This is home

Celebrated National Day away from home for the first time in three years. (The first time was when I went to Korea for a holiday with my then boyfriend, now husband, totally shirking my "responsibilities" as M**S Idol and refusing to sing during the annual National Day celebrations.) But of course, this time is different. I'm not in Melbourne for a holiday; on the contrary, I'm here to study and do lots of work. Yes, no holidays for me for the next 1.5 years. Student life = no life.

Anyway, it's interesting how I never really quite bothered about the National Day Parade when I was in Singapore. After all, every year they retell our story of nationhood and nation building in different ways; the same themes on our entrepot trade history, the legends of Singapore's founding, our fragility as a nation in this time of terrorism, the importance of our defense forces, etc. are re-hashed year after year.

But this year, I was mightily excited when I caught drift that the Singapore Student Associations of Melbourne Uni, Monash and RMIT were jointly organising an NDP celebration right here in Melbourne. Yeps, just right across my apartment building in the Sidney Myer Asia Centre. So yesterday was THE day. There was quite a queue outside the theatre (and inside as well) such that a Chinese guy (possibly a Mainlander) who walked past asked me, "Excuse me, what is happening here?" Yes, Singaporeans can be quite patriotic too. If you ask me, all 500 odd people in the theatre enjoyed the event, save for the lame acts like the standup comedy that some Melb Uni undergrad did and the endless interruptions by lucky draw dips. Although we only caught the first two chapters and the finale of the NDP, I was quite happy lah. As the saying goes, Boh Her Heh Yah Hor ("No fish, prawn also good").

For me, the most enjoyable part of the entire event was being able to be unbashedly and unapologetically Singaporean--speaking in Singlish, eating familiar food, feeling the swells of pride at seeing our red-and-white flag hanging high up on the ceiling, having Yeo's packet drinks, and just waving my little national flag as I sang the National Day songs. I really truly felt proud to be a Singaporean when I sang 'Majulah Singapura' (not once, but twice!) with gutso, and recited the national pledge with other Singaporeans at 8.22 pm Singapore time. No need for explanations on why Singaporeans speak the way we do, always queue up orderly and 'follow the law,' enjoy eating rendang, curry puff, Hainanese chicken rice and char keow tiao, and love our almost 'communist' NDP so much. As Singaporeans, we just... know.

Most of all, it was just comforting seeing the television commercials from home as the NDP was being webcasted, seeing the logo of Channel 5 on the top righthand corner of the screen, and seeing Dick Lee, Ken Lim and Florence Lian's faces in the commercials for Singapore Idol. These are just things you take for granted in Singapore.

I was physically in Melbourne, but for at least a few hours last night, I was glad to be home.

Happy National Day! I've never been prouder to be Singaporean. =)