The last week was filled with grief and sadness. Though the person is not my kin but the news was saddening because he was the founding father of my nation. And I am proud of my country.
Starting from the time he was admitted to hospital for an extended period, we kept hearing the news of his health condition. Then people started to send him well wishes and flowers and kind souls prayed hard for him to get well. That's when my emotion started to change.
There were many citizens who love him, respect him and were genuinely concern about him. Other than stirring an unfamiliar emotional I have had for him, my perspective was shifted from my daily grind to the birth and survival of my country.
From the time he was PM, SM then MM, I was ignorant, apathetic and seriously taking things for granted. It was also "uncool" to listen to and agree with the government as an young adult. When he came for dialogue session in my university, most of my peers do not care or thought only weirdo will attend.
In the past week, after work was time spent glued to the television catching up on history which I already know but with added realizations. It used to be just facts and historical events that happened but now I see the determination of one great man who dedicated his life to ensure we survive, making hard decisions that may not be popular but proved to be important to our nation in the future.
With an added admiration of the leader that we have had, I reflected on one occasion that I sent in a feedback to MDA. Few years back, during CNY a local movie was on free to air TV. Typical of local movie depicting days of early Singapore, it was filled with characters of different dialect. I caught the show in cinema before but while it was on TV, the dialect were all gone and dubbed over with mandarin. I thought the show had totally loss it's essence. My feedback was to keep the original language but providing viewers with options to switch just like Korean drama on TV. The gist of the response was, dialect too similar to mandarins and they did not want to misled / confuse the younger viewers via free to air TV programs.
I thought about young Singaporeans not knowing their dialect and won't be able to pass down this language to next generations. It was precious culture that will be lost.
Now I think bilingualism is a good policy. We have an official working language and we know our mother tongue because that is still who we are. Our sense of identify is Singaporean. We will not be define as Hakka, Teo Chew or Hainan. The path on bilingualism is already not easy, few are really proficient in both. I took reference from the street interviews done, young kids now can hardly speak mandarin, what more to think about dialect.
His vision was shockingly accurate in most issues. I cannot be more amazed.
Why only upon his death then we look more deeply into his life's work, I don't know. But I'm glad that I was truly inspired. Inspired by this great man recognized by the world. Inspired by this great man who built this home for me.
Thank you is not enough.
I will contribute to keep her progressing and the small but unmissable nation in Asia.
