Me and Malaysia

A few weeks after my 21st birthday I received a letter from ICA reminding me that I had to take the oath of allegiance. Failure to do so by my 22nd birthday would result in me losing my citizenship. After procrastinating for a few months and constant nagging from my parents, I finally decided to take the first step - making a trip to the Malaysian High Commission to get a letter to certify that I renounced the Malaysian citizenship.

When I received that letter, I was suddenly reminded that I wasn't a Singaporean by birth. Since Singapore's citizenship is based on jus sanguinis and not jus solis, I had to take my parents' Malaysian citizenship despite being born here. My birth certificate still reads this child is not a Singaporean citizen at birth. Actually this doesn't matter much to me until I had to go through the whole troublesome process of taking the oath of allegiance now.

My father drove me to the Malaysian High Commisson on a Monday. By the way the Malaysian High Commission is at Jervois Rd which is somewhere in River Valley area. I went to the consular section and asked for the forms to renounce the citizenship. I started to fill in the stuff on the set of forms until I realized that I couldn't answer the questions in Malay. So I went back to the counter and asked the guy working there. He gave me another set, telling me that it must be typed out. There were people providing this service outside the compound.

No choice my father and I went out to locate the people providing the services. They weren't hard to find as there were queues forming up for the services outside their vans. I guess that there are many people who are giving up their Malaysian citizenships and become Singaporeans like myself. It was a long wait. There was a family of four who were getting their forms typed out as well as a girl whom I think was of similar age as me. The guy typing also had to entertain people who needed to have their photos taken for their passports. Thus I had to wait there for an hour plus before my set of forms was done. The service cost 20 bucks which I felt was easy money. I didn't feel that it was worth paying that much but my father paid for me. So nothing to complain about except that I had missed the latest submission time at 11am and had to make another trip the next day.

I started to develop this conspiracy theory which involves the High Commission staff and the men providing services. The men providing the services clearly needed the High Commission staff to insist that the forms be typed. I was wondering if there was any under table deal between the two. Perhaps I was just overzealous and paranoid.

The next morning we went down again to submit the forms. There were some minor glitches like incorrectly photocopied documents and pasting the photos at the wrong place. After making me thumbprinting about 30 times amd pay the 5 dollars fee, the Malay lady finally issued me a receipt to collect a document the following Wednesday afternoon. When I went back I asked my brother what was the document to be collected. He had went through the identical proccess 2 years earlier and told me that it was a temporary letter informing the Singapore authorities that I had applied to renounce my old citizenship. He still hasn't get his official renounciation certificate yet and this really reflects our neighbour's efficiency.

I actually went to read up about Singapore's citizenship laws. Singaporeans up to the age of 21 are actually allowed to hold dual nationality. So I actually belong to this group of people. Wow. I thought it was kinda cool as not everyone can get to hold dual citizenship. Upon reaching the age of 21 the person holding dual citizenship will have to choose between the two as Singapore doesn't recognize dual nationality.

Actually my parents had chosen for me back when they became Singapore citizens. All our Malaysian passports were returned. The only travel document I'm holding is my Singapore International Passport. I wondered what was my parents' feelings when they renounced their Malaysian citizenships. Both of them had stayed in Malaysia until their early 20s and were Malaysians for more than 30 years of their lives. Surely there would be some nostalgia. I definitely would consider very carefully if I really need to give up my Singaporean citizenship one day.

Anyway the following Wednesday I went to collect the letter and it was done within 20 minutes. The staff told me that the official document would be ready in 2 years and they would send a letter to my house to inform me. Well I guess that there must be a lot of Malaysians renouncing their citizenship and I would have to wait for my turn. Finally I got to the final step of the whole process which is taking the oath of allegiance at the ICA building. So the possibility of losing my citizenship has gone and I will remain a Singaporean for at least quite some time.

Army Days - The Baddies

I met too many of them in 46 and I had a hard time deciding who would be among the top 3.

No 3 - Ian

3sg Ian was the self-proclaimed king of the vehicle shed. He had a natural flair for drama and was a great storyteller. He liked dramatization to every aspect of his life. An elaborate ceremony to delegate work was conducted by him daily to satisfy his vanity. He would kick up a big fuss for the tiniest of mistake to show off his powers. No one could ever forget about his heroism when Sheng Chao hyperventilated and his suaveness for refusing a seat on the Indian tonner. His tales were also legendary but I hadn't got the chance to tell him of the giant fish I caught during my fishing trip. I believe it would be on par with all of his stories.

No 2 - CPT Ng

There were quite a number of times when I simply wanted to kill this guy. Some things are easier said than done especially if you are not the one doing it. There were many instances when the morale of the company went very down because of his unilateral decisions. He had been insensitive and on many occasions just cared about meeting his objectives. Most of us had grouses with him and it's a pity that neither Sheng Chao nor I had the balls to prepare a 'thank you' letter for him when he left us.

No 1 - Fat F**k

Got to be him. I suspected he is the devil himself. I had never seen such a power-hungry disgusting pervert. He would manipulate the commanders to consolidate his powers and abuse them to get what he wanted. Evil. Absolute evil.

(dis)Honourable mentions:

Ssg David (scary, can talk to tanks)
Quek (can't understand how he can be so cocky)
TBK (I can visualize Yumin agreeing)
various VCs (you know who ah...)

Army Days - The Lows

This entry follows the format of the previous entry.

No 3 - Sunday nights.

Absolutely detest Sunday nights. The weekend had ended and we had to book in. Luckily either my brother or my father would drive me to camp or else I had to leave my house at around 1915 in order to reach my camp by 2215. The sense of dread was evidently in the air by Sunday mid afternoon. We had to go back and face reality. To continue facing the people we don't like and doing the servicing we hated but forced to complete. Worse if there's outfield excercise the following week. I envied my other NSF friends who could go back only on Monday morning. Just imagine the number of things we can do on Sunday nights. I understand that if we needed to move out early it made sense for us to come back the night before. But it's bullshit for us to book in on Sunday night just to wake up at 10 next morning.

