when li jia wei, feng tian wei, and yue gu were fighting korea with their lives, the rest of the nus population was cheering them on via the big screen tv at yusof ishak house.
aspiring engineers like us were watching the live telecast of the match with our laptops during lecture.
and yes, i was one of those standing behind mumbling “china vs korea”.
in the finals, when the whole of singapore was excited at the prospect of a chance at gold, i was also of the “china vs china” sentiment.
am i not patriotic?
am i just a stupid and ungracious singaporean who knows not to be proud of his country’s achievements?
quite the contrary.
i love my country.
i’m proud of singapore’s achievements and of our current standing in the world.
but i was absolutely appalled when some important person actually chided people like me by saying something like, “we should be more gracious and accepting. what, then do you propose we do? if you do not stand for the situation, give us a solution! if you can’t come up with a solution, don’t say anything!”
i was like wtf?
a solution?
for what?
my couuntry has achieved alot.
it’s cool.
so chill.
we are not yet established as world-class in the realm of sports.
i do not think that is an opinion; that is cold hard truth.
and there is no so-called solution to that.
not yet then not yet lah!
whaddaya mean, “solution”??
so you mean, the “solution” to exceling at something, is to get somebody else to do it for you?
if i cannot pass my exam, can i get someone to take the exam for me?
look, these sportspeople have my utmost respect.
always have.
and no, this does not have anything to do with whether they love singapore, how much they love singapore, and emo stuff like that.
the point is not that they are not “born” in singapore.
nor that they were “born” somewhere else.
the point is that they are right here right now being singaporeans, for one reason only; that they are good at their sport.
two of them only came to singapore in recent years, to play table tennis.
jia wei has been here much longer; but she was brought here also only to play table tennis for singapore.
do i “despise” them?
do i doubt their intentions?
do i doubt their love for our country?
their sportsmanship?
do i not “like” them?
four years ago, when jia wei was playing against the korean in the final deciding match, i wasn’t able to watch it live.
so i was there walking around town listening to the fm radio, wishing from the bottom of my heart that jia wei will beat her opponent.
i flinched everytime her opponent shouted that ugly roar.
when she lost eventually, my heart sank just like all other jia wei fans in singapore and the world.
i really, really liked jia wei. (before all the weird news of her personal life, anyway)
i deeply respect world-class athletes.
they’ve exchanged their lives for the moment to show the world their talents.
they are the epitomy of near-perfection.
every executed move has hundred upon hundreds of hours of pain and sweat and agony and disappointment and forgone play-time and movies and psps and wiis and games behind them.
sportspeople make humongous sacrifices.
only that handful get to become the michael jordans and michael phelps and michael schumachers of the world.
the rest of them bury their dreams after falling through the team selections by a quarter of a second.
damn, damn good, but not good enough. the world is full of these.
still, they work hard, they try to make it the next time round.
sportsmanship is a noble thing.
if i could live life all over again, i would probably be more of a sportsman.
but since i do not wish to live life all over again, i will make my kids become sportspeople!
and that’s besides the point, as usual.
anyway, li jia wei was my idol.
after i watched them play, i really had nothing but best wishes for yue gu (so cute!) and feng tian wei (so shuai!).
yes, as li jia wei, as yue gu, as feng tian wei.
not as pawns.
not as instruments to make singapore an “even better country”.
not as a “solution” to a non-existent problem.
so now, who is the one being ungracious?
who is the one treating three sportspeople as gods, for the sole reason that they could help bring their own country pride and glory?
i’m sure the very important person who uttered those incredible words has never been a sportsperson for one second in his entire life.
because he clearly does not understand.
Kang is an expert in travel through and manipulation of time, and has mastered his future’s advanced technology. He is an expert strategist, a veteran of armed and unarmed combat, and has an indomitable will to succeed through struggle.
