Dear Mr groundnotes,

I love your blog! It really helps me with my bulimia. Now I no longer have to stick my fingers down my throat after a Happy Meal; I just read your writing and it all comes out as easy as pie (literally). Anyway, enough of the admiration. Need your advice. I have a huge red rash on my inner thigh that doesn’t seem to go away. It itches like hell and its killing my love life. Also, my GF wants me to buy her a LV bag which costs $800. Saw the exact same thing in Bugis Street for $40…should I even tempt fate?

Yours truly,

Skinny, itchy and stingy

Dear Skinny, itchy and stingy

You’re a guy and you have bulimia. You don’t need a GF, you’re gay. Problem solved, $40 saved.

groundnotes

Dear groundnotes,

Been reading your stuff for about a year now. It’s just another crap site in a long line of liberal rubbish. The PAP can’t do anything right, the opposition are the best thing since sliced bread, yadayadayada… When will you arm-chair critics realize that globalization has changed the rules of the game? We need to stay focused, united and cohesive. Unless you want to go the way of Indonesia or Malaysia, it’s time we stop all this fashionable crap about needing more opposition, get behind our leaders and steer our ship to calmer waters. I know smart arses like you will think me conservative but you don’t have a helicopter view of the world.

Yours not-so-sincerely,

Don’t-know-what-you’ve-got-till-its-gone

Dear Don’t-know-what-you’ve-got-till-its-gone,

You sound angry. Consulted my psychiatrist friend. He says you’ve got a classic case of Cinderellalitis. It stems from an irrational love for 80s soft rock and a fetish for big hair. Then, just like the music industry, you quickly find that life has moved on. Panic wells inside as you realize you no longer fit into your black PVC trousers and leopard print vest. You grow bitter as rock geniuses like Cinderella, Skid Row and Poison are now whispered in the same way you whisper “I love under-aged boys”. You puzzle over why youngsters love Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas and pray for the day they discover the wonders of Motley Crue. You see, the root of your bitterness is the belief that you alone recognize genius music and anyone who doesn’t share your taste is a tone-deaf politically naïve monkey. Rock on.

groundnotes

Dear Groundnotes,

First of all, yes, I capitalized your ‘g’ because it’s plain wrong to have a lower-case ‘g’. It shows a lack of breeding. Second, and more importantly, I’m penning this email to lodge a sincere protest against your “SDN: State’s Dating Nanny” post. You are generally mildly funny, but when you show so much disrespect to us civil servants who selflessly put our lives on the line for a better future, you have, well, crossed that line. If you’re half as intelligent as you think you are you’ll know that civil servants are caught between a rock and hard place. On one hand we have to materialize the flimsy visions of Ministers and Perm Secs, and make them look good when they report to Mount Olympia, on the other, we get caricatured as conservative, boring and nerdy by the likes of you and other artsy fartsy types. Well, f**k you. We’ve had enough. There’s no shame in having Ben & Jerry’s for company on a Saturday night.

Yours faithfully,

Angry Civil Servant

Dear Angry Civil Servant,

I apologise for being disrespectful. It was never my intent to pour scorn on your tireless behind-the-scenes effort. But like ‘heartlanders’, ‘ah bengs’ and ‘SPGs’, civil servants are comic gold in Singapore. I’ll endeavour to rise above my baser instincts and avoid the path of least resistance. Glad you’re a B&J fan. Me too! Have you tried the new flavours? Caramel Civil Servant Chew: a plain vanilla flavour with a bitter aftertaste, or Minister Berry Swirl: an overwhelmingly rich chocolate ice cream with an empty core, or Scholar Raspberry: a very strong alcoholic fudge too good to mix with other flavours?

groundnotes

I had a friend called Kevin in secondary school. He was a clever boy. He was smiley and polite. But Kevin came from a poor family. His father was usually unemployed and his mother worked on the factory floor of some garment manufacturer. This made Kevin pretty insecure, especially when he hung around us middle class boys.

