Saturday, August 09, 2008
this is gonna be a special post for a special day(:
HAPPY 43RD BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!
and again, it takes me quite some time to realise we're 43 and no longer 37. i don't know. everytime it's National Day, i keep on thinking Spore is still 37. but no we're not. we're now in our early forties (:
anyway, i was reading The Saturday Times and i almost laughed reading one of the columns about why the Western detractors love to hate Singapore. authoritarian country? are you kidding me? just because we speak English doesn't mean we have to conform to the Western lifestyle. sure, our liberty looks controlled, but just like parents raising kids, too much might not be a good thing. i mean, we're happy with our way of life which is a complete rojak (mixture). it's so cool. anywhoodles, adapted from the author's words, they don't really know how to face this creature named after a lion cos we're neither here nor there. which makes us unique. now i realise how apt the STB tagline (Uniquely Singapore) is. it's not just our food - heck, our political system too. and the ban on chewing gum which none of us really care about anyway, cos chewing gum is so passe. people are into donuts now.
back to the topic. why do i love Singapore? because it's Singapore. no, really. i mean, we're unique right? so that's why i love it. the food (this is super important to us Singaporeans who are perhaps the only country with eating as a national past-time), the public transport system (the mrt and buses are really interesting places to be in, i swear), all those cool places stashed away in some corner (like that paintball spot at sembawang), Singlish, the NDP, HDB flats, the racial cohesion+tolerance+acceptance+harmony, and complaining about everything in Singapore but grown to like it eventually. and oh, coffeeshop and wet markets. these things make Singaporeans Singaporeans. cool eh?
in short, we have a little bit of this, of that. we learn to swear in 4 plus different languages. we listen to songs although we understand nothing without the translations. our political system is weird, but likeable and effective. even our gangsters vary accordingly but still have the Singaporean attitude branded on them.
people are complaining about us not having a Singapore identity. actually, we do. it's just that it's a complex mix, we can't find a word to describe it perfectly in English.
but hey, how about rojak?
9:36 pm
