National Day

These last few weeks the appearance of the red and white crescent moon and star was assumed to be the emblem of Malaysia. The coincidence with Ramadan and all the similar festooning in the local quarter somehow strongly suggested. Over the balconies of HDB flats—Housing Development Board, the subsidized public sector—from car windows, temples and street hoardings, one saw them slowly emerge. Increasingly more and more. Rather affecting in an overwhelmingly large majority Chinese city-state. 

          Through the library window there were few flags; in the city centre generally less in evidence. Some odd appearances too: the Grace Singapore Chinese Christian Church carried one on a side gutter; the small local Buddhist temple on Geylang the other night near the Foot Spa place. An ecumenical spirit was assumed, the authorities encouraging brotherliness among the religious institutions. The sort of thing one might expect in Singapore: sedulous micro-management of the socio-religio-politico sphere. Fine-tuning at every turn; benevolent Big Brother.
         But how to explain so many flags hung from the flats in Haig Road. The HDB's elsewhere too. Even at the Haig they weren't all Malays, not by any stretch. The social engineering so effective that the Chinese put out the colours for their friends, neighbors and compatriots?
         In fact Singapore National Day on the 9th, marking the difficult—but in the end straightforward—independence from Malaya. Give-aways it had to be and some kind of incentivization.