No 2 - SOL

I misfired during ATP. My OC decided that I would be charged and the punishment would be SOL 21 days. I can't describe the feeling I was feeling at the moment when the verdict was being read out. Disbelief, helplessness and how-am-i-going-to survive thoughts all went through my mind at the same time. To rub salt in the wound, the week which I started my confinement in camp was the first week my unit implemented the 5-day work week. Arggh... simply cannot take it. Well since it was me who misfired I had to answer for it. But the manner I misfired sickened me. It was during night shoot and while shooting at the targets I realised that my weapon was jammed. So after the firing ceased I cocked my rifle and one unexpanded round dropped out. So I assumed that there wasn't any round inside anymore. My assistant came up and shined his torch light into the chamber and shouted clear. I squeezed the trigger and a loud bang was heard plus a tracer round flew in my one o'clock direction. That's it. In the end the assistant also got the same punishment as me. I spent the whole month of September 04 in Sungei Gedong. I wouldn't say that it was easy but it wasn't as hard as imagined. I just don't like to report every hour to the ops room.

No 1 - OZZ

For me this was gross miscarriage of injustice. From what I understood OZZ was made a scapegoat for the incident. Someone had to be responsible and his head was put on the chopping board. I wouldn't go into the details of what exactly happened (coz I'm not sure if I can) but I suspected there's foul play involved and the guilty parties actually got away with it. Despite OZZ being my section 2ic I wouldn't say that we were exactly very close. We would argue over minor stuff or kaopeh each other. However I had always respected him for being responsible and someone who stands by his beliefs. He never want the responsibilities Almo assigned him but he would still carry out the tasks without much fuss and just got on with his life. He is always frank and has never hold back any of his feelings or words for anyone who crosses his path. Although the incident didn't affect me directly, I feel a deep sense of injustice for him. Anyone including me could have been made the scapegoat under different circumstances. Imagine wasting one week of your life for something that you are not responsible. This got to be the lowest of all the lows.

Up next: The Baddies. (aren't you guys excited?)

Army Days - The Highs

This entry is about the high points of my stint in 46. There aren't many actually so I just picked up top 3.

No 3 - End of ATEC.

Actually the end of any outfield excercises was high points by itself. We can finally go back to coy line and change out of our dirty and disgusting uniforms. We don't need to eat any more combat rations and can look forward to more (slightly) palatable food. Get out of the hot and humid jungle infested with creepy crawlies. Not forgetting that the end of outfield excercise usually coincides with book out day. ATEC is the outfield excercise which will end all outfield and supposedly we will not have anymore after that. (Turn out to be false for most people.)

No 2 - NDP 2004 + 2005

My unit was involved in both parades and I was put on the front line on both occasions. In 2004 I was part of the marching contingent. Well I would say the rehearsals were tough and our weekends were burnt as a result. However it's once in a lifetime's experience so I was glad I'm part of it in the end. I was hoping that we would not be involved in the following year's NDP but sadly it was not to be. This time I got a much cooler job. I got to drive my armoured vehicle in front of the Padang for inspection by the President during the parade. So the same thing happened like the previous year with the weekends burnt and hours put inside the preparation. I would say that although it wasn't as tough physically as in 2004, it was much harder mentally. Compared to other people in the company involved in other aspects of the parade, I felt that we were not given a fair deal for the efforts we had put in. In the end there were animosity between the different groups. I believed that all these should have been managed better. But despite of that, 2005 Parade was a blast. I got to pilot my vehicle from National Stadium to Padang and then from Padang all the way to Tampines through Geylang, Eunos, Simei etc with people lining the streets waving at us along the route. Going to Tampines was like a homecoming for me as I stay in the east. The crowds present was unbelieveable and people were busy taking photos of us as if we were the European Champions. Simply incredile.

No 1 - ORD

No one will disagree with me on this. This is the moment everyone is looking forward to since the enlistment day. End of slavery and start of next chapter in life.

Look out for the next instalment - The Lows.

My First Blog

This is my first blog. What should I write about? Introduce myself? Probably... Hmmm... Forget it. Only those who know me will read my blog anyway. Or I hope that they will.

Yesterday something very scary happened to me. Or rather not only for me but also those of us present at the CC. Recap of what happened: Feijie collapsed to the ground after our game. What seemed like an innocuous cramp turned out to be more like a seizure. The condition he was in scared all of us. Shahid called the ambulance as soon as we realised the seriousness and the rest of the people (namely Qinyao) tried to calm him down. All the trained medics were trying hard to help but I guess that it's not easy to apply the theory in real life situation. In the end he was sent to TTSH for observation.

Instead of our routine chatter after the session, all of us just quickly washed up and went down to the hospital. Upon our arrival we knew that he was kept under observation in the A & E and we couldn't visit him yet. But at least we knew his condition was stable. Then Kok Wai was saying about that his condition might be due to psychological problems. I had earlier told him off out of frustration for giving away the possession too easily. So it's my fault. What if something really happens to him? I should be feeling very guilty right....

However I realised that I'm not feeling guilty at all. I was sorry for what happened to him but to me I did nothing wrong. If I really did, please tell me immediately. Very often one cannot see past his or her own flaws. Well I got to admit that I have little patience. Sometimes when frustration gets to you, you just have to let it out. It may be just a game but I don't think it's healthy to bottle up the feeling.

Different people have different threshold level to stress. But I guess that they simply have to live with me the insensitive bastard.