a lot of stuff about singapore online lately -- aaron tan/faded holy soldier saga, andersen cooper expressing incredulity at singapore making the list of top 5 coolest nationalities, random youtube "fights" and so on. most of it bad, as in, giving off a bad impression of singapore and singaporeans. but i feel that foreigners getting these impressions are greatly mistaken, that they are unaware of a very unique singaporean attitude, mindset, humor, etc, while we, on the other hand, are highly aware of the western counterpart due to great exposure on television, radio, internet and so on. because of that singaporeans are attuned to what westerners' intentions are, have quite a clear picture on western society and its pros and cons, so on and so forth, while westerners have almost zero information on us.

so it comes down to this. does it matter that they think singapore is a heartless, cruel, childhood-crushing, money-minded, selfish, corporate, homogenously populated economic monster? i used to think: no. i've always thought singaporeans are quite like hobbits in the shire, content with being ignored by the larger folk of middle-earth. in the same way, i always thought that we are safe on our tiny island, it doesn't matter if people don't know who we are. all the better, no pre-conceived notions other than the typical asian stereotype. better than "AMERICAN: STUPID" "FRENCH: SMELLY" "BRITISH: BAD TEETH" etc, right? but now, it seems, things are changing. singaporeans are being called racist, bad at english, childhood deprived, robots, 'uncool' -- all not without reason. now, does it matter? i don't know. probably not. i have met french people who smell like roses and brits with impossibly straight teeth. of course, some of the smartest people on earth are americans. stereotypes are called stereotypes for a reason. they generalize and categorize without consideration and accuracy. as singaporeans i think we know who we are, whatever opinions we have, and so we jump to defend ourselves. this nation-bashing is something new, considering we've been relatively unknown to large parts of the world until the advent of the Internet (i speak outside the realms of the politically informed worldwide). the pros, i guess, is that everytime somebody tries to bring a group down, they only grow that much stronger, right? is that why americans are so patriotic? because everyone hates them haha. maybe. if singapore can learn anything from america, it would probably be this: how to love your country no matter how fucked up it is. all the recent "crises" with the MRT and the floods (which, in all honesty, relative to syria or libya or egypt or sudan or even philippines, thailand, etc are the most trivial of tragedies), i think, are putting society through the ringer, and for that, i am grateful