Watching the NDP 2009 Show

Every year, I try to catch the National Day Parade on TV. This year is no exception. What is new this year is Vanessa joining in to watch the show. It’s really funny that, at the start, Vanessa was pretty engrossed with the show, starting with the free fall jumps by the Red Lions. Her eyes were glued onto the TV just like when she watches her Barney DVD. I thought this will be good, let’s see if she can watch the entire 2+ hour show with me.

Well, she got bored eventually, and started to ask for her Pocoyo DVD. (Thank goodness it’s not Barney again…) Occasionally there would be some dance performance or some music rhythm that would catch her fancy, and she’ll stop fussing. She would even break out in her own dance occasionally.

Every year, the NDP show has about the same format, and had about the same features. This year, I must say that it is quite different and unusual. This can sometimes be a refreshing change. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite like what they did with this year’s show. The story-telling and acting, I thought, was rather cheesy and not in good taste. Maybe I’m not the right target audience. Did anyone find the breaking news of terrorist attacks, bomb threats, mine disposal, etc, the right flavour for a NDP show?

Somehow, I thought the NDP show deserved something more dignified than that. But I guess if this can be cleared through by the NDP organizers, well, I suppose enough of other people thought it was a bright idea. Yeah, like I said, perhaps I’m not the right audience.

This year’s show had not much of an air display. No aerobatics. Just a simple fly past salute. I already knew that, so I guess I was not disappointed. I would much have preferred to see a display by the Black Knights.

I loved the part where a little boy declared: “I want to be the President of Singapore, yes!” And our President S R Nathan smiled. Very good to have his goals so clearly defined at such an early age!

Happy 44th birthday, Singapore!