patriotic spat

a few days ago, or maybe a couple of weeks back, a well known singaporean blogger wrote a post about her bad experience to kl, just a normal touristy, shoppingy trip. in it though, she wrote a whole bunch of, what some took it for, deragatory descriptions thus started some form of war of the blogs between her and some well known malaysian bloggers.

she has been called a dog (which i am going to go straight to the point and just say it’s calling her bitch) and a whore. the funny thing is, through out the comments on her blog, most malaysians were sympathetic rather than outright pissy. it was on their own blogs that they went all deragatory and defensive about the very country they hail from. or reside in.

then i read kenny’s point of view on this entire thing… and i don’t know.. just felt like doing a post on it.

i am a singaporean staying in canberra, most of you would know, because i am studying here. well i was anyways, now i am in a limbo. prior to coming here, i can not wait to get out of singapore. i hated alot of things about singapore. sure people are polite at times, they smile when u go shopping. there’s alot of things about singapore that screams “what’s there not to like about me?!?!!”

cheap food, asian culture that i was brought up in and thus more used to, “world class education”, easy to get jobs (at least for me), people i know… i can go on and on, i won’t be able to list it all.

the point is, life is cheaper and easier to handle at times than right here for the simple fact that money wasn’t that hard to come by for me back home.

however, i wasn’t happy. behind all these happy and cheery scenes, i know that half of it at least were superficial. nice smiley people? they are just people working. but everyone else is here too. their jobs depends on it.

however, check out the various restaurant reviews online, and some people’s blogs. people in restaurant smile and treat you good at times if you look like you have the money. or if you are obviously a foreigner. certain places treats you even better if you are a caucasian, because that means you are definitely a big spender, to them anyways.

cheap food came at the expense of taxes. everything’s going up in terms of prices in singapore, but not the pay. well at least not when i left. not that singapore has exhorbitant taxes, it seems reasonable compared to a few other countries.

the people one knows… people drift away. but that’s a personal thing, so let’s not get into that.

at the end of the day, each people take their own sides. national day? everyone wants to go celebrate. call for national service? it’s compulsory. how many people willingly walk in, saying “i want to be able to fight for my country!!!” and how many people go in coz they have to?

how many celebrate singapore’s national day because they really love singapore and am glad of it’s independence from colonial rule? i know when i celebrate, it’s because it’s a public holiday. yay, no school. i know my parents and sister does too. and my friends. if anyone gets the ticket to go for the national day parade, they go not because they love the country and want to celebrate it with the rest of the country. they go because there are freebies, you can see everything first hand and THERE ARE FIREWORKS!!!!

given the free chance to, how many will run for it to migrate out of singapore? i am not very sure.

that’s not to say i don’t love singapore though. in the 3 years that i have been here, i did miss singapore. for the cheap food, for the local food, for the people i know, for the transportation system that takes me everywhere so much that i don’t need to know how to drive. i miss the ability to keep quiet in class and yet still pass without contributing in discussions in class. i miss the quiet marching onwards of time in every single thing i do, which constitutes my normality in life.

i am proud to tell people i am a singaporean, to explain things about singapore to people, to point out where singapore is (yes i have retards telling me it’s in china) and how we function. often though, when i say i am from singapore in class, the teachers immediately swing my direction. “oh, the patriarchal political system.”

and then i am stunned.

that’s not to say i don’t know the term. prior to coming here. in fact, in the months following my a lvls results, i have started reading up on singaporean politics and have came to terms with the idea we aren’t all that democratic.

“Observers frequently remark at the apparent contradiction between Singapore’s high level of economic progress and its illiberal, centrally planned politics. In an Air-conditioned Nation, however, there is no contradiction: comfort is achieved through control.” - Cherian George, Singapore : The Air-Conditioned Nation, 2000

and in a sense, he’s right. tight laws, few opposition parties or people with balls to stand up to the present ruling party. further more, part of the reason why i was stunned, few people have interests in the politics of our country. sure, people may laugh at chee soon juan. others may gossip about the government, further more might be unhappy with the laws.

unhappy but unwilling to voice it further than beyond the cup of coffee.

until university loomed across my horizon, i never had this idea to join politics. it was either arts or… well, since parents were the one paying, law or medicine. after all, they pay well and that’s that. few people in my class ever thought about it, neither do they care much about it. infact, when election comes around, chances are, few bother to think much about their choices and votes straight for PAP anyways. after all, they are the tried and tested party. stability and economic “growth”, that’s all most of them are concerned about.

ask them about the various ministers and what are they about, few can tell you beyond the more prominent ministers.

patriotic for our country?

i am not sure. after these 3 years, i am a little disillusioned by politics for one thing. but it also brought to mind various issues. being patriotic goes beyond just loving and missing your country. it also means being more involved in how it’s managed so that you not only have the best for your country, it is also being managed wisely. it is ensuring that you know what the hell you are voting for, and who are the people whom we are voting for and their portfolios.

are they up to managing singapore? can they manage singapore? can they upkeep the stability whether or not Lee Kuan Yew is there?

The same goes for malaysia. the debate went on and on about how XX was being very rude and blah blah blah about malaysia. much as singapore has flaws, australia has flaws, so does malaysia.

the laws… are they really kept or do the police just ignore?

rude people exists, is it that hard to face?

my mum was a malaysian. every holiday we go back to her home to visit my grandma who’s on the verge of death every now and then, being a diabetic patient and all. she hailed from Muar, in the state of Johor. there’s a few shopping centres there, and we would go shopping there for some of our clothes because they are cheap.

even if we are obviously not going to steal stuff, the sales people had hang around us for commissions, so they don’t lose potential commissionary income. but that does not mean they are even helpful. they had not be all that attentive to us, but yelling to their friends across the floor. but they cling so much unto us it’s scary.

and people like dad and me hates clingy sales people. they eye you, they size you up, they don’t leave you alone, yet they don’t even seem interested in you.

but i love muar as much as i love singapore. when i am there, i am happy. when i am in singapore, i am happy. both are homes to me, because i spend a significant amount of time on both sides. i have family in muar, kl and klang, so while i can’t speak alot of melayu, it’s still home. i can still say stuff like “mahal (i don’t know how to spell it, so get off my left nut about it)” which is to say it’s expensive or something o.o

it’s not that we don’t get it in singapore either. remember those clingy sales people in tangs, who had follow you around too while you are looking at perfumes? yer… thankfully, my friend works there as a sales promoter too, so we had gossip while keeping her colleagues at bay.

political flaws wise, we were all brought up to be semi-accepting. some people are more open about their unhappiness, some not so.

in the end, changes comes with time, unhappiness can be kept to one self.

blogs are for venting.

life’s short, take a chill pill and kill your neighbour instead if you are upset.

meanwhile, if i really love my country, this time around, i am going to actually read about who the hell i am voting for than actually just chucking in a pap vote. chances are though, i am not likely to vote beyond PAP. there are a few reasons behind it.

1) few worthy choices.

2) tried and tested group of people.. lky is still there… hehee…

in all other news, i might be migrating before the next election anyways.

i still love singapore.

i will still say i was from singapore.

i just can’t see opportunities there for me as compared to elsewhere, with the life i want.