When I was a child, 9th of August meant so much fun. It was a day when both of my folks were not working and the whole family got to spend some time together as a family, other than having just the weekends to do so. Mum used to make us 'special' food such as frying nuggets or making her awesome Chinese style pancakes and then we will wait impatiently for 8am to come so that we could scream excitedly at the fireworks by the kitchen window. We used to stay in Towner Road and the National Stadium was in direct view from our kitchen window. Even til now I remember fondly how my brother and I used to 'compete' with the neighbours' children, screaming to see who was the loudest. It was so much fun then. We even got to watch the parade twice when we were growing up. Nothing could describe how we felt being amongst the crowd, singing songs of celebration and witnessing all the performances.
As I grew older, National Day gradually became different. It slowly turned from mere fun to a time of reflection and sometimes annoyance. One year in particular, I remember reading an article somewhere in the Straits Times (or was it the New Paper?) that special fireworks would be brought in and they would cost quite a sum of money each. I suck at remembering numbers but what I thought then was that you have people working so hard to feed bring three meals to the family table and the government is spending such money for a 'display of wealth' in order to celebrate our nation's independence? Why didn't they think about using the day to give back to the people what they have taken through all the taxes that they have enforced upon us? I must have been working and studying then or something like that otherwise I wouldn't have thought of such a thing. However nevertheless that year, I just looked at the fireworks with disdain and the fun simply disappeared. Ever since then, I have been looking at this country from a different perspective.
Nowadays, this day has became very much of a PAP day rather than a day to celebrate our nation's independence. I am saying this because everywhere I go, as long as they are constituencies under PAP, there will surely be huge billboards and banners with the smiling faces of MPs together with smiling citizens. Those billboards and banners have been produced nastily with bad Photoshop skills that is easy to detect and sometimes the smiling citizens' faces are highly pixellated and discoloured. The pictures of the MPs however are always perfect and right in your face. Now I wonder... is National Day a day to glorify members of the ruling party? Rather than spending money on such badly produced billboards and banners filled with in your face propaganda, why not spend them on the homeless and the old cardboard collectors (and their counterparts) on the streets instead? Well if they don't fancy the idea, they can also distribute the money in the form of book vouchers for underprivilleged students in Singapore. Simple right? I mean, what do I know about things like that I am a mere citizen, an ikan bili. However at least those will be more meaningful than an islandwide display of smiling politicians! Also... I get very annoyed everytime I see something done with bad Photoshop skills and some of these billboards are honestly terrible... Tak boleh tahan lah!
I get very annoyed everytime I see something done with bad Photoshop skills and some of these billboards are honestly terrible... 