Singapore's first gold medal in 48 years

The victory ceremony for any Olympic event is my favourite part to watch. I feel the sense of pride and happiness that the winner feels as the national anthem is played. It is a tremendous and overwhelming feeling to win glory for your country and it does teach one humility too. The glory goes back to your country and is not for yourself, even as an individual medallist.

When the silver medals were presented by our very own Ng Ser Miang to our very own Singaporeans for the sport of table tennis, I felt that sense of nationalistic pride. He chose this particular sport to give the medals out too and obviously, it was arranged that he would give them to our heroines. He personally picked these foreign imports to come to our country and he has finally seen his plan come to fruition.

They may be born in China and some Singaporeans may feel it is really an all-China final, like the friend I mentioned in an earlier entry. However, is this really true? They are our citizens now and deserve our tribute. They gave glory to our country and put our name on the Olympic medal list. They fought hard for us. We are really not the only country which imports foreigners into our country and we can't really accuse them of being disloyal to their native country.

I think they may have had mixed feelings upon hearing their own national anthem played during the victory ceremony but actually representing another country. It must not be easy for them too.

I don't think they deprive the locals of places in the sports arena. They are Singaporeans too and Jiawei's tears at the Olympics when Tianwei beat the Korean girl in her match is testimony enough. All of them are doing their best for the country they are grateful to for having cultivated their talents. We should appreciate them.
Perhaps our locals are not good enough and the government is forced to import foreigners as a result. Hah!

I don't think China views us in a derogatory way because of our Foreign Talent Scheme. We are not the only country who does that. Korea and France do too. On the other hand, the Chinese girls are not being disloyal to China. They want a better life for their families and to earn a living. Isn't that what our ancestors did as immigrants to Singapore, whether Chinese, Malay or Indian?!

This reminds me of an article that was on this student who complained that China students deprive her of a scholarship. They work extra hard because they paid a lot to come here and also they are afraid to lose out to us, ironically. Shouldn't she take their presence as motivation to work even harder instead of putting the blame on them? Of course, if teachers favour them, local students are displeased but perhaps teachers are impressed by their attitudes?

Incidentally, Yining of China is pretty. Who can say that women with boyish hairstyles don't look as pretty as those with long hair? It is the facial features that define what pretty women are.