Will Singapore Pop?

Today I want to talk about Singapore Popping.

Hong Kong has popped. Taiwan popped. Japan popped and South Korea just popped recently. What is "popping"?

Popping is when a country's songs, movies and books become really, really cool. When South Korea popped, everyone in Asia knows what is Samsung, the popular tv drama series "Jewel In The Palace" and of course, the pop song "Nobody But You"! That's popping!

Singapore hasn't popped. We may have a popular tv drama "The Little Nonya", and our own Stefanie Sun was pop princess in the Mandarin world for many years. Those are what I called "a good start". But Creative Technology is still a far cry from being a brand as big as Sony or Samsung.

But it is important that Singapore pops. A country can be prosperous, but if it is boring, it cannot attract others to visit. Foreign talents will not want to live in a cultural desert, and Singaporeans may migrate out of sheer boredom. Life is long - noone wants to be bored. 

On April 1st, Dunman High held a day-long art appreciation event called "Kaleidoscope". Besides cultural performances, many artists are invited to conduct workshops for the students. The aim was to show them the beauty of diversity.

"Diversity" is a word that is often used, but how many of us appreciate the word at a deeper level?

In the workshop I conducted for Dunman students, I asked each student to draw a simple cartoon character. Then they must paste their character on the wall of a classroom (which normally looks like this:)

 

The students were enthusiatic! The cartoon characters were their self-expression! The diversity shown in the drawings was great! Yet, the students also saw that each one of them could not fill up an entire wall. It took everyone expressing themselves in all their own quirky, crazy ways to create a mini-masterpiece shown below: 

 

Gorgeous, isn't it? One can stand and admire the many different characters in all four corners on this wall for quite a while!

I feel that this is the key to Singapore "popping". We are a country full of diverse cultures, beliefs, and races. Each of us express ourselves differently. Yet, when we express ourselves, and also allow people different from us the space to express themselves, what we get is a rich, exciting tapestry that people can enjoy in many different ways. Our tapestry is not of just one single culture, one single race. Ours is that of a great variety and diversity. And that's what we have to offer to the world.

"Diversity" is the key to Singapore popping. The way to embrace diversity is to graciously allow space for different people to express themselves - not to claim that one culture, race or set of beliefs is better than any other. We give others the grace to be themselves, to express themselves, and it is also a grace we give ourselves to be ourselves and express ourselves.

That is the key to Singapore becoming an exciting destination for the world.

That is the key to bringing Singapore to the next level.

Embrace diversity. In a world that is growing closer and becoming more borderless, we can show the world how it's done.