you see international kids, foreign kids that tend to stay in their cliques? Where they don't mix with the local kids, they're just kind of always in their same cliques. I've seen that at a French school. It's understandable because speaking English for them is not their main language and they're always exposed to the French language. So it's kind of hard for them to be friends with some different schools as they all speak English. And this mainly happens at a French school as this is what I think. But in my school, we love to meet new people. Now, do you have friends outside of your school? I do have friends outside of my school. How do you meet them? Do you join clubs or sports teams? Through sports teams. I've met some of them through my old soccer team, which I used to be a part of for five years. As we played against different clubs, we played against students from different schools too. Most of the time, I would make new friends in games, but of course, it's a competitive sport, so we're not always friends at the end of the game. So these teams, are they today comprised mostly of international kids or it's a mix of locals and international? It depends what team you are on. I know that there's a French team which is just only French, but then the team that I was in was the local team and we played against different clubs from different nationalities or mixed nationalities. Now, how often do you go back to France? I go back to France two times a year for sure, but we tried to make it three if we could. So basically, I go back to France for the spring break, which is two months long. Is it just you or your whole family goes along with you? My whole family goes. My whole family just joins the friends. So did your mommy take time off? My mom takes time off of her job because she's her own boss. I was going to say that's nice of her boss to let her go for that long. She's her own boss. So she can take two months off if she really wants to. Whereas my dad, as he is more and more busy, he can only come back to France for two weeks during the spring break. But he can also go back to France with us in the winter break, which is also two weeks long. And he usually takes two weeks off to just go back to France and speak because it's cold there. So you guys have families back in France? Most of my family is my grandparents. So they are in France. So my grandparents from my dad's side, they are in France. But my grandparents from my mom's side, they decided to live in Spain for their retirement. How long have they been in Spain? I'd say five to seven years now. So when you go back to France, do you also hop over to Spain to visit them? No, we all join back in France. Okay, but have you visited them in Spain before? I did visit them in Spain before, yeah. And when you go back to France, what do you do there? I spend as much time with the family as I can because it's a holiday. And then I also try... I mean, like, if I go back for the winter and it's snowing and there's no snow here, I'm going to go skiing and then I'm going to do a lot of, yeah, so, sorry. So I'm going to go skiing and then I'm going to do a lot of snow activity still, which is really good. But in the spring break, sorry, it's kind of the same as Singapore because it's hot and there's a beach there, there's a beach or two, which is really nice. So we kind of do the same thing. It just feels like holding there when you go back. I see, okay. Well, now the current school that you go to, do they teach French there? Are you able to keep up with your French learning? They do teach French and thankfully they do. For real, I would have not... like, if they didn't speak French, I could not speak French right now. So you take French as your second language at this new school? Second language, yeah. Do you take other languages? No, just English and French. Just English and French. What other languages do they offer? They have Mandarin and Spanish. And how often are these second languages taught? Same as the French one, I would say five times a week. One hour a day. One hour a day. One hour a day, okay. Well, how are you liking the Singapore food? It's really good. Us as French people, we like good food. And the food here is really good. It's simple, but it's the best thing you could ever eat. That means a lot coming from a French because we know you have very high standards food-wise. What is some of your favorite local food? Okay, it sounds simple, but it's chicken rice. The Hainanese chicken rice? Hainanese chicken rice. It's so good. I recommend it for sure. Do you have a favorite chicken place that you go to? I know that there's some at Newton which are really good. It's pretty close by from there. And they're really, really good there. And the best thing is you don't have to go to a really expensive restaurant to get a plate of chicken rice, right? It's cheap and it's good. Do you eat it with a chili? I sometimes do, but I try not to. I'm not a big fan of chili. So you don't like spicy food? I do like it sometimes, just not when it's too spicy. So when you say the food here is good, that means you like the Malay food, the Indian food, the Chinese food and the... Yeah. And the Chinese food here is really good too. All the food here is good. Now who cooks at home? Sometimes my mom cooks, but most of the time it's my helper. We teach her how to cook of course. Do you teach her to do just French food or she can do local food as well? She can do all the food that we need to. She's a really good cook at first. That's wonderful. That's really helpful too. It is helpful.