Dear London

I wrote this on Facebook a few days ago but wanted to save it here (with some linkification to give context to the sappiness), since Facebook will inevitably go kaput at some point in the future.

Dear London,

I was not physically there with you to celebrate winning the bid in 2005, or to stand in solidarity with you when terrorists attacked everything you stand for the very next day[1. Well, I was there soon after, but to be honest I had been quite a scaredycat about deciding to go.], or now in 2012 to welcome the world to your wonderful, unforgettable embrace. But (if you will forgive me an overblown poetic reference) just know that there’s some corner of this foreign heart that is FOREVER LONDON.

Have an awesome Olympics.

Love, Michelle

2 Comments

  1. I miss London too. Maybe, one of these days, we’ll have a mini London in Singapore, just as we had a mini Singapore in London.

    1. In a way, I actually think the various little subcultures we have in Singapore can often be more fulfilling for their members than in the case of their London counterparts. To give one simple example, the local “experimental beats” scene is pretty small, but has some passionate people in it who somehow persuade fantastic acts to come here nonetheless.

      As a result, I’ve seen many acts in Home Club which would have sold out far larger venues in London, for less than I’d have paid in London, and with just enough crowd to give the venue a buzz (as opposed to packing it so full that I genuinely fear for my life if a fire were to break out).

      However, there’s not a lot we can do to imbue this city with London’s sense of history, and I don’t know if certain aspects of our culture here will manage to evolve within my lifetime to match certain gracious aspects of theirs.

      But this isn’t really meant to be a very negative response to what you said, more just my feeling that it’s easier to make Singapore a better version of itself than to create any mini Londons within it.

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