And because of this Kevin was always trying to be someone else. He tried to talk like us, tried to act like us, tried to become us. Pretty soon, Kevin stopped being Kevin. And because he could never become us, he became nothing, neither here nor there. And because he was neither here nor there, we found him less and less interesting.

Singapore is like Kevin.

According to Goh Chok Tong Singapore needs a new identity to ‘stay ahead’. We must project a new identity – “one that captivates the eyes, moves the heart, stirs the soul and inspires the mind”. In other words, lie. We do many things. We knock down old buildings for fun, we sue people for saying things we don’t like, we censor films, we have androids for MPs, we have a “nation-building” press, we have leaders we have to worship, we deny people the right to love others of the same sex, but we certainly don’t do ‘captivation’, ‘soul’ or ‘inspire’. Anyone who says otherwise either works in the Singapore Tourism Board or wants to get his letter published in the Forum Page of the Straits Times.

We do safe. We do clean. We do efficient. We do corruption-free, green, family-friendly, and very good propaganda. We already have an identity – a hardworking obedient people with a keen ear for the jangling of coins. Inspiration is one of those high falutin ideas for the birds.

Goh tells us that we must be a “Distinctive City”. But O Great One, we already are! ERP, CWO, COE, no chewing gum, no spitting, no littering, no opposition, no opinion, no intellectuals, no newspaper, no satire, no TV, no one man assembly, hell, we couldn’t be more distinctive if we wore neon pink thongs and a feather boa to the Church of Our Saviour holding hands and singing “It’s Raining Men”! Let’s decide once and for all what kind of Distinctive City we are ok? “Boston of the East”, “Global City for the Arts”, “Renaissance City”, “City of Possibilities” – I’ve not been this confused since Father Mathews asked me to sit on his lap!

This neurotic desire to keep re-inventing ourselves, to be what we’re not, tells us more about our insecurities than anything else. Londoners don’t say they need a new identity. A new transportation system yes, but not a new identity. Nor do New Yorkers, Parisians or any other global city dweller. They know that what they are is exactly that which distinguishes them from the competition.

But like Kevin, Singapore is never at ease with itself. It’s a little ashamed, a little awkward and completely unaware of how to accentuate its qualities. And like Kevin, we’re in danger of becoming neither here nor there.

Do you know your ancestors?

No, I’m not into séances.

No, no, are you in touch with your relatives?

My uncle stroked my bum once many years ago but he told me not to tell anyone.

Not that kind of “touch” stoopid.

He gave me a lolly-pop.

Gross. Let’s start again. Do you maintain your ancestral links?

Oh, no why?

SM Goh says Singaporeans must keep in touch with where their forefathers came from.

Isn’t what chap gor meh is all about?

Stop with all that spirits stuff. I’m talking cultural history here.

Why? Since when?

Since SM Goh went to China. There he visited his father’s village called Wu Ling in Yong Chun. He was so taken up by seeing the room where his father was born that he called all Singaporeans to get in touch with their ancestors.

But I don’t speak Hakka.

Minor impediment. I don’t speak Cantonese either.

So we have to get to know our ancestors and distant relatives without speaking the language?

That’s the problem with you government critics. The damn glass is always half empty. Next you’ll be saying you have nothing in common with a ruddy-face peasant farmer who earns $1 a day scooping pig shit.

Was that what your ancestors did?

Think so. Didn’t you know, “humble” is the new cool! SM Goh said “It is in a way humbling to know that my origin was that humble”.

My great grandfather was a magistrate.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Sorry.

Anyway, SM Goh says it’s important to keep in touch with your ancestors.

Like I said, I don’t speak the dialect anymore…*sob* The government’s systematic efforts to kill off our dialects over the years has torn me from my motherland *sob*.

There, there… don’t take it too hard. Just think of it as propaganda and reality passing each other like two ships in the night.

A bit like chopping off a man’s legs and then asking him to keep fit by jogging?

