Singapore is young.
To be very accurate, he is bordering on seventeen, straddling the line between boyhood and adulthood, all lean lines and casual grins. He holds himself high, straight like a board, cocking the top of his fedora hat down until all you see is his glinting, playful gaze. He is good-looking for a nation, well-cut features and a strong jaw, cropped dark hair falling messily over his slanted eyes, ramrod thin with knobbly knees and a crooked smile.
Singapore is smart.
He doesn't speak much during meetings, preferring to fiddle with his stationery while only vaguely taking in the information of the speaker. He always sits between Malaysia and Indonesia despite his distaste for them and their lax ways; he only ever talks to Malaysia when he is forced to. He is still loyal to England in some way; England is the only western power Singapore can let himself get close to. No one ever really notices Singapore outside of the ASEAN countries; he isn't big, isn't powerful, isn't rich enough. However, they always have some inkling of that cocky teenage boy with a clockwork mind and a disarming smile. He inspires trust and confidence in those who know him.
Singapore is lonely.
He doesn't say that, but he sees himself and his relations as similar to the United Kingdom and Europe. He speaks English easily, has no real culture or history of his own, his people brilliant but stiff workers with hardly a nice word for anyone, and a slang that is near incomprehensible to anyone not local. He is Asian; he is South-east Asian. He just doesn't feel that way.
People flock to his shores because of the prospects of jobs, better education, a better life. He welcomes them all with a grin and a friendly word, his accent a little Chinese, a little Malay, a little Indian, but when it comes to foreigners from Europe or the Americas, he clams up like a shell. It's always how d'you do? or great day outside now, lovely weather, and he absently uses the British accent that he has long since forgotten.
Singapore is important.
He is small, yes, but he is a nation as well. He has his monsoon seasons and his crazy humidity, he has his channels and his radio and a proper government and his people, all diverse and wild and mad like him. Driving for forty-five minutes can mean you have already driven across the country. He is small but he is different, and he matters.
He doesn't like war. He remembers WWII, the nights spent in the trenches, being with a Malay regiment only to watch them fall like leaves as the Japanese cut through them. There was this young man, brave and foolish, who stood up to them in one last stand, and Singapore was the soldier among the trees as he watched that man, that hero, fall.
Singapore is everything.
He has his modern roads, his fast transportation system. He has his high-rise buildings, towering across the country in a sharply organised mess of glass and stone and concrete. He has his sports and his arts, his sciences and his maths. He has his school students that ride the public transport every morning, sleepy and listening idly to their MP3s or iPods, and his businessmen who flip open the day's newspaper and take up too much space. He has the older generation, fluent in dialect and not much else, telling stories about the war to captivate the young. He has his money and his influence, has his people and their successes.
He is not much else, but he doesn't have to be.
He is best friends with Thailand, bitter enemies with Malaysia. He is an uptight, straightforward country with no tolerance for anything he deems illegal, and his crime rates are one of the lowest in the world. He is clean and green and rich, and always charmingly boyish whenever he is called upon to speak of his achievements. He is sometimes awkward and sometimes smooth, both confident and cripplingly shy at the same time. He used to be a British colony, then a Japanese one, then part of Malaysia, then one of his own.
He is Singapore.
During his birthday, the ninth of August, he sings and dances and gets happy with his people, all in a mass of red and white, the crescent moon and the five stars flying over their heads. He is so proud of all of them.
He is nothing and everything all at once.
Written for National Day! It's on the 9th of August, but I'm just posting early. Happy early birthday, Singapore. This is my OC; well, at least what Singapore might be in my head. Hope you've enjoyed it. 'Merdeka' is Malay for independence, I should think. My mother tongue is Chinese, so I can't be sure.