Saturday, July 17, 2004
Continental Drift
Event : National day 2004
Location : somewhere in the south china sea. or thereabouts.
*****
okay, so here's the buzz about it :
http://202.157.151.15/main/index.asp
http://202.157.151.15/blogger/home.asp?uid=24B236D7-96D0-49CB-9BEA-2158F785270A
http://202.157.151.15/main/index.asp
Now I don't want to sound unpatriotic or anything, and if you're the ultra-patriotic sort who just can't stop humming "Count on Me Singapore", then don't read on. This article will offend you. Which it really isn't intended to. Well, okay it is, but it's also meant to make you think. Whoever you may be.
Someone explain this to me. A "national education" day, attended by primary 5 students across the country as a runup to the big day itself. Complete with bombadiers firing their howitzers an' all.
eh? The point being...? And why do they call it "education"?
National Day never really did it for me. I actually attended one once, and got the big foam finger thingie and all, and had to wave it around, i think. The memories have kinda been repressed now.
But seriously, it's a great day out and all for the celebrities and the ministers, and i suppose for most of the sheep, but what's the point?
In a nutshell :
military formation marching
dance act thingie. cute kids sing under obnoxious conductor.
more military formation marching
prime minister arrives, late
more military formation marching.
Inspection of the troops, by prime minister.
Prime minister leaves.
More marching, more dance, aircraft flyby, Gun salute. Cannon salute. Fireworks, grand finale. Finish, post-event party.
Excuse me... aren't we losing the plot a little? In what way does all this constitute a "national day"?
I'll give credit where it's due. It does take a lot of blood, sweat and effort, and countless rehearsals upon rehearsals. Even the kiddy-audience have to go for rehearsals, in my year it was to make sure we waved glo-sticks in unison or something. I remember the year when they had to flip shiny metallic things over in sequence.
It's all very admirable, and it looks great on television, uh, except who really watches the NDP on TV?
But, and we're talking big butts here (I like big butt... cough, sorry.) I think the organisers have got it all wrong.
National day in Singapore is just another public holiday. There isn't really any national pride in our people. There's just the effigy of it, one day a year. I can't help but feel overwhelmed sometimes, in this strange land I've taken up residence in, when everyone's flying their little red and white flags on their cars. When you can tell that England just scored a goal, because a great roar sweeps across the entire country. When an entire emergency department (90% of whom are wearing the england T-shirt) grinds to a halt - and an entire nation holds its breath - then groans in despair as beckhams golden boot, well, pardon my french, fucks up. Sure, sure, it's only football - but there's so much pride there. So much at stake. There's a strange solidarity, between the white men and the dark man, watching england do battle yet again. Us yellow people just stand around on the side, and if we cheer at the right time, mebbe sometimes we get a free drink. heh.
I reckon National Day ought to showcase the people.
Not the stars and ministers - that's our national mindset, innit? The stars are Da people -- but they're so, so not "the people."
*****
Music
While I'm at it, why don't I slag off the national day songs, too?
(excerpt from) We Will Get There (Dick Lee)
Remember the days,
we set out together with faith?
Remember the times, so fine,
when we thought thatNothing could stand in our way
REMEMBER THE TIMES SO FINE??!? GEEZ! Honestly. shakes head.
howabout this?
(excerpt from) Where I Belong (Tanya Chua)
Morning comes around and I
Can't wait to see my sunny island
In its glorious greenery,
whether rain or shine, it's still beautiful
Err. Yes, quite. Moving swiftly on.
How many struggling songwriters do we have out there anyhow? I bet there's a whole army of them who aren't celebrities, or well connected to parliament. I bet there's actually some real talent out there.
Maybe we could have a website dedicated to them, for them to post their contributions to. And showcase them ALL. Good, bad and ugly.
Sure, we need a national day song. We're so pavlovian it'd probably feel funny if we didn't have one.
Well, we could pick the song the public loves most... have a head to head amongst the unknowns -- and between the unknowns and the bigwigs. And if some unknown kid won - well so be it. Tomorrow, he'll be a celebrity himself. Today, he'll be some unknown kid with zits who hasn't had his makeover yet, singing the national day song on stage with his guitar. Or piano. Or band. Or whatever.
And please, please, please pick people who sing with some sincerity. National day songs don't have to be about how clean and green our country is. They can be about love. They can be about relationships. They can be about loss. They can be about memories.
As long as it reached out to the nation - it'd be a kick-ass national day song.
