Wednesday, August 29, 2007 ;
5:10 AM
Singapore's National Day
Aug 9 2007
How did we celebrate it?
A couple of weeks before Aug 9th, I downloaded the MTVs and mp3 files of National songs from the NDP 2007 website. They have all the songs from 1980s till 2007 there. Lyrics though, were for the newer songs. But our generation, we don't need lyrics for Count on Me, Stand Up for Spore, One People One Nation... haha... we have them ingrained in our hearts already! or rather, embedded in the folds of our cerebrum?
Then I played them to the kids almost daily. Sometimes in the background while we're just playing or eating. Sometimes, we actively sit down to watch the MTVs. Law gave me a Spore DVD with 3 clips on Spore's history inside, including the pioneers: Lee Kuan Yew, Yusof Ishak etc, and also the war and riots etc. I viewed them first and decided to do it with ds1 only. ds2 would not be able to understand.
So when ds2 took his nap, ds1 and I watched it, with commentary on my part.
Ok, that was the prelude.
So on the day itself, we donned our red tees and white/ beige bottoms. I had diligently packed them in Dec 2006 to bring over. I put on those patriotic tattoos for them, and blew up the beaters. These items were all from previous years' NDP goodie bags. I had only missed 3 NDPs from 1991 till 2007, I think. I'd always gone to see them live, either the preview, a rehearsal, or the actual one. Always managed to get tickets, cos either I was a student, or with MOE, so, haha, there are ways and means, even if I don't get them in the ballots.
Then I began my day of "National Education" for them. I'd probably not do this had we be in Spore, so it's funny how we become more loyal and patriotic when we go overseas. Probably from all the missing of our home.
1. I'd printed out blank flags of Spore and the maps of Spore. So I let both ds1 and ds2 colour them, while explaining the significance, which fell on deaf ears, naturally. They didn't remember when I asked them later.
2. Then we marked out the important places on the map. Important to them, meaning our own flat in Jurong, the Tumpu house, our schools, airport, church building...
(below shows ds1's work. ds2's is more like a mass of squiggles everywhere. haha.)
3. Then I covered the flag and asked ds1 to draw another one from memory.
4. After that, it was all action-based, like dance to the National songs. And like, if it was a Malay one like Chan Mali Chan, I'd do Malay dance moves; Munneru Valiba, then Indian dance moves; Wo De Jia Yuan, then CHinese dance movements.
Then a lot of silly jumping and beating of the beaters, percussion, etc together with the music.
5. When dh came back from school, he donned his "costume" and we took this family photo. :-)
6. It was only a few days later that we got to watch the webcast online, because it was in the wee hours of the morning when the live webcast was broadcast, and then it wasn't available for viewing for a couple of days on the site, when I tried.
7. That's not all, we also organised a BBQ for about 40 of our church friends, where I compiled and showed a presentation of Singapore and our family life to let them know more about our country and culture. More of this in another post.
So that was the culmination of our 2007 celebrations. I would need new supplies for the 2008 ones, cos the beaters have been burst by the kids in their over-enthusiastic cheering (read: sword-fighting).
rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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