By Janelle See Jia Xin (27A01D)

I always found National Day to be an enigmatic event. Every August, the whole of Singapore is decked out in red and white. In schools, we’d revisit the same old stories of Singapore’s long journey to independence and how we should take pride in being Singaporeans. However, all this time, I never really stopped to ask myself what it meant to ‘belong’.

THIS IS HOME, TRULY

It was just another school weekday, only made less mundane by our mandatory EL Week ‘reading session’ in the library. While browsing, I chanced upon a book tucked in the corner: This Is Where I Won’t Be Alone, a SingLit collection of short stories whose title explicitly references a lyric from the famous 1998 National Day song Home by Kit Chan. I didn’t expect to get hooked on it for the next hour or so, and found myself reluctantly parting ways with it at the end of the session.

Fate must have tied me to this book. A year later, the author herself, Ms Inez Tan, came down to RI to give an inspiring talk about intention versus objective to the Humanities Programme students. My curiosity renewed, I dug up and finished her book in one sitting. Upon which, I realised how local stories like hers truly seek to explore the boundaries of home and belonging. Here is why Tan’s collection is the perfect place to start reading SingLit.