*****
Words
National day ought to be a day when the people are proud - of the country. Of the humble, faceless layman. Of our past, and our present - and our futures. Our one minute of glory to the people that make the country WORK. And not just the men in white - without the support of the sheep, the system would collapse. Celebrities mean nothing to the economy. And Jack Neo's little piece on perpetuation of the arts is... cough. I'll reserve comment.
Sure, that moblog thing is an interesting idea.
But honestly - go click the links above.
How many of them can actually write?
What is the POINT of a celebrity moblog when all the pseudo-celebrity writes is "I wish I could update more often, but I'm too busy."
I cast my eye around the web, and behold - there are SO MANY singaporean blogs out there. Hundreds upon thousands. Some of them can actually string words together into mini masterpieces.
Shouldn't national day recognise these usually hidden faces behind the pearls they produce out of their everyday, mundane lives?
Instead, we have the winner of the mydreamd8 competition (no offence, Janice) doing her best to represent the blogging community at large - and well. She's sweet, and she's trying her best, and I'm sure if I knew her in real life I'd be charmed.
But there's more to Singaporean bloggers than Janice.
I think the organisers got it all wrong. They shouldn't have "handpicked" top-blogs (through whatever social network they used to form their pool of candidates) which, quite honestly, are mostly rubbish, or just cute piccys of housepets or other snippets of celebrity life which, well, are interesting enough but not enough.
They should have set up a team to search the web for Singaporean weblogs - as many as possible -- and linked them ALL.
They could have categorised them, into advanced writers, and into daily bloggers, into reads of merit, and reads of substance - whatever. They could have done so, so much more.
Instead, we have a pale reflection of mydreamd8, with every "blogger" using a standardised template, and comments functions becoming blatent money rakers for Singtel. Every "blogger" there is really just Singtel's whore -- I wonder how they came up with that idea?
So some people will still read them, and ooh and ah.
But where is the pride? Where is Singapore??
Likewise, the whole National Day Parade thingie.
What's with all the boys in uniform twirling their big weapons around? And kiddies walking around a 400m track??
Is that meant to be some brazillian carnival idea gone horribly wrong? Let's make it secure. Instead of having floats and a carnival meandering down the streets, let's make it simple - we'll put it all in a stadium. Make them walk around a track a few times.
I do think there's a role for a parade, and if the best we can do is a hemmed-in stageshow, then well and fine. Every country has it's parading of the colours. The Queen inspects the guard.
But the NDP shouldn't BE national day. It should just be one of the many things happening on national day.
*****
Sights
There should be other things happening elsewhere, alongside it. At the SAME TIME.
If you want vibrancy and creativity, then national day ought to be chaotic. A cacophony of culture. Fireworks blazing across the little dot on the map we call our home.
I've been away a long time now. I dunno if they're already doing this. But national day could culminate in the parade - and film fests - and concerts in the parks across the country. With fledgeling bands and amateur emcees wowing the crowds, instead of the usual boring, perfect, ephemeral faces. It could be so much more than a few pilots in stupid little super skyhawks (WHAT'S WITH THAT?? Crappy little airplanes the size of hatchbacks?? Break out the F16s! and F15s! not that we have any of those.) trailing pretty coloured smoke behind them, and a lotta fireworks.
Heck, scrap national day itself. Have a national week.
Have roaming cameramen on the street, capturing the everyday moments of life we take for granted, and are blind to. The way the people course in waves, en route to work. The old man doing his tai-chi in the serenity of a park. Children at play in a playground.
And have people voicing their thoughts about the land. And not just nice pink thoughts - cynical thoughts. Dark thoughts. Pessimism -- the whole lot of them. Honest, everyday thoughts.
And for chrissakes, don't do it the way we always do, cameraman and boom-mike becoming mini foci for attention, wandering up to the layman to ask his opinion about something. Turning him into a little trapped creature fumbling on the spot for something clever to say, and turning out something like "I dunnola" or "I tink ees a good ting la."
The layman can't speak in Singapore. But he/she does things that the cameraman, with a touch of artistry, can capture the beauty of. The country itself has the same - the way the sun comes off the shiny city-buildings in the morning. Lucian captures many of these moments, in still shots.
So, blend. Have that silent shot of an old man doing his tai-chee, and maybe a voiceover. A poem. Local, or not - as long as it's beautiful.
Action shots of (bleah) national servicemen at training, with sound removed and replaced with a soundtrack of an a capella group. Or maybe someone reading anthem for the doomed youth. hehe. Or some kid (who can speak relatively coherently please) telling it as it is - how he's always afraid he'll sign extra, or break his leg. How his sergeant effs and blinds at him... but how he's making friends and learning to depend on the people around him too. And how stupid the doorless showers really are.