Ouch. Yes. But SM Goh also said all Singaporeans should be loyal to Singapore. Even the new ones.

What new ones?

Those that aren’t maids, construction workers, or masseuses on social visit passes.

But those make the best Singaporeans!

Meaning?

The maids are abused, the construction workers are worked to the bone and the masseuses are constantly screwed.

Abused, worked to the bone and screwed?

The perfect Singaporean.

None of your wise cracks now. Be serious. There was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it, but we did. There was a time when trouble seemed too much for us to take, but….

Barf!

One of the most surreal images of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, then its Minister of Information, barking into ‘live’ TV that the American infidels would never find their way into Bagdad as, behind him on screen, American tanks were seen rolling down the streets of the capital. The sight of Al-Sahaf (aka Comical Ali), now a TV pundit, professing that all was well as everything crumbled around his ankles epitomized the farcical and thoroughly disingenuous nature of the Iraq invasion, propelling him to iconic status. [www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com] 

Al-Sahaf is, of course, not the only figure in history to have turned his face from the inconveniences of reality. Nero and his fiddle are strong favourites for the prestigious Comical Ali Award, so too Dr Pangloss from Volitare’s Candide.

Singapore’s very own candidate is none other than PAP MP Zaqy Mohamad. When asked to comment on news that the Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), saw Singapore move up from 144^th to 133^rd position, he noted that the “improved ranking “underlines that our press remains credible especially in the face of challenges like the new media””.

According to Zaqy, who is also chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Information, Communications and the Arts, the improved rankings is down to the media diversity here which creates competition which, in turn, provides better-quality work.

[todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC091021-0000103/Press-freedom-index--Spore-133rd#]

Mr Zaqy has blown the competition away. Bullshit may come in all shapes and sizes but we all know pedigree manure when we smell it. Only in a parallel universe is a 133 ranking in the Press Freedom Index indicative of “press credibility”. Only in Singapore do a government-controlled TV station and a government-controlled newspaper constitute “media diversity” and “competition”.

It’s hard to decide which is more frightening – that Zaqy actually believes what he’s saying, or that this is just another ideological reflex action from a PAP MP. If we credit the man with even an ounce of intelligence, and as polite respectful bloggers we sadly must, then it boils down to cynicism.

There are a hundred and one ways to deal with these types of embarrassing data. First, question the selection criteria of the index. Zaqy could have noted that the criteria chosen by RWB may be arbritary and thus favour some types of press and not others. Second, he could have said that the majority of Singaporeans do not seem to want more than what is already offered by The Straits Times. Third, he could have reiterated the PAP’s “nation-building press” spiel. All of this would not have raised a brow. Instead, he chose to go for broke.

When a man can say, with a straight face, that our press is credible after coming in 133 out of 175 countries then he must believe that the rest of us are morons. When a man can announce that we have media diversity and press freedom despite our country’s long trail of political censorship, he must believe that we are an uneducated bunch. They say we get the government we deserve, and given the political apathy of Singaporeans, we deserve Zaqy. After all, we elected him…. or did we?

Now that SDU has merged with SDS to form SDN, civil servants involved in this amalgamation must form an orderly queue at the edge of the Bukit Timah Quarry and jump to their deaths. Those that survive the fall will be beaten with baseball bats. After 24 years, the best name these civil servants can come up with is SDN? And if they expect single Singaporeans to sign up in droves they must be smoking something pretty illegal. Any advertiser worth his salt will tell you it’s all about branding. Your brand must stand for something. Nike stands for cool, Samsonite for reliability, and Prada for ‘piss off, why are you even looking at me?’.

What does SDN stand for? A rom-com marathon at home on a Saturday night with your best friends Ben & Jerry? The only single folks who would be interested in an outfit like SDN are the aesthetically  and constipationally challenged. But enough about the PAP Youth Wing. The point is, unless some effort is made to make SDN cool, sexy or desirable – all alien concepts to the civil service – you’re going to end up with the same problems SDU and SDS faced – graduate women won’t look at non-graduate men, non-graduate men will chase Vietnamese farm girls, while everyone only joins to get a piece of the great discounts on wine-tasting courses.

