you know what's so weird? i'm so glad to be back. I am so profoundly glad to be back in Singapore.

but the weird thing is that it's as if left my heart in England.

which is so, so weird. I can hardly understand it. I love Singapore. I do. I've never loved being Singaporean until my England trip. and now I'm actually passionate about my country. I love the pledge, I love the anthem, I really celebrated national day.

and most importantly, I love the people. it's the people who bring Singapore to life. I am so very proud of my country because I am so very proud of the people. I honour the government for making Singapore what it is today. I honour the contributions of the people.

but it's the society which I find absolutely phenomenal. we are a society passionate about racial harmony. we as a society --and I cannot stress how amazing this is—which is passionately against any discrimination along racial lines. in fact, I would argue that we live in a society which is against any discrimination whatsoever, be it gender discrimination, racial discrimination. I think most people here are even staunch UnHomophobes. not to say that we all approve of the practice. in actual fact, I think that quite a number of us are disgusted by the idea, but the society is such that even the *thought* of discriminating against someone of different sexual inclinations is abhorrent.
how many of us know a friend, or know of a friend whose friend or family member is a homosexual or a transvestite? and how many of us feel a split second of shock and bafflement when we realise it? and how many of us struggle to swallow that despicable feeling of aversion that wells up?

and swallow it we do. because I think Singaporeans have perhaps taken the whole concept of prejudice to a whole different level. if you ask me, I would think that Singaporeans as a *society* is prejudiced against prejudice.
of course this is just a simple theory. it's certainly not gospel truth. but I am proud of the society nonetheless. I think that we are a society passionate about harmony and unity and meritocracy and democracy. why else would people be so upset about quotas set along gendered or religious lines? After all, shouldn’t equal opportunities be available to anyone deserving? and not deserving through family connections, or through birth but through sheer hard work and perseverance.

that is the peoples dream. it's a dream of all the peoples who dare to dream, and to aspire to be more than they are. it's the dream of all humanity who indulges in their humanity. it's a dream of love.

so why do I still feel so unsettled? how come I still pine for England?

ever since I came back to Singapore, I cannot help but feel that I left a part of me behind. Or to put it more accurately, I felt like a part of me had been forcefully torn from my being; that I had been so grounded to the place that leaving it was like uprooting a tree. you will, if you tried hard enough, extract a tree from the ground, but the process will invariable leave the tree damaged and mangles, with parts of it's roots severed. the very roots that anchored it to the land refuses to let go. and their very refusal to relent rips the tree apart.
the tree might continue to survive. it might nurse it's wounds and regrow it's roots. but it is no longer whole and complete.

and that's how I feel. incomplete.

but how can I feel incomplete when I am home?

I love this place. this is where I belong. this is where I want to be. I love my home, I love my family, I love my room. I am so glad to be back. I love my friends. I love my school. I am glad to be back.

I love being surrounded by Singaporeans again. I love the lifestyle. I love immersing myself in it. I am an urbanite by birth. I might not be so hardcore as to go clubbing every other night, but I am definitely not a country person. many times while I was in England I was bored to tears.

not that they weren’t taking care of me. they were. it's just that the lifestyle there is so different. people read a lot, for one. now being a literature student, I have *nothing* against reading. it's just the *way* they read that gets to me.
at home, I'd read a book, and then I'd talk about it to someone else who's read it. and there's always someone who's read either the same book or the same sort of book, or maybe even a different book by the same author.

and then we'd talk.

we'd talk among ourselves at school, and discuss how what we've read can be used to back up theories we learn about at school. we talk about the different ways the author engages us, and get into playfights about our favourite authorial style. we'd dream and sigh about the characters and their situations as if they were real, and bitch about them, or wish we were them, and engage in a little harmless fantasizing.

and that's the bottom line here. reading is a social activity. we read not just for readings sake only, but use our little stockpile of books to engage with people. we talk about what we read, we read out passages which we like, we laugh about them, we whine to people about them, and in an odd way, we use them to interact and connect with people.

over here, the centre of our lives are other people. we are a socialite bunch. we are the urbanites.

and everything we do is a social activity. even watching television. like reading, watching television is a highly personal experience. nobody else will have the same watching experience, whether or not they are watching the same show. and television is audio-visual entertainment. we sit unspeaking around the google box, our eyes locked on the little black screen for a designated amount of time.

but I would still say that watching television is a social activity. or it is in my house anyway. The whole family generally watches the same shows, and though we are quiet while we watch the programes, we use the programs as a conversation tool during advertisement breaks and after the program is over.

it's a way of life. the whole family is involved.