Are Singaporeans All that Uncultured?
My answer to that, is 'Yes'. When I say Uncultured, I would like to emphasize that I do not mean Uncivilized.
The Spanish have their Fiestas, the Brazilians have their Sambas, the Cajuns have their Mardi Gras and all we Singaporeans have (or claim to have) is our food.
Wow..It doesn't get any more original than that. Sure, use food as an excuse to make up for the disappointing lack of essence that allow our citizens to be proud of something.
Unlike us, countries such as those in Latin America don't move, yet their styles, their flavours travel everywhere. Salsa, Meringue, you get the point..
And what do we have? Our food. So what exactly does our food have that makes it SO SPECIAL? Is it the variety? Is it the flavour? Or is it the hawkers that behind the stalls that and yell at us for orders and curse and swear at us after we make them?
To be frank, I really don't think it's any of the above. So we have Char Kway Teow. We have Nasi Lemak. We have our national pride and joy happily (and originally) named, Chicken Rice. Which, as its name implies, is a creative pairing of poultry and grain. But at best, only their names and their reputations surpass their ability to travel into other nations. We can't really boast about our food when I really believe that that are many other countries out there that have dishes far better than ours.
Taking away the fact that Char Kway Teow is horribly overpriced in Australia, I think we actually have a very pathetic culture in which we do not have anything special to showcase.
Is there truly anything UNIQUELY Singaporean?
How about a form of dance? An indigenous martial art? A genre of music? You get the drift.
Even if you were born in Iran and were uneducated, you'd still be able to learn how to make a living out of making doumbeks (hand drums) and become a merchant.
Here in Singapore, if you were uneducated, you'd become stupid, you'd be ostracised, you'd be looked down upon, laughed at, not given a chance to live a life.
You'd become an asshole, be cast into a home and neglected.
Basically, if you were uneducated in Singapore, you'd be shit.
Because unless you're a genius of a college drop-out like Bill Gates or extremely hardworking, you wouldn't stand a chance in Singapore. That's what happens most of the time.
So it would really be a refreshing change and heartening to know that there will be something we, as Singaporeans, can be proud of. Something original, something native, something cool Lah!
Well..I guess we still have Singlish....
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
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