Happy National Day 2009!
Today Singapore celebrates 44 years of national building. Happy Birthday Singapore!
This is the video of this year’s NDP09 theme song – “What Do you See”
Since it is Singapore’s 44th Birthday Day, here’s 44 things about Singapore you may not know about, or didn’t see it that way. [via inSing.com]
1. We fought independence, and independence won.
If Lee Kuan Yew is to be believed, then we are probably the only country that gained nationhood by not wanting it. Of course, the other founding fellows have been quoted as saying that leaving the Federation (of Malaysia) was the “best thing that ever happened to Singapore”.
2. It happened on a Monday.
The populace awoke, ate breakfast and started their work week like any other week in the life of the Federation when at 10am, a live radio broadcast of Lee Kuan Yew’s declaration “on behalf of the people and government of Singapore” that we were now a sovereign, independent and democratic nation.
3. 10am then is not the same as 10am now.
Before January 1, 1982, Singapore Standard Time (SST) was 7 hours and 30 minutes (GMT +7:30) ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. We only moved to GMT +8:00 to keep up with Peninsular Malaysia’s move to match East Malaysia’s time zone.
Confused? Spare a thought for those who lived in Singapore in before May 1905 – Singapore Time was 6 hours 55 minutes ahead of GMT.
Also, the skies were dark every morning at 7 during the Japanese Occupation, because the clocks were set to Japanese standard time (GMT +9:00).
4. Independence was actually agreed upon on the Saturday before that.
The Separation Agreement was actually signed by the ministers on the weekend before August 9, 1965.
5. Um… actually, we were independent once before.
On August 31, 1953, in agreeing to merge with the Malaysian federation, Singapore unilaterally declared independence, several weeks before the Malaysian government did so in September of the same year.
6. We only got our own money two years later.
On 7 April 1967, we set up the Board of Commissioners of Currency and started issuing our own money, which was still equal to the Malaysian ringgit.
7. The national anthem was written six years before independence.
It was written to be played at state functions in 1959, and was later officially made the national anthem. The Malaysians had roughly the same history with theirs (Negaraku) – an anthem they adopted from the Perak state anthem, which was created because an aide to the Sultan, when asked by officials at the coronation of Edward VII what his state anthem was, proceeded to hum the tune to an old French drinking song he had heard in the Seychelles.
8. The composer of the national anthem was a composer of scores for Cathay Keris films.
That’s like having John Williams compose an anthem. Imagine having the Star Wars theme as your national anthem. That would have beaten the French drinking song hands down.
9. The anthem is in Malay, the national language.
Yes, the national language is Malay. Which explains why drill commands in the Army are given in Malay, as are the words on the national crest and that of the armed forces. The country has three other ‘official languages’, which are English, Chinese and Tamil. Read the rest of this entry »
