Singapore's Independence Day

Singapore celebrated her Independence Day last Saturday. As always, a huge party with much pomp and pizzazz was held downtown - thousands took part in the dances, parades and various other performances but having just witnessed the Olympics opening ceremony the evening before, what was put up paled in comparison. Nonetheless, we salute their effort.

As Singapore is a relatively small city state, one can almost always observe any airborne performances if one looks from a high floor. On Saturday, we could see the Singapore flag being paraded around the city (see pix).
On a related note, on the streets of Singapore today, you find that every other person you meet is an immigrant from either the Republic of China or India. With an aging population and the birthrate of local Singaporeans at a low 1.29, the only way to sustain the growing economy is by liberalizing its immigration policies.

Two of our neighbors, for example, are immigrants: one is a household from Myanmar and another from Taiwan. The only "real" Singaporean neighbor we have is an old retired couple. It'll be interesting to see how the future of Singapore pans out...