I can think of a particular poet who'd fit the bill nicely - alfian. He's turned into a mini-celebrity of sorts already, our best and brightest -- though truth be told in the world arena he'd be pretty good - just that. Not quite liquid gold. But there must be more of them. There must be other alfian's out there - use them.
Short silent clips of... hmm. national teams at training, taken surreptitiously, capturing the effort they're putting in. Football. Swimming. Fencing. Gymnastics. Whatever. Loving closeups of the sweat falling off their brows as the insane china coaches put them through their two thousand burpees. Ug. Sorry, bad memories. Frontline medical staff - paramedics included - saving lives.Hawkerstall uncles driving their mercedes benzes. Policemen taking down criminal... oops we don't have any criminals in Singapore, do we? People at the beach just chilling out.
Sure, it'll be expensive and involve a lot of work on the part of the media to put out huge numbers of camera crews on the streets. And I guess they'd have to get past the mindset that everything needs to be planned in advance.
But isn't that the whole point? To do it big, for a day - or maybe a week?
I was just thinking all this today, standing in the crowd in Covent Garden watching a street musician making burning cigarettes vanish into thin air - and reflecting how most of the time TV crews in Singapore set things up... there's always a rather artificial feel to it all, because people have arranged to be filmed. And they ham it up for the camera. There's no spontaniety.
And while I was mulling over everything I've just written - about daily snippets of the mundane working so much more on the psyche of society than silly shots of the prime minister waving benevolently at his assembled flock, and celebrities, well... shepherding the sheep into doing the pre-rehearsed things right -- when this cameraman appeared out of nowhere, and stood next to me with his camera rolling. And the (inevitable) guy with the boom mike appeared behind him. The street magician guy looked up, surprised, for an instant, but didn't miss a beat and went on with his routine (and these guys, the buskers in London -- some of them are really talented) and went on cracking awful jokes about parliament as he ripped some poor sap's 20 pound bill up (it was mysteriously restored at the end of his routine) and they went live. Just like that.
I glanced down, and saw their tag - BBC.
And after the routine ended, they just wandered off and filmed someone else, equally surreptitiously.
National day shouldn't be about giving people what some executive in his nice suit and ivory tower thinks they ought to want -- it should be about giving people what they want. And I might be wrong, but I think Singaporeans want to really be proud of their country, and themselves.
Location : somewhere in the south china sea. or thereabouts.
*****
okay, so here's the buzz about it :
http://202.157.151.15/main/index.asp
http://202.157.151.15/blogger/home.asp?uid=24B236D7-96D0-49CB-9BEA-2158F785270A
http://202.157.151.15/main/index.asp
Now I don't want to sound unpatriotic or anything, and if you're the ultra-patriotic sort who just can't stop humming "Count on Me Singapore", then don't read on. This article will offend you. Which it really isn't intended to. Well, okay it is, but it's also meant to make you think. Whoever you may be.
Someone explain this to me. A "national education" day, attended by primary 5 students across the country as a runup to the big day itself. Complete with bombadiers firing their howitzers an' all.
eh? The point being...? And why do they call it "education"?
National Day never really did it for me. I actually attended one once, and got the big foam finger thingie and all, and had to wave it around, i think. The memories have kinda been repressed now.
But seriously, it's a great day out and all for the celebrities and the ministers, and i suppose for most of the sheep, but what's the point?
In a nutshell :
military formation marching
dance act thingie. cute kids sing under obnoxious conductor.
more military formation marching
prime minister arrives, late
more military formation marching.
Inspection of the troops, by prime minister.
Prime minister leaves.
More marching, more dance, aircraft flyby, Gun salute. Cannon salute. Fireworks, grand finale. Finish, post-event party.
Excuse me... aren't we losing the plot a little? In what way does all this constitute a "national day"?
I'll give credit where it's due. It does take a lot of blood, sweat and effort, and countless rehearsals upon rehearsals. Even the kiddy-audience have to go for rehearsals, in my year it was to make sure we waved glo-sticks in unison or something. I remember the year when they had to flip shiny metallic things over in sequence.
It's all very admirable, and it looks great on television, uh, except who really watches the NDP on TV?
But, and we're talking big butts here (I like big butt... cough, sorry.) I think the organisers have got it all wrong.
