SG60: The Day Strangers Felt Like Neighbours
- Wilkie Soh
- Aug 12
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 20
Last night, many cried at Singapore’s 60th Birthday. Not for fireworks, but for “we.” For hours at SG60, strangers felt like neighbours. Strollers, flags, old songs, soft smiles; the simple things we keep forgetting. Maybe that’s the point: do we really need more "bigger", or just closer? It feels that, a rare feeling returned. And it did move many to tears.
Singapore as 1
It’s 2025. Kampong is gone, neighbourliness mostly gone too. For that few hours, we tasted it back & remembered how it felt. Shared vulnerability, common challenges, a small “we” in an efficient world that keeps saying “me”. Tears aren't weakness, sometimes they’re a quiet yes.
Yes to what we’ve lost, yes to what we still want.
We’re human, after all.
Stuck in sameness? We help shape value people can feel.
The hamster wheel doesn’t stop
Asia still does much of the world’s farming & factory work. Many never chose the system they’re in. Closer to home, many of us didn’t choose this kind of pace either. Bills don’t pause, parents still need care, kids still need attention. So we run nonstop, on the 24/7 treadmill. We carry on, together, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
Today, some send 300 CVs & get no reply. Some businesses look fine on social media but not in the books. Some do 2 jobs, some care for 3 generations. Most of us are just trying not to drop what we’re carrying. We say “ok lah” even when it’s not ok. It keeps the peace, but not the progress.
It’s a cultural challenge many of us face.
It’s hard & it’s real.
Since we can’t out-exam, what now?
There was a time when grades could easily guarantee a future.
Machines now fetch facts faster than any of us. If our work is still mostly “crawl & retrieve”, from textbook solutions, we lose. To the world, NUS & NTU rank high; at home, many feel same-same. Heads down, on machines & keyboards. That pat on the back is not coming. Do different. Try new.
More & more towkays remind me: the old playbook is dead.
In business, there’s only 1 winner. For the job or that tender, the same textbook answer may no longer work. Unlike school, there isn’t one “correct”.
Increasingly, the way forward will rely on skills we had as kids (before we learnt to overthink, as adults). Creativity, from curiosity. Play. Making things. Trying, then trying again.
Out-innovate, not out-memorise. Out-care, not out-show.
Be a little different. On their minds, in the markets. Come say hello on LinkedIn.
Ordinary hopes, require initiative
Most of us don’t need a yacht or GCB. We want a home that feels safe, a job that gives meaning, a weekend that isn’t swallowed whole. We want time to walk, to eat with people we love, to sleep without worry. Many friends of mine in other global financial centres want the same too.
We bought the Straits Times right after National Day, as a memento. The Life section juxtaposed parties by the crypto bros & palliative care for the dying. 1 headline shouts cool clubs; the next page shows “one last party” meals — durian, beer, KFC, even chilli crab. 2 parties, different clocks.
Sometimes we’re shy, sometimes just busy to try anything new. Till, it's too late.
Don’t wait to live.
Gentle moves, for the next 60
Days, not years. Perhaps, we all can, take tiny initiatives, to be clearer & kinder: say hello to a neighbour, text a sibling, finally book the kopi we keep postponed. Can or not? Wait again? Try swapping 1 “must-do” for 1 “choose-to-do” & keep it for 30 + 30 days.
Our monthly courage: try 1 new thing each month — small, cheap, human.
Simple isn’t easy. Simple is earned.
Before we go
Not everyone had a choice; many still don’t. All the tears at SG60 could be that nudge, or maybe even a wake-up slap, to act while we can. If we can’t out-exam anymore, maybe we out-imagine, out-listen, out-help. 1 step, then another, until it looks like a path.
The old playbook is dead. Do same thing, get same results, heard before? So, we write a smaller one we can keep: 1 page of curiosity, 1 page of courage, 1 page of kindness. Tomorrow we add another.
We’re human, after all. Real neighbours, if we choose to be.