It’s time SDN re-brands itself. It’s time it makes big promises to its clients. For starters it can re-make itself, Singapore style; that is, change the name and leave the content exactly the same. Some suggestions:  Social Enhancement Xtreme (SEX); or Organisation of Recreation, Games And Social Meets (ORGASM), or Quality Unions, Improved Couplings and Kinky Intimate Exchanges (QUICKIE). Imagine the soaring membership! It’s all about promises.  

SDN is also about broken promises. What happened to the government’s promise to stay out of any business that could be found in the Yellow Pages? There are scores of dating agencies in the Yellow Pages so what’s the point of SDN?

But if the government is serious about getting singles hitched it has to stop acting like damn nanny. The single biggest obstacle to getting the SDN right is the fact that it’s conceived and implemented by a civil servant whose idea of an exciting night would be dimming the lights to watch Drag Me to Hell…. on mute….naked…eagle spread….with the fore-mentioned Ben & Jerry’s smeared all over his body. Would you be able to resist stabbing him for the sake of the local gene pool? Would the government ever grow the balls needed tackle real-life challenges? It can begin by granting a tax incentive to graduate women who marry non-graduate men, giving subsidies to men in the market for Vietnamese, PRC, Myanmar or Cambodian brides, cordoning off nightspots for SPGs and Caucasian men, legalizing porn and civil unions (married gays and lesbians will bring down the singles figures), and introducing doubles pole-dancing and making naked belly-dancing a national sport.

Times have changed and as usual the government is huffing and puffing behind like Moses Lim chasing a doughnut. Coupling in the 21^st century has undergone a democratization process. People below 30 hardly ever begin relationships in institutional spaces like work, church or government-sponsored cattle auctions anymore. They begin with chance meetings in bookshops, spas, clubs, cyberspace and darken toilets in East Coast Park at car park ‘C’. The SDN is as relevant to young singles as P65 MPs are to hip-hop.   

But the state will never learn. It’s in its nature to coerce, regulate and implement. And it’s in our nature to ignore it.

It was reported that the Singapore police busted two local syndicates involved in the sale of counterfeit goods. According to the Assistant Director of the Specialised Crime Division: “Police take a serious view of intellectual property rights violations, and will continue to take strict enforcement action, leveraging on intelligence and other capabilities, to clamp down hard on the sales and distribution of counterfeit goods in Singapore.”

I hope with all my heart he was joking. I mean if the police really took a serious view of intellectual property rights and counterfeit goods, what will we be left with?

The first to be arrested will be NTUC for the crime of imitating a labour movement. The next to go will be The Straits Times for being a counterfeit newspaper. In no time the police will be coming for Chinatown for imitating a vibrant authentic slice of immigrant history. What next? GRC PAP MPs for being counterfeit MPs because they were not voted in? Singapore politics for being an imitation democracy? Once you start, where do you end? Please Mr Policeman, for the love of god, stop your insanity!

Counterfeit goods are good. They make capitalism democratic. Everyone can now own a LV bag all for $20. We moan and groan about the widening wage gap, the gulf between the working class and the middle class, between the middle class and the rich, between the rich and the super rich, between the super rich and Singapore ministers, and yet we deny ordinary folks the vanity reserved for the well-heeled. Counterfeit goods are the laxative for a discontented people, they are the prosaic for teeth gnashers and if you think intellectual property needs to be protected you’re living in la-la land. Hollywood has been ripping off ideas from Hong Kong cinema for years, Oasis rips-off the Beatles for a living, Sumiko Tan rips-off the personality vanilla ice-cream for her columns; the fact is, ideas are in constant circulation whether you like it or not.

