Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Don't make me laugh

Singaporeans has always been known in this region for blowing our own trumpets. Ask any Malaysian, any Thai, any Filipino etc, and they can tell you how Singaporeans will not hesitate to tell you Changi Airport is No.1 in the world, our ports is the busiest in the world…see, even I am guilty of this.

But I draw the line at telling lies about our city. The Singapore Arts Festival recently announced a tie-up with the Edinburgh International Arts Festival to send several local productions abroad. Somehow, this means that Singapore is going through an artistic renaissance right now.

Tell me, since when did Singapore stop being a culture wasteland and became a culture oasis? I mean really; how many plays had you seen recently? If you had seen some; I am willing to bet that those are foreign productions which were bought over from overseas. AKA, buying culture like buying our sporting success (table tennis, badminton, soccer etc).

In short, Singaporeans don’t care about culture. We just don’t.

So let’s not say too much about our non-existing arts and culture scene. We have Changi Airport, our ports, ERP system, COEs for cars. Let’s blowing our trumpets on things we are actually famous/infamous for; there's plenty there, no need to tell lies about ourselves.

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