*./hear me speak.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
i am singaporean.(The meme that started here and is tagged on Technorati as iamsingaporean)I am Singaporean because nabei and in the name of nonok I curse and swear like one. Because of racial integration policies at the grassroots level I know the names of female and male genitalia in all the official languages, and then some dialects too. When I fall asleep on the bus I know when to wake up for my stop, the moment the bus meanders round the highway near the flats I have stayed in since I was born. Even with my iPod plugged firmly into my ears I know the order of MRT stations on most lines: Jurong Clementi Dover Buona Vista. I find myself asleep on an Indian train, and in that teeming humanity of summer in the hottest bits of Uttar Pradesh, all I can think of is… I want to eat creamy butter crabs from Ang Mo Kio. And I make a $5 ISD call home to tell my mother to book us a table at the kopitiam for the day I come home (the next month). I struggle to find the right clothes to wear: if they are too thin, I freeze in my classrooms, my buses, trains and shopping malls. A little thicker, and the oppressive humidity is too much to handle, even though I have lived in it all my life. For this reason I take to cold and heat equally.I stopped singing the national anthem and raising my hands to the pledge when I was 13. I am Singaporean, so my Singaporean-ness refuses to let me lie without shame. I have never felt as much for this country, to be honest, as I have when I used to go to the Malaysia Cup finals, as a kid, at the National Stadium, wearing a Singapore Die Hard Fan jersey which was a few sizes too big for me. Abbas Saad would score and nobody cared that he wasn't Singaporean, only that we were going to win.I am Singaporean because I carry toilet paper with me everywhere, especially to Malaysia and to India. I still cannot bring myself to litter even though I know these governments don't give a damn. When the cashier at Watson's says buy 10 get 1 free, I actually have to pause to think: what are the additional 8 items I could buy?I live in a 5 room HDB flat in an estate 5 minutes from where both my parents work, went to two mission schools and one posh girls' school, speak two official languages and several dialects, have PSLE, O Levels, A Levels, no NS, have 20% of all the money I've ever earned put away involuntarily until I'm 55, and constantly think about what will happen when I graduate and join the workforce. Even though what I'm thinking about my career prospects is possibly a little different from most.I run away from this country so frequently because it costs as much for me to exist here, as it does for me to fly to, sleep, eat, and do exactly the same things I do, in a foreign land. This is not very different from my neighbours driving in to Malaysia to save a few pennies here and there, and to eat a feast.I used to write about politics on the Internet but not anymore.I speak English, dream in English, write in English, but wake up in the morning either mumbling 5 more minutes in my mother tongue (Diojiu), or telling my lover the time in her own language without realizing I could speak it.I am Singaporean because like Xiao Li in all our primary school textbooks, my friends are people like Gopal, Fatimah and David. I have had precisely one great love from each of the main races, except my own.I shout in coffeeshops for my drinks - teh O peng jit puay, have bak chor mee keh hiam for breakfast, nasi, ayam, sambal goreng and veggie don't want tau geh for lunch and snack on aloo chaat with masala tea or lassi all day. One of my best friends helpfully suggests that I name my son Sanjay Tan Chun Xiong, and it isn't as far-fetched as she intended it to be.I am Singaporean. I think. We are a country of immigrants and I may just become one myself.
adventure: the pursuit of life.
water. beach. sea. sentosa. kayaking. dragon-boat. handball.
