Rare Rally Experience

For once in my adult life, I'm interested to understand what politics mean in Singapore. Beside trying to be "objective", I've also sparred with my peers on what politics means to us. Do we really comprehand what goverance is about? We'll never know until we find out isn't it? Upon hearing the first rally in a long time.... we rounded up a bunch of folks who were all geared up to go and listen to some rallies out there!

Unfortunately, I had to attend a dinner gathering before meeting the gang, so I told them to go ahead first. When I got to Ubi, the first Worker's Party's Rally on a friday night at 930pm.... I hit a mo-hock of people! Man! I never knew that there would be SOOO many wanting to hear what the opposition party want to say on a wet, muddy friday night. I drove around the field in circles trying to get a parking lot (fearing that illegal parking would render me some lovely green tickets... with the tonnes of policemen around, I'm sure it will happen in a flash!) It took me 30mins to get a lot, only because many are leaving the rally in anticipation of the madness that would happen once the rally is officially ended. I pity the residence staying in that area because of this rally, they had to "chop" lots the traditional way (by asking a family member to stand in the vacant lot in order for their vehicle to turn around from other neighbouring car parks in search of a rest place for their family vehicle, poor fellas.... and poor ME, because I was also eyeing that VACANT LOT!! OOI, I drove around for 30mins leh!!!!)

At this point, I was wondering to myself...

why in this world of technology, would a rally be organised in such a location?
No multi-storey carpark....
Limited open space carpark lots around....
Only reachable by a set of single-lane two way traffic....
Open air, vulnerable to Nature's rain/wind/storm??

Finally, I saw a car leaving the carpark! Shiok!!! I quickly signalled the lights and indicated that I'M waiting for THAT lot! Stay AWAY people! Fortunately, there was no other competition for it ha ha ha.... yes, my heart was racing if there would be another "family-member" cheonging out to the soon-to-be-empty-lot to "chop"... I'll most like SCREAM at that fellow!

I quickly left the car and called the rest of the folks to find out their location... my my, the tonnes of people walking away from the rally was scary and interestingly, most of them were carrying an umbrella. Later then I realised that these supports had braved through a heavy rain to be there to listen to the rally. Heart-warming!

When I arrived finally at the fringe of the mop. It has already ended, but the excitement was in the air, in a jiffy, many of the WP's members who made their speech headed towards our direction! ha ha ha... they walked past US! Even though I had no idea who they were, I could not resist the temptation to shake their hands like they were some superstar. They looked amazed at the attention that they were getting too! Unfortunately, their body guards hurried them along to their vehicles to "safety"? Oh well....

Heads were turned as some supporters started chanting "Workers' Party, Workers' Party" along the road. Woah.... super hardcore! I cannot resist but joined in as well! It was not just fun but it felt for once, that we had something common between the next Singaporean standing there by the road. We all share the same passionate love for our country to want to shout out supportive words to those who are willing to risk their lives/reputations to govern our country. I feel like I belong here for the first time. Strangely, previous experience at the Padang during National Day Parade did not even evoke half the emotion inside me. Perhaps this is called maturity....

some road scenes shots....

duno who was in the car, but the crowd was super excited till they flooded the roads making it impossible for any vehicle traffic to pass through. Police officers had to form a chain to break the crowd to allow at least one lane of traffic for these vehicles to depart....


yup, this is what I meant... only one lane of traffic. the crowd that pulled out from that field was filling the roads like ant crawl. amazing. For a wide angle-shot of the crowd, pls go here. this fella climbed stairs to get the wide angled shots, super cool!

Wanna see how mad the crowd was??

another review also available at Littlecheese

i did a small journalist-like interview of those who actually heard something from the rally to get a snap-shot of what happened.... check it out!

this interview was fun! hee.... esp. the last part when one of the interviewees declined to speak, machiam like some real interview with "weight" ah! ha ha ha....

We wanted to go for a kopi-break to discuss our experience and to share some pointers, unfortunately, it was also the idea of the thousands who were present. We walked a few blocks towards our vehicles and noticed that there was some available water to wash the mud off the shoes of the thousands who stood in the mud throughout the 3hrs, braving through the rain, being wet and standing in MUD! Impressive!


So much sharing for the next Singaporean-stranger was in the crowd that it warms my heart once again. At least I know that we can be safe in each other's pressence, there would be no foreign-imports in the crowd to share our current passion for politics....

We failed to find that kopi-tiam that would accomodate us... instead we bought drinks from a "ma-ma" shop and hang around a playground to re-cap that short evening's happenings. Woah, indeed its the first for me, to be caught up in this politicking atmosphere.... at 1045pm we depart from Ubi feeling that we'll be at another rally soon!

On our way out of Ubi, while waiting for the traffic lights to change colour in our favour, we were lined up next to the WP rally van! heh.... of course! we whipped out our cameras once again to take picture!!!



now we can read the names of the WP members with their faces on it... they would not be just faces anymore... ha ha ha...


Its definitely a first for me at 31 to be at a rally... but too bad, still dun have the chance to vote. :( I've been waiting for 10yrs!!!! When will I get the chance?????