Sunday, September 28, 2008
22:50:00
Does it even seem sensible when people who have never followed a particular sport suddenly seem like its biggest fans?Of course, what's triggering this is the just-concluded Singapore Grand Prix. Myself, I've been a semi-interested fan of F1 for over a year now, which by my own standards would still just about put me on the list of bandwagon-ers. Still, at least I know more or less the ins and outs of a typical F1 race; to put it succinctly, what actually makes a race 'good' or 'bad'.There are a few groups of people who have been following this particular race. Firstly you have the true-blue F1 fans, who've been watching since forever and could probably quote you all sorts of stats from almost any season thus far. Secondly, you have the people like me who semi-follow the events and have a general idea of who's who in the championship, and maybe have some knowledge of the past 2 seasons or so. Thirdly, you have the people who have never seen a race (or highlights, even) in their whole lives but suddenly support a particular team or driver with what seems like a deep passion. This third group of people are serious losers.I'm perfectly alright with people who've never seen a race before but, because of the atmosphere surrounding this event (first night race, first one in Singapore etc etc), are getting excited. So long as these people admit to having next to no knowledge of the sport and openly say that they are only getting excited about the event, that's fine. The ones who are losers are the ones who suddenly seem to support a team/driver as if they've done so for a long time.It's not just F1 either. Every 2 years, when a World Cup or Euro Championship comes round, suddenly EVERYONE follows football. People who have probably never seen 5 minutes worth of a football match in their lives suddenly go 'BRAZIL FTW' and 'FRANCE! WOOO!' in their blogs as if they religiously follow the teams. Some of these people can't even spell the footballers' names right. I'm not talking about the fringe players either, I'm talking about the main superstars of each squad. I've know some of these 'die-hard fans' to misspell Ronaldinho's name. Fucking Ronaldinho. Of all players' names to misspell, they misspell Ronaldinho's. And this was back in 2006 when he was probably the best player on the planet.With all these fickle-minded, glory-hunting retards all over the place is it any wonder at all why I seem to have a large chip on my shoulder all the time? Watch as I tie this into my general disapproval of Singapore:Because of this perpetual glory-hunting attitude, a huge percentage of the population (or at least of the portion which defines our culture, teenagers and those who get involved with them) just go with whatever seems to be the in-thing at that point of time. Case in point: before 2004, how many Chelsea shirts was one able to see on the street? How about after? See what I'm talking about? Therefore, because of this stupid, stupid fickle-minded culture of ours, Singapore will NEVER have a proper identity or culture of its own. All we have are 'pirated' versions of other cultures.We pride ourselves on racial harmony, and I have no problem with that. Harmony, or at least tolerance, between races is always going to be a good thing. But perhaps, the only reason why the government makes such a big deal about racial harmony is because, without it, Singapore would tear itself apart with all of the races continuously fighting over who is the dominant race, who is the 'most' Singaporean.Somehow, the government struck lucky and managed to get all the races under the single banner of 'Singaporeans'. Struck lucky in the sense that there were not enough (and don't tell me there weren't any at all; that's just being naive) dissenting voices in each camp (of races) to force more drastic measures.As a result of racial harmony, Singapore's earlier culture was of having so many races together living in harmony (sorry if I'm overusing the word 'harmony' here, heh), and being proud of it. Nothing wrong with that, I would actually say that it's commendable. BUT, simply because when you dig beneath the surface and find that Singapore has no one 'true' culture of its own, we are easily influenced by exterior sources, influenced into admiring and attempting to emulate other cultures, whether it be for deeper, more serious reasons such as ideology, or for extremely shallow reasons such as 'it's cool'.Look at teenagers nowadays. I'm sure I'm not exaggerating when I say that, in school, if you stood on a single spot and turned 360 degrees, you would be able to spot at least 5 guys who look quite similar, in terms of hairstyle and dressing (if you're in a school which requires you to wear uniforms, substitute 'dressing' with 'way they wear their clothes'), with hardly any effort at all.Are we agreed on that point? Ok, moving on:We now look at where this style of dressing and hairstyle comes from. Taiwan/ Hong Kong (but more so Taiwan) would be the answer, right? There you go, we copy Taiwan in this aspect!In this particular case it's even more pathetic because I believe the Taiwanese got their ideas from Japan first. So what we Singaporeans have is actually an imitation of an imitation. The only thing sadder than that would be a 4th generation imitation (an imitation of us, in other words) and that's pretty difficult to find.This is all just a commentary on the here and now. In case you haven't already seen the future implications of having such a culture (or lack thereof), this means that Singapore will NEVER have a true culture of its own. And when you don't have a true culture of your own, people (even those who participate in the fickle-minded process) will one day move on without much inertia, due to a lack of patriotism. After all, how can one be truly patriotic of something which is, underneath it all, nothing?Sure, you see alot of people going 'Singapore rocks! Wooo!!' in their blogs in and around the days of National Day. These comments are ALMOST ALL triggered by something like NDP Preview or NDP itself, NOT out of patriotism. When you actually need something COOL or HAPPENING before you declare your patriotism, I'm sorry, but you're a fake patriot.Going back to the 'moving on' portion from two paragraphs up, this means that this lack of a true culture will contribute significantly to the brain drain problem we're facing nowadays. Face it, unless we somehow find oil on Pedra Branca or something, working and living in Singapore is always going to be a helluva fight. That alone is already causing brain drain. When you add on the effects of what I've been talking about so far in this post, emigration numbers are just gonna fly through the roof when the time comes, and brain drain is going to become an even bigger problem than it already is.-----------------------------------------------------Funny how the post jumped from one thing to another. To summarize and clarify, I feel very strongly against the bandwagon-ers, and see their antics, if not curbed as they grow up, as being potentially fatal to Singapore's hopes of long-term survival as an independent nation (long-term as in, like, for 100 years or more. As it is I don't think we could survive another 50, in all seriousness). On the brain drain subject I'm actually quite neutral, as I was speaking from a logical standpoint the whole time.Of course, all that I've said could probably not actually happen, and Singapore could very well thrive well into its hundreds. All I'm saying is, all this COULD happen, and signs do point towards it. As for measures to stop it, well, I have none except for the bandwagon-ers to, to put it colloquially, wake up their ideas and start having some serious, rock-steady opinions for once, opinions which aren't so easily swayed by big events or whatnot.So, to repeat (this is actually something like a disclaimer, haha), all I've said could be totally wrong, but seeing how things are going, they could be totally right too. This is my opinion, and my commentary, of how things are. Whether or not they turn out right or not, will be seen as time goes by.