So on the 9th of august, Singapore celebrated its 50th year as an independent country. You could argue about what the country was and what it has become, and of course the history of the region and Singapore as a city stretches further back than that. Many places has colonial roots back into the 1800s, for example the Botanic gardens. Since a month it’s Singapore’s first world heritage, originally founded by the Englishman Sir Stamford Raffles (who in some way founded Singapore. You see ”Raffles” everywhere here) in 1822. Yeah the city was a fisher village 50 years ago, but it was still something more than that, and apparently something to fight for.

Well. The Malayan government didn’t really bother and expelled Singapore from the state of Malaysia (which three years earlier had gained independence from the British), without any Singapore delegations or state politician present practically forcing Singapore to become an own country. Social unrest and riots started to materialize, the first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew had much to handle but quite quickly set out the path for Singapore to become what it is today. The father of Singapore has created something no nation, state, city or region in the world has ever managed, I would say. And he did it during the space of a lifetime. Yes you could argue about the road, the ways of means, the politics, whatever glasses you look through it’s not crystal clear fantastic – but it is still impressive.

So what about the celebration?

I can’t enough describe what kind of preparation and hype that has been going on here. I have seen so many ”SG50” signs, notes, commercials, flags, toys, cakes, whatever you can imagine. I’ve heard songs about Singapore everywhere. And they have been practicing for the fireworks and jet show for quite some time. There is sales surrounding SG50, free entries, reduced prices on beer at bars. Someone said to me; EVERYONE wants to be associated with the ”good feeling” surrounding the national day. Oh there were just so many people in the city. It was like I imagined Singapore to be all the time, crowded with people everywhere I turn my head, impossible to get on a MRT during peak hours and in central places. Which was more my stereotype generalization of an ”Asian city”. It was quite funny to look at the floods of people as they were tides of waves, or ants that only had one way of direction in there minds.

We found a nice place near Marina Bay where the fireworks and the show was centered around. I haven’t seen the parade yet, they broadcast it on a screen which I couldn’t really see. The whole place was like a big festival, people with the families, wearing red and white of course, some had food that would last a day, some popping champagne and such. We had chips, ice tea and water. We were pretty happy though.

I suggest you search for ”SG50”, ”Independence Singapore”, or whatever on youtube to see a bit of the show. They are good at showing off here, I think it’s pretty nice and funny. People were singing, eating, drinking, taking tons of photos, listening to an over-hyped speaker that screamed out to probably hundreds of thousand people, there were jets, there were helicopters, there were fire works. Hard not to enjoy.