The police should do the right thing. Lay off the counterfeit syndicates. They are more than just grubby fingers pushing Prada bags in dingy alleyways. They are merchants of the Singapore dream, a dream that is no longer attainable for the majority of us. And so these syndicates fill our veins with the opiate of designer brands and fantasies of luxury so that we may feel whole again. And what better place for the celebration of counterfeit goods than in an imitation nation?

Aunty Lucy deserves more respect. The Chinese-speaking heartlander has long been a poster child for moral conservatism. Every time anything morally controversial crops up, whether its censorship regulations, topless shows, or 377A, the debate is always lazily poised between the more liberal cosmopolitan and the conservative heartlander. The “liberal cosmopolitans” being the convenient label for the English-speaking well educated middle class and “heartlanders” for the uncles and aunties who live in Toa Payoh. This is class politics at its most deceitful. 

Labelling the heartlander ‘conservative’ has been very useful in demonising the Chinese-speaking working class as the socio-cultural laggard in a progressive global city. Painted as unsophisticated, uncouth and resistant to change, the heartlander is the cosmopolitan’s country bumpkin cousin who needs to be patronised and shielded from the decadent forces of globalisation. 

However, even a quick glance at how the Chinese working class views “morally controversial” issues will force many to reconsider its reputation for conservatism. When it comes to issues of sex and sexuality, it’s clear the heartlanders have a far more enlightened attitude towards homosexuality and cross-dressing. Channel 8 is filled with cross-dressers from Liang Po Po to Aunty Lucy. Homosexuality is not a big deal when drama serials and comedies have their fair share of effeminate characters. Do we have their equivalent on Channel 5? Can you imagine Kumar in full drag with his own show on Channel 5 at primetime? The English-speaking moralists will have a collective heart-attack (right after penning a million outraged letters to the Straits Times and Mediacorp). 

It also seems as though the heartlanders have a far healthier attitude towards sex. Pick up any issue of the Lianhe Wan Pao and there’ll be sensational sex scandals, racy celebrity gossip and titillating pictures to send any puritan into a full-blown epileptic shock. 

Even euthanasia is not taboo subject for the Chinese-speaking community. When Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan broached the topic of euthanasia late last year as a topic of debate in the context of an aging society, he was citing an on-going debate that was already taking place in the Chinese press. Such a debate would not have been possible in the English-language press because of the high levels of moralising that would invariably overwhelm the discussion. [http://www.asiaone.com/Health/News/Story/A1Story20081020-94922.html]

Over a variety of issues, the heartlander holds more enlightened and progressive views than the English-speaking middle class. There are two possible reasons for this. Firstly, the Chinese-speaking heartlanders are predominantly Buddhists (still the biggest religion in Singapore) and Taoists. Both religions are generally very tolerant of contrary morals, and often possess a more pragmatic syncretic streak, thus allowing them to adapt to liberal values and lifestyles. Secondly, as more economically marginal they do not presume a great stake over the political and moral character of the country or state, and are thus more ambivalent to trends in liberalisation or liberalism.  

So who are the ones patronising our heartlanders? There are two groups who do this. The first are segments of the English-speaking pseudo-nationalist middle class who view the heartlander as some sort of house pet who needs protection. They are the ones vocal about saving Singlish in the name of preserving the Singapore identity but then turn around and exaggerate the way heartlanders speak it to make fun of them. Think Gurmit Singh’s Phua Chu Kang. The mole, the perm, the yellow boots, the unreal accent – Singh’s portrayal of Phua Chu Kang was not an attempt to find comic elements in the nouveau riche but a straightforward caricature of the working class by the English-educated. Phua Chu Kang is a cartoon figure to poke fun at and to make people who speak good English feel better about themselves. 

The second group consists of middle class moral and religious conservatives. This group has long sought to forge a morally conservative society. It is very uneasy with increasing liberal trends such as the casinos, ‘R’ rated movies, topless shows and so on. Sometimes it campaigns against these trends on moral grounds. However, most of the time, it campaigns on the behalf of the poor helpless heartlander for whom society is moving too fast. This group of moral conservatives use the heartlander as its proxy to construct a conservative society. And by doing so, issues of religion and morality are magically disguised as class issues, where uncompromising religion-influenced doctrines are hidden behind the ignorant working class.

