I got this from another website after reading it in yahoo
singapore and reposted it within this sg forum. In fact there is
another blog website “You don’t have to agree” that is also
currently talking about this. Thought it would be good to share it
here too since it is about Singapore. Take a look at it.
Sources from related links
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/letter-about-leaving-s…
http://stories.sg/issues/1/zing/
http://youdonthavetoagree.wordpress.com/2012/09…
Letter to Singapore
by Zing
Dear Singapore,
I’m sorry, but I’m leaving you. I’ve fallen in love with
somewhere else, and you wouldn’t like her. But London is the place
for me. I’ve fallen for her dingy, narrow streets. The 24-hour
bagels on Brick Lane; the club kids in neon and glitter falling out
of Boombox at 3 in the morning; the bands with their urgent,
clashing guitars, cigarettes and floppy hair. I’ve fallen for boys
who play in bands with a copy of The Female Eunuch in their
bedrooms; I’ve fallen for girls who write poetry and play guitar in
Leicester Square pubs. I’ve fallen for the Chinese boy I saw at
Kings Cross holding hands with his boyfriend, while his mother
smiled and hailed a taxi for them all. I’ve fallen in love with the
Irish. I’ve fallen in love with the Welsh. They’re all here,
Singapore, in tiny corners, in crammed spaces, in underground
dancehalls and abandoned warehouses.
We had a good run, but I was never really comfortable with you.
You were always liberal when it suited you, small-minded when it
didn’t. You used to say, “Careful you don’t be so open-minded,
otherwise your brains fall out”. But maybe some fresh air would be
good for your head. You were always scared of my clothes, the way I
spoke, what I wanted to do. “So smart, is it?” you used to say.
“Have some common sense. Later in life, what matters is money. Sad
but true. You have to think ahead.”
I’m 20 years old and I don’t want to be jaded, but you’re
already feeding me defeatism and banality as a lifestyle choice. I
want to be more than an office drone. I want to be more than my
salary. You need to dream big to be big, Singapore. I looked into
your dreams one night and they were full of dollar signs. They were
full of people getting by on their Mercedes, their two maids, their
country club membership. Getting by and not living. Getting but not
achieving. Buying and selling but not giving. I d reamed we went to
a Club Med on holiday, and I told the receptionist, “You live in a
beautiful country,” and she replied, “You don’t live here.” That
night, I said, “I wish we’d gone somewhere else.” You said, “Like
where? All the places you want to go are dirty, no air-con.”
I’m in love, of course I take a romantic view of London. But
I’ve seen the dark alleys; I’ve seen the feral children with their
knives and guns; I’ve been mugged and it wasn’t fun. I almost had
to get stitches. I met a drag queen at A&E who’d been gaybashed
on night bus number 54. We looked at each other in recognition, and
she smiled grimly and said, “Honey, I’ve always wanted a nose job
on the NHS.”
In London, I can be a saint or a sinner. I can be City boy, goth
girl, punk kid; I can be in with the media, in with the cool kids,
I can drop rhymes in East End ghettos and I can drop cash in Mahiki
on cocktails. I can be posh, p oor, upmarket, downmarket, chav,
toff, hippie, indie. I can be gay or straight, man or woman. I can
make myself up, make myself down. And London will still embrace me,
and I will always find somewhere that will take me in, and raise no
eyebrows should I wear hoop skirts and pierce my lip and call
myself Bettie Page.
I’m not sure you could ever do that, Singapore. You say you
celebrate diversity, but really you only grudgingly tolerate it.
You know what always pissed me off? When you would shrug your
shoulders and say, “What to do? It’s like that, what. I’ll never
change.” I would try and try to change your mind, but you would
just shrug. That same reply. Then, accusingly, you would say that
you were an Asian and you were conservative, and I was trying to
make you something you weren’t. Then, defiantly: “If people don’t
like it, not my problem!”
But I’m not trying to make you something you’re not, I’m really
not. I’m just trying to make you see that you’re more than dollar
signs. You’re more than people just scraping by, dreaming of money
and five-star hotels. You’re a hell of a lot more than just a good
air-conditioning system. You’re everybody, not just the dream
citizen; you’re the Malay kids skipping school, hanging out at
Peninsula Plaza in black jeans and trucker caps. You’re the
unemployed kopitiam uncle with his songbirds. You’re the schoolgirl
holding hands with her classmate, hoping the teacher doesn’t see.
You’re every one of them, but for some reason you just won’t
acknowledge this. You like to hold on to this idea of you being
this clean, perfectly efficiently city, when really it’s the dirt
that makes you who you are.
And at this point in my life, I don’t want to deal with this
amount of self-loathing and deception. I don’t want to deal with
somebody who sees their history as something to be packaged and
sold to tourists, who sees every citizen as an economic unit to be
moved around on a chess board. We are the only resource? Who said
people can be resources? What are we, oil? Trees?
(Plus, I don’t want to be with somebody who says “well, you just
don’t understand – this is for our SURVIVAL”
should anybody dare to disagree. You’re more than surviving. You’ve
done well. But now you need to stop holding your breath, stop
acting like everything can be taken away from you in an instant.
This kind of warlike paranoia isn’t doing you favours. You could be
so great if you just relaxed and let go, just a little.)
I want truth, beauty… you know the rest. I’m twenty and the
world’s an open book to me, but you… I’m afraid that maybe, just
maybe, you’re a closed case.
I love you, but I can’t do this anymore.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://stories.sg/issues/1/zing/
