싱가폴의문화, 세계의문화

I like the motto that is written on the tower - The creation of a cultural world. It is a beautiful ideal but as a Singaporean I have to accept that there may never be a Singapore culture. It is not something I will be sad about. To look it in a positive light, Singapore culture is in fact the world culture. Singapore population is made up of immigrants and descendent of immigrants. As our government actively looks outside of Singapore to find the pool of people they need to support the booming economy, more immigrants are expected, in ten of thousands, to come and add their culture into our big pot of culture primordial soup.

Culture or no culture, there is something unique about the Singaporean identity. I can easily recognise our fellow Singaporean anywhere in the world just from the way they speak and behave. I can never mistake a Singaporean for other Asians including our closest neighbours, the Malaysians. Perhaps this unique identity is derived from the Singapore multi-cultural lifestyle. Taking myself as an example, I speak and write in English, listen to Chinese songs, sing Malay National Anthem, learn Korean language and eat Indian Roti Prata. Maybe we are unique because we are culture-less. The other side of thing is we are also free to choose the culture we want to adopt. But in doing so, Singaporeans are prone to identity crisis. The identity crisis arises not because we do not know who we are but rather foreigners cannot really make up who we are and what is our origin.

Keeping our economy vibrant at the expense of culture creation is a price we have to pay. It is a no-choice situation. Without our economy, Singapore will be nothing more than a fishing village.