Happy National Day, Singapore!

Today is Singapore's National Day. Its the equivalent to America's Independence day or July 4th. This afternoon I will be going to a friend's house to watch the National Day performance on their TV. I, however, had the privilege to go to the National Day Preview last Saturday. In this blog, I hope to explain what occurred during that exciting National day preview and inform everyone about some of my past week.

To begin, National Day is a lot bigger here. Or maybe its because the country is so much smaller than the US that I have noticed its scale. Everywhere I look there is a Singaporean Flag and posted stating "Happy Birthday Singapore!" In my neighborhood back at home, some people put up flags like that in Singapore. There was even an effort to put an American flag at the beginning of everyone's driveway. Yet I rarely see that many flags. Although the 4th of July is important back at home, people celebrate it on more of a local scale. There is not as much nationalism and to some extent pride for American heritage as it seems here. There maybe many reasons for this: the age of the country, the size of the country, the scale of a nationalist campaign from the government, or maybe the people and the culture itself. I have tried to think about why in the US not as many people care to watch the Washington DC July 4th celebration. As our national capitol, I would think the performance and the fireworks would have every American watching their televisions.

My conclusions on this subject is that Americans are different than Singaporeans in celebration of their independence day because of location. Bostonians watch the Boston Pops, Washington DC residents have a parade by the White House, and Huntersville, NC residents go out on Lake Norman. Because of the pure size, Americans celebrate at a local level. Yes, some may travel to see family or friends, but everyone doesnt travel to their capitol or to see one large Governmental performance downtown.

As Singaporeans have a unique way to celebrating their country's heritage, they also celebrate National day within their own communities. Today, when I go to a local community, however, all the Singaporeans I will be with will be watching the one and only National Day celebration on their TVs. They may celebrate it on a local scale, but it is greatly affected by a National campaign. The parade encouraged Singaporeans to be creative, unique, and cooperative. I think that this can be good in the sense that it seems to encourage development and progress. Each year Singaporeans have something new to hear from their government on National Day; its not like the US independence day, in which US citizens simple remember the past. I dont know which one I prefer. So, with all this said, I want to show you all pictures of the ceremony.

Just for background, National Day only occurs once a year, but the Government's stadium, built on water, cannot fit all 4.5 million people. So they have previews which allows for more people to participate, and the actors, singers and the like, to practice.

This is me waiting for it to start. I went along with my friend George, who is Singaporean. Also, THANK YOU Nadiah for the tickets!!!!

The next couple of pictures are of the ceremony itself. They had dancers and singers performing to music in all four national languages: English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. Also, there were boats in Marina bay and planes and sky drivers overhead.
From these picture, the scale of the performance becomes evident. I had a blast! I got a lot of free stuff including NeWater. It is a great invention. Singapore developed the technology to take toilet water and purify it so that it is drinkable. I have been so impressed with the green movement in Singapore. They seem to be very progressive in the effort to save the environment. For example, I went to an event called RAG at NUS yesterday. For this event, different Faculties and Halls competed with parade floats made entirely out of recyclable material. Recycling is a lot more visible here. Although I talked to a Singaporean who said that the mind set to recycle still is not on target. With Singapore's effort though recycling and inspiring national identity, its becomes more understandable how this young country dramatically transformed itself in less than 50 years.

Classes start on Monday, and Im looking forward to all of my geography classes. The people that I have met with the department have been extremely helpful and encouraging. I will hopefully post next week about school. I intend to travel to Kuala Lumpur next weekend, so I will try to post before I leave. Until then...