Singapore was a British colony when I was born.
When we sang the national anthem when I was at primary school,
the anthem was about "I love my country. The history of my country
was glory. 400,000,000 of countryman ...." One day, our teacher
told us that we had to change the figure of population from 400,000,000 to
600,000,000.
I did not know that we took "China" as our country then.
It was a place that was far away from us, was unknown to us,
and was known as an etiquette country.
Singapore achieved self-governing status on 3rd June 1959.
I was at primary six that year. That was not much different on
my life with the self-governing. But there were two events that
impressed me very much.
Firstly, there was a grand trade exhibition held at the Labour Park.
It attracted a large crowd of visitors. I remembered the local canned foods
and biscuits were the popular items at the exhibition.
Secondly, there was a celebration parade from City Hall to
Labour Park that drew my attention. We went to the Nicoll Highway
to watch the parade. We were happy that we were then Singaporeans.
When I was at secondary four in 1963, people were busy in discussing on
the independence and merger. There was a referendum. Singapore
later joined the Federation Of Malaya became Malaysia on 16.09.1963.
I was then a Malaysian.
Less than two years, it was from 16.09.1963 to 08.08.1965, I had the
bad experience of race riots.
The then Prime Minister Lee wept when he announced Singapore was
separated from Malaysia and became independent on 09.08.1965.
I was glad to know that we were independent and hoped to live in
an equality and justice society.
Since then, we celebrated our National Day on 9th August.
I remembered the first few National Day celebrations we held
in front of City Hall. I used to stand by the roadside of
St. Andrew Road and take pictures with my Shanghai brand camera.
When the celebrations were held at the National Stadium,
I did not have any opportunity to take part anymore.
During those years, we took the opportunity to go to Malaysia
for a short trip when the National Day was on the weekends.
Otherwise, we would watch the celebration broadcast in front of the
television.
When we stayed in Queenstown from 1966 to 1973, we did not display
the National flag around National Day.
We did not do so again when we stayed in Holland Village from
1973 to 1986. It was because there was no proper place for us
to hang the flag.
After moving to Teban Gardens in 1986, we used to display
the flag around National Day. There were two hooks outside
the balcony. But the flag would not stay in its proper
place when there was strong wind.
We needed to put it back. Sometimes it took us many times
to do so in a day. We ever thought of attaching a steel bar
at the lower part of the flag. But it might incidentally
drop and kill the innocent. Therefore we did not display
anymore.
When there would be any bright idea for us to display
the flag properly, we would display it again.
My son had an opportunity to watch the rehearsal of National Day
Parade when he was at primary five. It was part of the National
Education for primary five school children.
One of my friends told me that I should try to watch
the National Day Celebration and Parade on the spot.
You would be touched.
I did not have any opportunity to watch it since the
celebration was in the National Stadium. I tried to
get the admission tickets several times and failed.
I gave up later.
I hoped that the organiser would invite those wished to be there
but did not have an opportunity to be in future.
