NDPee

Ahhh… Another year, another National Day Parade.

First off, who made Gurmit Singh the official ambassador for all things Singaporean? Did I miss a vote for something? He is EVERYWHERE.
At first it was just the TV show, you know what I’m talking about “Phua Chu Kang” and that was fun for a while. But just like slapping your friends in the nuts, you find that it loses its charm right about the time you lie writhing on the floor clutching your burning genitals.

Things got a little weird when he started rapping about hygiene measures to counter SARS, but most of us were too busy shitting our pants to worry about the reason a Eurasian looking, afro-coiffured, garishly dressed contractor who forgot to wipe his mouth after drinking bubble tea is simultaneously having a seizure and trying to tell people to cough into their tissues.

Then somehow he managed to make an appearance in the show “The Amazing Race” and so millions of viewers worldwide now have this as their impression of a typical Singaporean


Would you leave this man alone with a child?

Personally, I suspect he plans to take over Singapore and maybe JB, some even say Batam.

Excitement for these holidays seem to wan proportionate to the amount of years one spends on this floating ball of shit we call Earth.

Proof by word association
(earth -> dirt -> filth -> shit)

I am right and I will have no argument. That means you, SAM!

And maybe it’s the part of me that thinks it is House. But National Day has one of the most tenuous premise of all the holidays. Also seeing people overly excited over what I deem to be trivial really gets on my tits.
It is like me going up to a guy on the street and inviting him to have a drink with me because the guy used the urinal next to mine at a toilet once.

What exactly are we celebrating again?

National identity? Progress for our nation? Racial harmony?

God, I hate how they play up the Racial Harmony angle, as if everyone was all running on verdant, rolling fields, hand in hand forming a circle and singing songs. Apparently, that’s what racial harmony means according to almost every advert on the subject.

Racial Harmony can never be achieved in my not so humble opinion, the best we could ever hope for is racial tolerance. One can greatly disprove of one’s neighbour letting his dogs defecate outside one’s house and walking around with no shirt on, displaying their beer bellies and ‘Ride the Dragon’ tattoo. But one still forces a smile when they unfortunately happen to be airing their butt cracks and gathering the newspaper while you walk by. That is tolerance (although the example is of neighbourly tolerance, go risk your own neck writing one about race) and that is all you can hope for as long as we don’t live in teletubby land. (But we don’t have to deal with EvilLaughingBabySun Overlords so that even things out a bit)

And what about National Identity?

Is it Phua Chu Kang? A ‘Fine’ city where the oppressed population of lambs can’t even chew gum? Food?

Gluttonous Sons of Bitches.

Everybody has to eat to survive, idiots! Most of us that don’t suffer from eating disorders actually Like eating food because we are evolved to derive a sense of pleasure when eating to motivate us to continually put food into our bodies so it can function.
I like eating, but it doesn’t mean I want to be defined by it, because it suggests that there is nothing else that is worth noting about me and that is just sad.

So what then is the precious National Identity? It is simply the acknowledgment that when we spun that wheel of chance, the pointer ended up in Singapore. That’s all there is to it.

It’s a contrived sense of familiarity, it is an emotional ‘safe zone’. If a magic 'mirror' Singapore appeared that was exactly the same in every way, a typical person would still have a manufactured sense of ‘obligation’ towards the ‘original’ Singapore, “because that is where I was born”.

It is a little ironic how with the emphasis on progress and pragmatism that the ‘culture’ of Singapore is hidebound and traditionalist.
How many times have you heard your parents talk about the ‘good old days’ living in a Kampong and that we young ones are spoiled brawling little shits. So says the globs of fat stuffing their faces with Kentucky Fried Chicken and driving around in their SUVs complaining about how the traffic jam forced you to sit in your air-conditioned car listening to the radio, reduced to a panting sweaty mess whenever you climb the escalator, lamenting that the lifts don’t stop at every floor when it stops at every other.

I’m willing to wager that if given the choice between the ‘good old days’ and ‘get the @%#$^(Cantonese swear word) road, you dickhead’ present. They will choose the present.
That’s progress Baby!

Now that I have (hopefully) ruined your holiday and sense of national pride, I wish all a happy national day. Now fuck off.