National day in Singapore is just another public holiday. There isn't really any national pride in our people. There's just the effigy of it, one day a year. I can't help but feel overwhelmed sometimes, in this strange land I've taken up residence in, when everyone's flying their little red and white flags on their cars. When you can tell that England just scored a goal, because a great roar sweeps across the entire country. When an entire emergency department (90% of whom are wearing the england T-shirt) grinds to a halt - and an entire nation holds its breath - then groans in despair as beckhams golden boot, well, pardon my french, fucks up. Sure, sure, it's only football - but there's so much pride there. So much at stake. There's a strange solidarity, between the white men and the dark man, watching england do battle yet again. Us yellow people just stand around on the side, and if we cheer at the right time, mebbe sometimes we get a free drink. heh.
I reckon National Day ought to showcase the people.
Not the stars and ministers - that's our national mindset, innit? The stars are Da people -- but they're so, so not "the people."
*****
Music
While I'm at it, why don't I slag off the national day songs, too?
(excerpt from) We Will Get There (Dick Lee)
Remember the days,
we set out together with faith?
Remember the times, so fine,
when we thought thatNothing could stand in our way
REMEMBER THE TIMES SO FINE??!? GEEZ! Honestly. shakes head.
howabout this?
(excerpt from) Where I Belong (Tanya Chua)
Morning comes around and I
Can't wait to see my sunny island
In its glorious greenery,
whether rain or shine, it's still beautiful
Err. Yes, quite. Moving swiftly on.
How many struggling songwriters do we have out there anyhow? I bet there's a whole army of them who aren't celebrities, or well connected to parliament. I bet there's actually some real talent out there.
Maybe we could have a website dedicated to them, for them to post their contributions to. And showcase them ALL. Good, bad and ugly.
Sure, we need a national day song. We're so pavlovian it'd probably feel funny if we didn't have one.
Well, we could pick the song the public loves most... have a head to head amongst the unknowns -- and between the unknowns and the bigwigs. And if some unknown kid won - well so be it. Tomorrow, he'll be a celebrity himself. Today, he'll be some unknown kid with zits who hasn't had his makeover yet, singing the national day song on stage with his guitar. Or piano. Or band. Or whatever.
And please, please, please pick people who sing with some sincerity. National day songs don't have to be about how clean and green our country is. They can be about love. They can be about relationships. They can be about loss. They can be about memories.
As long as it reached out to the nation - it'd be a kick-ass national day song.
*****
Words
National day ought to be a day when the people are proud - of the country. Of the humble, faceless layman. Of our past, and our present - and our futures. Our one minute of glory to the people that make the country WORK. And not just the men in white - without the support of the sheep, the system would collapse. Celebrities mean nothing to the economy. And Jack Neo's little piece on perpetuation of the arts is... cough. I'll reserve comment.
Sure, that moblog thing is an interesting idea.
But honestly - go click the links above.
How many of them can actually write?
What is the POINT of a celebrity moblog when all the pseudo-celebrity writes is "I wish I could update more often, but I'm too busy."
I cast my eye around the web, and behold - there are SO MANY singaporean blogs out there. Hundreds upon thousands. Some of them can actually string words together into mini masterpieces.
Shouldn't national day recognise these usually hidden faces behind the pearls they produce out of their everyday, mundane lives?
Instead, we have the winner of the mydreamd8 competition (no offence, Janice) doing her best to represent the blogging community at large - and well. She's sweet, and she's trying her best, and I'm sure if I knew her in real life I'd be charmed.
But there's more to Singaporean bloggers than Janice.
I think the organisers got it all wrong. They shouldn't have "handpicked" top-blogs (through whatever social network they used to form their pool of candidates) which, quite honestly, are mostly rubbish, or just cute piccys of housepets or other snippets of celebrity life which, well, are interesting enough but not enough.
They should have set up a team to search the web for Singaporean weblogs - as many as possible -- and linked them ALL.
They could have categorised them, into advanced writers, and into daily bloggers, into reads of merit, and reads of substance - whatever. They could have done so, so much more.
Instead, we have a pale reflection of mydreamd8, with every "blogger" using a standardised template, and comments functions becoming blatent money rakers for Singtel. Every "blogger" there is really just Singtel's whore -- I wonder how they came up with that idea?
So some people will still read them, and ooh and ah.
But where is the pride? Where is Singapore??
Likewise, the whole National Day Parade thingie.
What's with all the boys in uniform twirling their big weapons around? And kiddies walking around a 400m track??
Is that meant to be some brazillian carnival idea gone horribly wrong? Let's make it secure. Instead of having floats and a carnival meandering down the streets, let's make it simple - we'll put it all in a stadium. Make them walk around a track a few times.
