Today is National Day in Singapore. It is really is the day Singapore gained independence as a country/nation if you will. In 47 years of being an independent nation, we have progressed from a third world into a first world as some of my foreign colleagues were saying.
While I usually post about music and entertainment related stuff, I felt a really strong need to blog about something relating to National Day and being Singaporean. I guess the atmosphere is getting to me and like most of us Singaporeans, I’m demonstrating my patriotism for the day. 🙂
I guess one of the reasons I felt compelled to blog about this was because of a pretty intense debate about Singapore I had with my foreigner colleagues yesterday in the office. They were telling me how I shouldn’t complain about Singapore because it is so awesome. I was annoyed to be honest.
I was annoyed because they told me not to complain. The cheek! Complaining about everything is exactly one of the traits of a Singaporean. We will complain about anything and everything. Most of us are aware that we are complaining but we still do it just for the heck of it. 🙂 It is sorta like a national past time like queueing, eating and shopping. It is something a foreigner will never understand.
That said, it leads me to the sensitive topic about foreigners in Singapore. Honestly, I do not have any problems with immigrants and foreigners in Singapore. I know and work quite closely with a lot of foreigners and immigrants. Heck, I have even been identified as a foreigner in Singapore quite a few times!
However, I must say that I am not very happy with the attitudes of some foreigners and immigrants in Singapore and their expectations that we have to accommodate to them. Sure that Singapore is a nation created by immigrants but Singapore then is not the same Singapore that is now. Point being, when in Rome, do as Romans do.
Anyway, I’ve digressed a little.
Know that I am Singaporean and we have our quirks. I know that Singapore is awesome and that our government is doing a great job but I will still be complaining about it. So all of you should just suck it up.
NOTE: This isn’t everything there is to being Singaporean of course, just a tiny bit of it from my perspective.