aerasio

N'day

Roughly 33 hours ago, Singapore celebrated its 41st birthday with the usual and almost traditional fireworks, parades and loud noise. This year is 'special' because its the last time the National Day Parade will be held in the Kallang National Stadium since our Prime Minister was 18. That probably is a bad gauge but just take it on my word that that’s a pretty long stretch of time. During this momentous occasion, I was busy eating and enjoying life in Ipoh with my relatives. I realise that National Day didn’t really mean anything to me.

Singapore isn’t very old. My Grandfather is twice as old as Singapore is and my Dad and Mom were both around well before August 9, 1965. Even our flag declares that we’re a new country, using a crescent to symbolize it. As a new nation of immigrants we don’t seem to have much in the way of a national identity. The closest thing to that is the whole kiasu/kiasee mentality, which to me doesn’t seem like a very healthy national identity to have. I routinely wonder about the ‘loyalty’ and ‘patriotism’ of my fellow Singaporeans and question how loyal a kiasu Singaporean can be when his cultural identity focuses on getting ahead and gaining materially at any cost without regard to anyone else.

These thoughts go through me as I sit in my Dad’s car on the way back from the causeway. Then I see a big 41 written in Singapore flags on the side of a HDB flat and I feel somewhat reassured. Maybe in time to come, we’ll find our own identity in the world, an identity we can be proud of and collectively own. Maybe we already have it and just don’t know about it, an identity independent of race and religion. However all this is really over my head, right now, all I’ll do is enjoy the fireworks.

So said Aerasio at 07:58