THERE are many reasons why talented, entrepreneurial business professionals would join the brain drain out of Singapore. In my case, it is extreme and intolerable building noise.
Two international film-industry professionals established a discreet home-office operation in a quiet street in Siglap where we could attract feature-film and television projects to Singapore as we responded to global opportunities during foreign business hours. This year alone, I attracted 18 projects from Europe and three from the United States, while my associate was communicating his experience to the next generation of film makers at Singapore film and media institutions.
This business formula worked well for both of us until, with no warning, our neighbours decided to turn the property physically attached to ours into an even larger house.
For the past seven weeks, we have endured incessant jackhammers operating on both our office and bedroom walls with a noise that ranges from 85 to 93.5 decibels, six or seven days a week, up to 14 hours a day.
Eighty-five decibels is defined as very loud and if prolonged, will cause 'distress and anger'. Ninety decibels is defined as extremely loud and sustained exposure will cause hearing loss. Throughout the day, we can't hear the telephone ring and it's impossible to have a phone conversation - so my business and livelihood is losing tens of thousands of dollars every week.
After only nine months in Singapore, daily exposure to this extreme noise caused my associate to suffer an emotional crisis and within a week he decided to close his office and leave the country. For those of us left behind, the uncontrolled dust, risk of falling debris and excruciating noise are affecting our physical and emotional health noticeably.
Appeals to the police, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, and Ministry of Manpower have given us no respite. As one government spokesman simply stated: 'It is legal... and it is progress.'
My wife and I have decided to leave Singapore as soon as she has completed her master's degree because these building practices will polarise everyone in our neighbourhood and create social friction that will take years to diminish.
My associate and I have 60 years of business entrepreneurial skills in award-winning film and television production and we leave just when Singapore needs this expertise to nurture and mentor a new generation of film makers. But despite the best intentions, the reality of 93.5-decibel noise of 'progress' is literally driving us away.
