I received an email from Goz, a Singaporean in London who was upset because he wanted to sing Majulah Singapura for National Day together with his overseas brethren, but was told something along the lines of "brother, not say I don't want to invite singaporeans, its cos I dunno UK got who singaporeans here mah..."
I was aghast. Like that also can ah? After reading his impassioned plea, I took precious time off my game of Team Fortress 2 and Soul Calibur IV, to write this blog post at 2am in the morning, for the sake of justice and liberty (also, I was losing badly in my Team Fortress 2 game at the time, and my team was being pwnd).
So in the interest of helping Singaporeans in the UK feel like they belong to Singapore, so that they don't angry then brain-drain from Singapore go to other country never come back, I have decided to help Goz and the Singapore Embassy in the UK know just how many of you buggers are hiding there.
In Goz's words to me, "If the (Singapore) UK Embassy don't know of our existence here in UK, then we MUST LET THEM KNOW!!!!"
Write to the nice gahmen lady at karolyn_poon (AT) pmo.gov.sg, and be counted. Because you know lah, the song, Count on Me Singapore blahblahblah. It also Counts in the UK one.
Tell her Goz and mrbrown sent you.
Goz's email to me:
wah lau. Im writing this to you cos I listen to your podcast everytime in cold and miseerable london and then I walk to work listening.
sometimes almost langah by car cos distracted, sometimes pple look at me think I siao one cos I giggling to myself.
So today admist waiting for documents to be sent to me, I was talking to my friend shawn and we were thinkin "KNN! eeveryday newspaper in singapore say "ohmygod, all this braindrain to UK/USA. Singapore no more talent liao. The government using its major best efforts to entice all these talented people back."
KNN lah. Shawn call the embassy and they say National Day got no celebration. I call Contact Singapore, they say not their par sar cos they under different umbrella. So everyone tai chi shoot arrow everywhere. BEST EFFORTS KI LAN LAH! National Day my gahmen also cannot never come sayang me make me feel singaporean sing we are singapore we are singapore. knn.
so I angry so I call embassy and comprain. then got put through to this woman who was very nice about it as I ranted and ranted. She very patient and exprain she dunno who is sporean here etc etc.
so their basic excuse is "I dunno who is here in london how I invite people to my embassy for celebration?" machiam like they got a lot of invitation cards but dunno send to who.
so anyways, she say that now Aug a lot of students go home, so no point celebrating. I think "KNN LAH! TALK CCOOOCK! Working professionals here no need sing Count on me Singapore meh!" Then she diam diam. dunno what to say. Then she say, "our embassy in london very small, cannot open house". then I think "TALK EVEN MORE COOCK! small then cannot use ong beng seng's many many hotels meh! CDL dunno own how many buildings lor... cannot use one function room ah to Majulah Singapura?!"
Anyways, to spare you the rants, at the end of the day, we agreed that something had to be done.
So on 27th Sept apparently there's a celebration, invite only. So I write this email to tell you so you can tell all your Sporean friends/readers in UK/London to get themselevs on the VVVVVIP special singapura list - contact karolyn_poon (AT) pmo.gov.sg to get them on the mailing list.
Got discounts one she say.
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