I do think there's a role for a parade, and if the best we can do is a hemmed-in stageshow, then well and fine. Every country has it's parading of the colours. The Queen inspects the guard.
But the NDP shouldn't BE national day. It should just be one of the many things happening on national day.
*****
Sights
There should be other things happening elsewhere, alongside it. At the SAME TIME.
If you want vibrancy and creativity, then national day ought to be chaotic. A cacophony of culture. Fireworks blazing across the little dot on the map we call our home.
I've been away a long time now. I dunno if they're already doing this. But national day could culminate in the parade - and film fests - and concerts in the parks across the country. With fledgeling bands and amateur emcees wowing the crowds, instead of the usual boring, perfect, ephemeral faces. It could be so much more than a few pilots in stupid little super skyhawks (WHAT'S WITH THAT?? Crappy little airplanes the size of hatchbacks?? Break out the F16s! and F15s! not that we have any of those.) trailing pretty coloured smoke behind them, and a lotta fireworks.
Heck, scrap national day itself. Have a national week.
Have roaming cameramen on the street, capturing the everyday moments of life we take for granted, and are blind to. The way the people course in waves, en route to work. The old man doing his tai-chi in the serenity of a park. Children at play in a playground.
And have people voicing their thoughts about the land. And not just nice pink thoughts - cynical thoughts. Dark thoughts. Pessimism -- the whole lot of them. Honest, everyday thoughts.
And for chrissakes, don't do it the way we always do, cameraman and boom-mike becoming mini foci for attention, wandering up to the layman to ask his opinion about something. Turning him into a little trapped creature fumbling on the spot for something clever to say, and turning out something like "I dunnola" or "I tink ees a good ting la."
The layman can't speak in Singapore. But he/she does things that the cameraman, with a touch of artistry, can capture the beauty of. The country itself has the same - the way the sun comes off the shiny city-buildings in the morning. Lucian captures many of these moments, in still shots.
So, blend. Have that silent shot of an old man doing his tai-chee, and maybe a voiceover. A poem. Local, or not - as long as it's beautiful.
Action shots of (bleah) national servicemen at training, with sound removed and replaced with a soundtrack of an a capella group. Or maybe someone reading anthem for the doomed youth. hehe. Or some kid (who can speak relatively coherently please) telling it as it is - how he's always afraid he'll sign extra, or break his leg. How his sergeant effs and blinds at him... but how he's making friends and learning to depend on the people around him too. And how stupid the doorless showers really are.
I can think of a particular poet who'd fit the bill nicely - alfian. He's turned into a mini-celebrity of sorts already, our best and brightest -- though truth be told in the world arena he'd be pretty good - just that. Not quite liquid gold. But there must be more of them. There must be other alfian's out there - use them.
Short silent clips of... hmm. national teams at training, taken surreptitiously, capturing the effort they're putting in. Football. Swimming. Fencing. Gymnastics. Whatever. Loving closeups of the sweat falling off their brows as the insane china coaches put them through their two thousand burpees. Ug. Sorry, bad memories. Frontline medical staff - paramedics included - saving lives.
Sure, it'll be expensive and involve a lot of work on the part of the media to put out huge numbers of camera crews on the streets. And I guess they'd have to get past the mindset that everything needs to be planned in advance.
But isn't that the whole point? To do it big, for a day - or maybe a week?
I was just thinking all this today, standing in the crowd in Covent Garden watching a street musician making burning cigarettes vanish into thin air - and reflecting how most of the time TV crews in Singapore set things up... there's always a rather artificial feel to it all, because people have arranged to be filmed. And they ham it up for the camera. There's no spontaniety.
And while I was mulling over everything I've just written - about daily snippets of the mundane working so much more on the psyche of society than silly shots of the prime minister waving benevolently at his assembled flock, and celebrities, well... shepherding the sheep into doing the pre-rehearsed things right -- when this cameraman appeared out of nowhere, and stood next to me with his camera rolling. And the (inevitable) guy with the boom mike appeared behind him. The street magician guy looked up, surprised, for an instant, but didn't miss a beat and went on with his routine (and these guys, the buskers in London -- some of them are really talented) and went on cracking awful jokes about parliament as he ripped some poor sap's 20 pound bill up (it was mysteriously restored at the end of his routine) and they went live. Just like that.
I glanced down, and saw their tag - BBC.
And after the routine ended, they just wandered off and filmed someone else, equally surreptitiously.
National day shouldn't be about giving people what some executive in his nice suit and ivory tower thinks they ought to want -- it should be about giving people what they want. And I might be wrong, but I think Singaporeans want to really be proud of their country, and themselves.
