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Month: August 2012

For Better And For Worse And For Granted

Yesterday, Naomi and I celebrated our 6th anniversary with a dinner to remember -which is the whole point of anniversaries, I think – to do (or eat) something memorable. We are still crying tears of joy remembering the food.

I can’t believe how lucky I am to have spent the last six years with Naomi, stumbling through thick and thin, for better and worse, and more importantly, taken turns to take each other for granted.

The Twitter Singapore Pledge Moment

It started a month ago, when I asked Tan Chuan-Jin over Twitter what his favourite part of the Pledge was.

We then had a few conversations off Twitter about ideas for getting Singaporeans to participate in the Pledge over the National Day period. After that, mrbrown, myself and a few friends thought it’d be great if the Minister for Manpower could lead the Pledge on Twitter.

Then, since he was on board, we asked (persistently) our classmate to ask his boss, the Prime Minister of Singapore, if he’d participate. As you can see in the selected updates below – PM Lee tweeted just once. Still, we are thrilled to have helped orchestrate this whole thing.

Follow the #PledgeSG hashtag
Follow the #iamsingaporean hashtag

Don’t forget to share your thoughts at Pledge.SG

How I Majulah Singapura

My reflections on this year’s National Day, first published on YouSayISayWhoConfirm.SG as a joint post with mrbrown’s National Day Song.

I used to think that I was Singaporean because of the way I spoke and how I could code-switch from standard English to Singlish even within a sentence. I used to think it was because I could understand why people would use packets of tissue, newspapers and umbrellas to “chope” seats at hawker centres when all it takes is a rule where you’re not allowed to sit at a table if you don’t have a tray of food with you.

But the fabric of society is changing. Close to 40% of the country’s population is non-Singaporean, and I think a sizeable chunk of Singapore citizens are made up of new migrants. You know those “emerging fault lines” the PM keeps talking about? They’re here, and they’re pretty disruptive.

Suddenly we have many Singaporeans we don’t feel the bond of kinship with. More than once I read on Twitter and Facebook that people or their parents didn’t feel proud that a “China-born” table-tennis player won another medal for Singapore. I’ve seen young people tweet things like “Argh! This bus is full of Pinoys!” without stopping to think for once whether what they were saying was racist.

Read more at YouSayISayWhoConfirm.SG

Three More Interesting Facts About Singapore

1. Singapore is home to 3,971 species of vascular plants, 364 species of birds, 295 species of butterflies, 98 species of reptiles, 52 species of mammals, 28 species of amphibians, and 255 species of hard corals.

2. A two-part episode of Hawaii Five-O was filmed in Singapore, featuring a thrilling scene on the Sentosa Cable Car.

3. Including Tan Howe Liang, every Singaporean Olympic medal winner was born in China.

If you haven’t already, do read the other 44 facts about Singapore I wrote three years ago.