I’m feeling a bit sentimental at the moment. Yesterday I heard my neighbor played an old song from Backstreet Boys. It goes something like this:

I’ll never break your heart
I’ll never make you cry
I’d rather die than live without you
…

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not gonna talk about how much I was into Nick Carter (yuck!!!!). It’s just that the song brought back memories from more than ten years ago — that is when I was still in school.

What did you hate the most in school? I had a lot to hate ;) but one of them is the flag ceremony held every Monday morning. You know, students and teachers must stand for 30 minutes to sing national anthem, listening to speeches yadda yadda yadda.

I never know who first had the idea of enforcing it to schools and all institutions. Mr. Suharto? Anyways, I used to envy students in the USA — those whom I saw from movies. They didn’t have to wear uniform, they never had ceremonies, they never had to salute their teachers.

Overall, I thought ceremony was utterly useless. Oh, if you haven’t known, its purpose was said to boost our patriotism — our love to the nation. But most students like me couldn’t see it. Many of us would make up excuses just to skip it.

“Look at those Western people. They love their nations, even if they never have such ceremonies,” or so we thought.

Ten years later, who would’ve thought that listening to those songs we used to sing in the ceremony would have different effect. Take this one:


I don’t know about you who are lucky enough to be able to live your lives in Indonesia. But for those who have been away for years, like myself, such songs are enough to reduce me to tears. They brought back the memories of my childhood. And they remind me so much of Indonesia — of the morning dew, of the way people still know each other by names so you won’t need GPS, of everything. If there were bad things, they’re all forgiven (mostly).

Di sana tempat lahir beta
dibuai, dibesarkan bunda
Tempat berlindung di hari tua
sampai akhir menutup mata

Given my current circumstances, Singapore is the right place to live in. But I still miss Indonesia. I miss tempe gembus. I miss my cat Temon. I miss becak.

I’m just feeling sentimental.

Is this the result after doing that ceremony for twelve years? The person who created it must have been a genius.