Confessions of a Drama Mama

I’m proud of being Singaporean, I really am. I’m happy I live here. It’s safe, it’s clean, it’s efficient. But the one thing I cannot understand is why the National Day parade every year has to be so…. like that?

I mean, I really cringe whenever I see phrases like ‘we are Singapore’ or a poster of 4 people of different races in their ‘heritage outfits’ beaming. And why does the National Day song have to show people running in a kampong area? Are we trying to show that we’re living in the 60s or what?

How about the guy who’s singing and moving like he’s a rapper wannabe in CBD? What’s with that? Of course if you ask me what would be a better representation of Singapore, I wouldn’t know. I’m Singaporean, I only know how to complain, providing solutions is not my forte.

But seriously, don’t these National Day messages sometimes make you cringe? Sometimes I’m really ashamed if the commercials come on at home and Max is around. It’s sad but one of the things I definitely won’t miss about Singapore if I leave is the cheesyness of the National Day parade. I feel sorry for the poor guys who spend half their NS life training to be part of the NDP contingents only to be put on the same level as the cheerleaders yelling to the crowd, "Are you having fun? If you are, SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!".

I think there are 2 breeds of Singaporeans - the kind that would queue overnight for NDP tickets (I know one person who I’m sure would do that. And she’d probably bring her own care pack to last the night. Julia, you also know her), and the kind who are grateful for a public holiday. Sadly, or not, I belong to the latter group. I can’t wait to have another day off. The last time I was at an NDP parade was when I brought Max. I thought it would give him a better idea of how Singapore was. Big mistake. Even I felt stupid waving the little flag, as I’m sure at least 25% of the crowd did.

It’s like most Channel 8 dramas. Alot of effort to try to be cool but still end up being mostly embarrassing.

I guess patriotism doesn’t need to be shown by the size of the flag you hang from your living room window. Or by the colour you wear on Aug 9. And you certainly can’t force people to feel patriotic by forcing them to sing songs they don’t understand (Di mana dia, anak kambing saya… Where are you my baby sheep?). It’s what they feel when they’re out of the country. They ultimately miss bits and pieces of their home country, the one they grew up in. The better the childhood, the more patriotic one would tend to be. So I say, scrap all these remedial classes and piano classes and compulsory after school activities and let kids be kids. That way they’ll remember having a childhood and not grow up hoping each day will pass quicker so that they can finally be of age to leave a life of suppression.

But that, as always, is only my humble opinion.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 7:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.