Within 4 walls

In the end, I am still who I was. Hard core Singaporean, completely rg. Hardworking, competitive, determined, fiercely loyal, hot-headed, opinionated, boyish. I've drunk too much Singaporean water (true, it's bought from Malaysia, but specially purified and fluorinated in Singapore =)), cheered too many deep, diaphragm- originated rg cheers, sung the national anthem for way too large a portion of my life for that to ever change. That is not to mean that I've become blindly patriotic overnight, it just means that I've gone through a gamut of cultures, appreciated many aspects of it, tried unsuccessfully to imbibe certain parts that I thought were beneficial to incorporate into my life, but at the end of all that chipping and molding, I realise that what's left is the core of me, a large part of which is still undeniably Singaporean.

All these years I've spent overseas, a large part of the process has been spent oscillating between liking certain values I see in Singaporeans and wanting to be more Singaporean to developing an abhorence towards Singaporean Kiasuism, competitiveness, stress, unreasonable working expectations, grade-worshipping, the skewed division of time between work and ___? Many people I meet here seem to have an amount of disdain for Singaporean competitiveness and discipline, and to some extent I've tried to change, but at the end of the day I've come to realise that it isn't necessarily a bad thing, there's nothing wrong with studying a lot or to wanting to get good grades as long as you don't trample on another's toes to get it. After all, this competitiveness and discipline is what pulled Singapore out of its miry circumstances in its initial years post separation, it is what made a tiny island of 4 million people one of the world's busiest ports and today it is what keeps us off the streets and keeps crime to a minimum. And for me, personally, it's what keeps me sane, keeps me happy, focussed and fulfilled.
I think I'll just continue being Singaporean.