Anybody who says Singapore doesn’t have class politics doesn’t know Singapore. The politics may not be pronounced or manifested in violent clashes but they are there nonetheless.

Ordinary people only resist in the ways they know how. If you’re an office clerk who hates his boss, you don’t tell him he’s an asshole to his face or you’ll be fired faster than you can say ‘one month’s notice’. Instead you badmouth him behind his back and steal office stationery. If you’re a waiter who hates his job you may be tempted to spit into the roast beef or pleasure yourself with the raw carrots before serving them up to customers. The point is people register their unhappiness in the limited ways that are open to them. Or if you want to get all academic about it, modes of resistance are determined by class and cultural capital.

All of which recalls the pole-dancing segment in the National Day Parade, naturally. Public reaction to the vertical gyration of scantily clad thunder thigh women so far has fallen into two categories. The first is the ‘how could they do such a thing on National Day?’ category. It had a tinge of moralizing to it, with the sanctity of NDP taking on religious proportions for many nationalist conservatives. For them, the introduction of pole-dancing to NDP is like having a bunch of strippers conduct Holy Communion on Sunday to the soundtrack of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy.

The second category of reactions is generally more sanguine but no less enlightened. Well, it’s not done in a cheap sleazy way (unlike the giant creepy Sang Nila Utama puppet) and it’s now an accepted form of exercise, just like 55 year old aunties are now belly-dancing their way to broken hips in community centres all over the island. It’s all about sanitizing sex, making it wholesome, and then pretending we’re cutting edge because we’re now doing it. It’s so Singaporean. Whether it’s pole-dancing, Speakers Corner, or increasing the number of NMPs and NCMPs to up the level of “opposition” in Parliament, we’re all too obsessed with the form, and less with the substance.

But both reactions miss the larger point of including the pole-dance segment. For me, it was an ironic jab at how the economic imperatives of the PAP government have always been more sacred than its moral conservatism. In the early 1960s, right after the PAP took power in 1959, it embarked on its “anti-yellow culture” campaign to rid the island of pornography, jukeboxes, peepshows, decadent music and movies. It was a moral campaign to out-moral the communists then who were known for their austere and clean living. Later in 1979 the Report on Moral Education recommended the teaching of moral values in schools because Singaporeans were becoming too “Westernised”. It was in this spirit of moral conservatism that proposals to set up casinos in the 1980s and F1 races in the 1990s were roundly rejected by the PAP government.

Fast forward to the 21^st century and we’re doing our damndest to look glam to the rest of the world. Crazy Horse, bar-top dancing, pole-dancing, everything and anything that would raise a brow we will gladly do. The great lengths people will go to look cool… even looking fashionably sleazy. Whatever we tried to purge in our yesteryear – topless dancing, jukeboxes, casinos – we try to promote today. Yesterday’s “anti-yellow culture” is today’s global city advertisement. The superficiality of our moral conservatism would normally be a boon to liberals here but the way the government attaches it to political imperatives must always be a matter of concern to citizens. Every moral or culturalist campaign embarked upon by the government has come with a political agenda attached. The “anti-yellow culture” campaign was to outflank the communists, 1979 Report was aimed at stemming the perceived tide of “Westernisation” sweeping across an emerging middle class, the Confucian ethics and Asian values discourse in the 1980s and 1990s was to consolidate and justify authoritarian rule.

But in Singapore, even politics is subservient to economics. And today economics demand that that we be seen as freer, more fun, more funky, more…well, fashionably sleazy. What we saw at NDP was not pole-dancing. It was not even a mimicry of sleaze or sex. It was simple straightforward reminder that Papa doesn’t always know best. And in Singapore, with parades as with politics, dissent is best express with irony. The NDP creative director, Ivan Heng, may or may not have planned the pole-dancing segment to be read in this manner but as a polity that only has at its disposal kitsch, civil petitions, and polite letters to the Straits Times forum page as avenues of political expression, the pole-dancing segment is as loud a protest as it is dared… for the moment.  

