Have Heart

Since the NKF saga, I had come to the realisation that Singaporeans, apart from having nothing better to do than to whine about a person’s ‘peanut’ pay package, always seem to have spare cash to donate either on a monthly basis or a couple of times a year to publicised charity shows. This already establishes the fact that Singaporeans do have a kind heart. But I would have to say that the climax has got to be the Project Superstar episode.

I’m not really into the Mando Pop scene but have recently tuned in for the very first time to the Grand Finale of Project Superstar only because of all the hype that was created in the media about this visually handicapped finalist, Tan Wei Lian.

Although I was a little disappointed with the standards of the 2 finalists when I watched their performances for the first time (maybe it’s because I only endured 2 of their performances before I had to switch to the more electrifying performances of the Rockstar INXS contestants), I was actually still very intrigued because I don’t believe anyone with any kind of disability even got through to the final round of stage performances in a reality talent quest anywhere in the world. In other words, Singapore is possibly the only country in the world which openly and publicly embraced the talent of a physically-challenged individual. The best part was that this TV programme was targeted at the young, between the age group of 13 to 35 years.

I am extremely inspired by this because it proves again, that despite the pressures of society to excel in our studies, careers and social lives, and being a seemingly self-centered bunch of people, we still managed to possess enough love, compassion and an unprejudiced mindset to pick up the phone and vote for an unrelated guy such as Wei Lian and make his dreams come true.

For this, I’d like to say that we’ve definitely matured over the past few decades and I’m certainly proud to be a Singaporean!