Take a picture to depict what S’pore means to you and upload it
THERE’S this thing in the online community called a “meme”, where a blogger starts a certain behaviour on his or her blog, and gets everyone else to imitate it.
The more common ones are the run of the mill “5 favourite movies”, or “5 favourite books” memes. Think of memes as the bloggers’ version of those infernal chain mails, where you’re asked to copy and re-send the mail to five of your friends so that you will receive good fortune.
That is, if you consider your friends’ angry replies a sign of good fortune.
Technorati Tags: blog, National Day, Singapore, TODAY
As you can tell, I like memes as much as I like chain mail. But one meme that was initiated last week was interesting as well as thoughtful.
As a sort of observance of National Day, mrbrown (www.mrbrown.com) took a series of pictures within a minute, uploaded these to his “Flickr” photo-sharing site (www.flickr.com), and tagged his pictures with the keyword “onesingaporeminute”.
He then invited readers of his blog to do the same — take pictures of whatever they thought was relevant to Singapore, Singapore’s National Day and life in Singapore — all within a minute and then upload them.
The last time I checked the site under the tag “onesingaporeminute” (www.flickr. com/photos/ tags/onesinga poreminute), there were over 150 photographs, differently depicting what “One Singapore Minute” meant to participants.
There were HDB skylines, traffic jams, family portraits, even the occasional pet dog.
This meme is open to everyone (you don’t have to be a blogger) to join in until Aug 31, after which mrbrown is thinking of turning the entire collection into a giant montage of Singapore snapshots.
The other significant National Day related and blog-related piece of news is the story of how a 99-year-old wheelchair-bound Samsui Woman, Madam How Cheon Mui, got a ticket to watch the National Day Parade.
A newspaper reporter emailed me last week, asking if I could, as a last resort, feature the plight of Madam How on my blog, and appeal to some kind soul who just might give up his or her own ticket for her.
And so I did.
Within hours of posting the entry, a kind reader offered two tickets for Madam How and a relative.
It is this sort of thing happening in the blogosphere that counters the other, blase attitude towards the celebration of National Day, which might best be summed up by blogger Mr Dew (www.beconfused. com).
He writes: “National Day’s great because it’s a day we can all rest after working and getting the same pay after 10 years and realising that the chicken rice has magically increased from $2 to $3 over the 10 years …
Mr Miyagi a.k.a. Benjamin Lee, has been entertaining blog readers for a year, and celebrates National Day every year by counting the seconds between the noise of the flypast on his TV and when the planes fly over his home. (His blog can be found at myveryownglob.blogspot.com)
BLOGGERS’ REFLECTIONS ON NATIONAL DAY
CJ (www.gabby-cj.blogspot.com):Dear Singapore,
You are successful and prosperous. Though you are small, its
ok ‘cos size doesn’t really matter (yet). You make me feel
weird ‘cos you are older than my dad and yet u don bald. I
love the colours on your flag cos red and white makes pink.Ahmad In Taiwan (www.ahmadintaiwan.blogspot.com):Times have changed, when in the past just bringing back the
paycheck was enough to satisfy the family, but now you realise
they need more than just having their material needs satisfied.
They want to sit down and talk, have you listen to what
they’re thinking. Maybe you should take a break from work
and listen to what they have to say.
Making money isn’t everything, you know.IfIForget (www.ififorget.blogspot.com)When Majulah Singapura starts playing at the stadium later
tonight and I see LKY in his crisp white ensemble singing
along with evident pride, you can expect me to cry like I do
every year. I’m such a sissy, I know.
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