Hey you! Yes, you… don’t look away. Why so shy? Top ten reasons why you’re flying the national flag:

 10. You’re a new citizen!

9. You played Truth or Dare, and damn if you’re going to talk about your sex life.

8. You’re feeling sorry for the Lions not getting any love when they played Liverpool FC.

7. If LKY can rise from his grave should Singapore falter, imagine what he’d do to you if you didn’t put up the flag.

6. You’re living in Hougang or Potong Pasir, and you’re making a political point that voting opposition and loving Singapore are not contradictory.

5. You’re living in Hougang or Potong Pasir, and you’re making a political point to the PAP to come save your estate.

4. It’s hung upside down so it doesn’t count.

3. We’re Singaporeans, hanging is what we do best.

2. The #@%& Resident Committee nazis covered your entire block overnight without warning.

1. Your name is Lionel de Souza.

Happy National Day!

For a country that believes that it isn’t ready for legalizing homosexuality, Singapore is pretty gay. Every year we put up the campiest, kitschiest, most gay event this side of the Mardi Gras called the National Day Parade. And to ensure the very highest levels of gay quotient we appoint drama queens like Dick Lee, Glen Goei and Ivan Heng as ‘creative directors’. We then get thousands of people dressed in a colourful assortment of chicken feathers, tin foil and body-hugging sequined tops to frolic with each other as fireworks light the night sky. Every performer has enough make-up to fit right at home in Changi Village on a Saturday night while the SAF parachuters demonstrate that it is literally “raining men”. And to complete the wet dream, men dressed in uniform march in and out of the stadium waving their big oily guns at everyone. NDP is gay. It is as gay as Elton John dancing in black leather thongs in San Francisco. Its time the NDP planning committee comes out of its closet.

And that is what I love about this goddamn country; the contradictions. Ask any conservative Singaporean about whether we should change the way NDP is celebrated to, say a mega concert and a big BBQ, and you’ll get a chorus of protests. These folks, so resistant to change, prefer to cling on to the gayest possible mode of celebration.

The latest media hoo-ha (the local media likes to create fake controversies to fill up its pages in the absence of investigative journalism) is the howls of protests against the new NDP song What do you see? by local rock band Electrico. It’s not the greatest song in the world but it marks a progressive change from the rest of the kitschy nonsense like Count on Me Singapore or Stand Up for Singapore. People who tear up when singing the latter two songs most probably also own The Sound of Music DVD (director’s cut), ABBA’s Greatest Hits, and know the words to every Barry Manilow song…ever. Nothing makes me more agitated, more unpatriotic than the strains of “there was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it…but we did”. And when its sung by 60,000 flag-waving Singaporeans who queued overnight for their tickets all dressed in their red $9.90 Giordano T-shirts, well it’s just like a sweet natured version of the Nuremberg Rally isn’t it?

NDPs are depressing. They remind me of everything that is orchestrated, superficial, rehearsed, practiced, and devised from top-down in Singapore. They are artificial cauldrons of whipped up frenzy and heightened emotions where quick spasms of ecstasy are mistaken for patriotism. Not too dissimilar from how churches use music to stir up mass feelings of elated bliss. At the end of the day NDPs are pure theatre.

 I would like to put out a suggestion to readers. Celebrate National Day differently this year. Think back to your childhood. Go to a location, a space or a building that first springs to mind. It could be an old estate, a torn down building, an empty parking lot where your old school used to stand, the beach or even a lonely road you used to take to primary school. Ponder for a while how far you have come since, how far this country has come, and what sacrifices it has made to achieve what it has. Ask yourself if these sacrifices have been worthwhile, both for yourself and the country. Get to know yourself a bit. I promise you, it’ll be more meaningful than watching grown men jiggling in tights and foundation.