Home on National Day

I’m now on board flight TG401, which takes me back to Singapore, after 6 months of living abroad. Beside me is Felicia, and beside her is Joyce. Both of them are writing furiously on their paper notebooks; I guess there are a lot to say, and a lot of emotions now that Shanghai is no longer our home.

On looking back, there were many, many memories shared with these two people. By default, they were practically my family over there, and together with “Daddy” Wee Soon Hui, we spent the last 6 months getting used to all things Chinese. We have grown used to the projectile spit, the random urinating and diarrhea on streets, stereotypical Xinjiang pickpockets, shouting at the top of our lungs for service, and the furious bargaining at the wholesale bargaining place where we would have shopkeepers chasing after us.

Yes, it was a really good run.

Today, while at the airport, we heard a lot of Singaporeans speak in Singlish. It has been so long since I last heard a whole bunch of Singlish spoken by random strangers. And I hated it. While I look forward to the prospects of going home to my family and friends, I am now no longer an independent girl living in a different world.

To make things worse, I’m coming home on National Day, but I really can’t seem to find that sense of patriotism inside me. It’s ironic really- I’ve gone and started to really love China, its culture, the language, and most of all, the beauty and danger of this land shaped like a giant rooster. I read furiously about China’s history once, and was able to place Chairman Mao, Deng Xiao Ping and some of the Emperors on the timeline. I saw for myself the mummified body of Chairman Mao, and at the same time, the crazy respect the people has for this man who was, in an article I read, compared to the modern day Qin Shi Huang. I lived and breathed with these people, who until 30 years ago, was still living in a communist idealist state, in a closed economy with the peasants holding most power in society. Compare this place with an overwhelming history of more than 5000 years with Singapore, who is celebrating its 44th birthday today. Compare the iconic statues of Chairman Mao scattered all over the country with the Merlion, which was produced from a competition. Compare the simple lives 0.9 billions of farmers in China now, with lives of 4 million stressed out souls, trying to earn more money each day. Ironic.

(They started serving the airplane food, so I kept the laptop, and it wasn’t until I’m home and drying my hair that I can switch my laptop on. Stepping on Singapore soil for the first time in 6 months gave me a myriad of emotions.)

- moments later –

It’s weird. I’ve just returned home. My sister is in the bedroom, half asleep. My parents, after a few fussing about and some concerned questions, also crawled back into bed. The house looks vaguely the same, but there have been changes, such as the broken toilet sliding door, and new cushions on my bed. Like a flipboard, flashes of the past 6 months just keep playing in the head. The people we met along the way, like Yan Jing, Wing, Xiao Zhang, Hui Qiang, Gamer boy in Qingdao, Jim the Singaporean who almost got our numbers, and the list goes on. The places we went to, in all their glory- the Great Wall, Forbidden Palace, Massacre Museum in Nanjing, Tsingdao Beer Museum, Jiuzhaigou, Mount Huang, and then some. The things we saw, the sights, the sounds, everything and anything that we felt in the past 6 months are now no longer around. End of adventure, return to reality.

Bye Shanghai. I will miss you.