What Do You See

My country’s independence day, which we call “National Day,” is August 9th and I happened to be home for it this year because of my best good friend’s (not a typo) wedding.

Every year, some local musician/band is assigned to produce a song for the whole country to sing in celebration of that day. The video above is this year’s song.

The songs are usually very cheesy and perhaps frighteningly nationalistic to the outsider, the older ones especially. Nothing close to the subtle yet heartfelt “America the Beautiful,” variety. I’ve always been jealous of the pretty, patriotic songs this country has.

The songs I grew up with contained lyrics like:

Stand up for Singapore,
do it with a smile.
If you stand up for Singapore
You’ll find it all worthwhile

and

We have a vision for tomorrow,
just believe, just believe
We have a goal for Singapore,
we can achieve, we can achieve
You and me, we’ll do our part,
stand together, heart to heart

The newer songs, however, have been written to sound like your regular pop song with less obvious nationalistic sentiment. This year’s chorus goes:

See the moon and the stars,
look how far we have come
Look around at our faces,
they shine brightly in the sun
With our hopes and dreams,
imagine what tomorrow it may bring
What do you see? What do you see?

A friend who posted the video above on facebook said he felt proud to be a Singaporean after listening to the song. So I checked it out but was left disappointed.

The song itself is super vague and none of the images flashed — random Singaporeans running about for most of the video, the lead singer walking about some of Singapore’s not-so-spectacular sights, government housing (not to be confused with low income housing) –made me particularly proud of our accomplishments or even miss home in any particular way.

The things I think of that make me proud of my country are its incredible efficiency in getting almost anything done, our convenient public transportation, our local cuisine and our national airline.

I remember once when I was eagerly headed home after almost two years without visiting, the sight of a Singapore Airlines flight attendant actually made me tear a little. It was weird.

Even my boss, who comes and chats with me after his business trips, never fails to talk about his incredible experiences on our airline and how dismal United is in comparison. To which, I can’t help but feel proud.