Witnessing Singapore turn 61
Singapore celebrated 61 years of independence on 9 August this year — National Day. And after many years of trying, I was lucky enough to get tickets to watch the National Day Parade in person, at the National Stadium.
For those who don’t know, the National Day Parade (or NDP for short…we Singaporeans love our acronyms) is a parade that commemorates our independence from the British. It has everything: well-drilled military contingents marching in, incredible fireworks displays, song-and-dance items celebrating various aspects of Singapore’s history, present, and future, and of course the NDP song.
The NDP song has a deeply-rooted place in the hearts of many Singaporeans, whatever their political affiliation. Every year, a new theme song — performed by a Singaporean musician — is chosen for NDP and all the students are taught these. Of course, some songs do better than others and every Singaporean has their own tiering system for NDP songs. If you want to have a feel of these songs, check them out here.
But I digress. I’ve always been watching NDP on TV but this year I got to share that experience with 42,000 Singaporeans. The difference between watching it on TV and being there was like night and day.
This is how the stadium looked like before the show started:
And this is a glimpse of one of the segments of the show:
It’s hard to describe it the atmosphere, but I think I would use “collective effervescence”, to borrow a term from sociologist Émile Durkheim, to describe how and many others in the crowd felt. When I heard the Kallang Roar in the stadium, which is in fact the birthplace of the Roar, it sent chills down my spine. I am not jingoistic by any measure, but there were parts of the parade where I felt moved and just happy to be my fellow people. I really enjoyed myself and to preserve this happiness, I had to stop myself from reading Reddit comments just trashing NDP 2026. We all have to preserve our joy from trolls who will always be there in this Internet culture where it costs nothing to tear things down. Still, NDP 2026 remains a highlight for me.
And if anyone who performed in it or was part of the crew is reading this — thank you for all your work in giving Singaporeans a day to rally around our little red dot.