6,000 celebrate Singapore Day at New York's Central Park

The Straits Times, April 24, 2007
By Wong Kim Hoh


Inaugural event to help Singaporeans overseas stay in touch with home

LIKE model Singaporeans, they queued to get into Wollman Rink in New York's Central Park and they queued - for as long as an hour - for their favourite hawker fare.

At least 6,000 overseas Singaporeans - including some who had flown in from London and Jeddah - flocked to the inaugural Singapore Day held last Saturday in the Big Apple.

They had all come for a slice of home.

After all, the organisers - the Overseas Singapore Unit (OSU) - had flown in a bevy of performers including singer Kit Chan and comedian Hossan Leong to entertain them as well as a small army of hawkers to dish up their favourite local dishes.

The event was just one of several initiatives by the OSU - set up last year - to connect the more than 140,000 Singaporeans based overseas and to keep them updated on developments back home.

Makan guru K.F. Seetoh, who selected the 12 hawkers including Alhambra Padang Satay and 328 Katong Laksa, said: 'We dished out 16,000 servings of food. Everything was finished.

'The chwee kueh (steamed rice cakes served with preserved radish) was the first to go. All 1,200 servings were gone in less than an hour and a half.

'Singaporeans are amazing though. Everybody queued in an orderly manner, even if they had to wait one hour for three sticks of satay. Every stall had queues of at least 100 people.

'When the chicken rice hawker ran out of chicken, he was told that rice and cucumber slices would do just fine.'

Filmmaker Eric Khoo, who was the creative director of the day's entertainment programme, said: 'It was an incredible experience being in the heart of Central Park watching thousands of Singaporeans stuffing their faces with local food and grooving to the entertainment.'

The guest-of-honour at the event was Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng who pronounced it 'hugely successful'.

In a speech, he said: 'With an increasing number of overseas Singaporeans, the need to build up an interconnected network among them with Singapore at its core, becomes even more important.'

One idea, he said, is to get Singaporeans overseas to work with local companies to set up Singapore Clubs where they could network and strengthen ties.

Meanwhile, OSU director Roy Quek said the day helped to reaffirm the pride and identity of being Singaporean.

Indeed, many overseas Singaporeans who attended the event have blogged positively about Singapore Day.

A 24-year-old student from Philadelphia, who goes by the name renZ, wrote in his blog at http://wildcatlancer.blogspot.com: 'Today just made me feel that somehow I never really left home.'