Friday, May 05, 2006

My Virgin Rally!

Yeah! Finally got the chance to attend a rally last nite :) Though it was a little late and I only listened for about 10 minutes, the whole experience was surreal.

At about 8 plus, my parents and I happily went off the attend the WP rally over at Ang Mo Kio. On the way to AMK, we heard on the radio that the roads are jammed around that area. It was amusing to hear the DJ puzzled, wondering why is amk area so congested.

The traffic was really horrendous, we were stuck in the traffic for more than half an hour before my mum suggested that my dad wait for a parking lot and we go ahead for the rally :p And since dad was fine with that, we happily went off without him.

Not only was the traffic bad, my mobile had no coverage at all that I could not call or send message out. Lousy M1, coz my dad's starhub could still call through. And it's very deceiving, the reception bar is full but you just can't call out.

We left my dad at one of the carparks and walked towards the rally ground. Although we did not know where the place is, it's easy to find, just follow the crowd and all the noise.

The rally was at this open field and it was crowded!! There were so many people that I could hardly see the stage, actually I had to squeeze through the crowded and tip-toe before I managed to catch a glimpse of the stage, even then, I was too far away to see the people talking on the stage.

There were all sorts at the rally, young couples, groups of executives, parents with their babies on strollers, groups of uncles, whole families, etc.. Basically people from all walks of life can be seen at the rally and the most amazing thing was, most of them were listening attentively to what the speakers were saying. It's not a crowd that was there for the sake of being there, it's a crowd that's actually interested in listening to what the speakers have to say.

I only caught Sylvia Lim's speech. I like the way she did her speech, straight to the point and yet able to rouse the crowd. Everyone was clapping away when she was making her speech. It was a pretty short speech, about 5 mins max(?) and after that, my mum and I had to go off to look for my dad.

I was supposed to attend a rally and in the end I was at a coffee shop having supper :p haha.. but still it was fun, the whole thing was very new and exciting to me. I never really seen so much people gathered in a place before, other than national day. It's really an amazing experience. I wonder if I should go to another rally tonite?

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Heard the election speech on the radio on my way back home from the WP rally. The party with the least candidate go first and the party with the most goes last. Of course PAP went last and had the longest time to talk.

Personally I think PAP's speech was way too long. The rest have only about 4 minutes to drive their point home, so their speech was short, concise and to the point. For PAP, as they have more time, they just went on and on, after the first 5 minutes, they lost me, I have no idea what they were trying to say or prove. They just went on and on and on. Someone really needs to hire a better speech writer.

I'm ok with the opposition's speech, except the one that talked about lift upgrading. I am not too sure which party that was, I think it's SDA(?). I agree that PAP should not use lift upgrading as part of the elections campaign coz that's something done by public funds and it should be done on a needs basis, and not on whether the ward voted for PAP or not. But then the guy went on about how lifts not stopping on every floor was PAP's oversight when they built the flats.

Now I think that that's ridiculous. Most of such flats are built like 20 years back, at that point of time, technology is not as advance as it is today, it's just not cost-effective to make lifts stop on every floor. This is not an oversight on PAP's part, that's a technological issue. Remember how the old lifts always breaks down and when I was young, I always had this perpetual fear that the I would be trapped all alone in the lift. It was a technological constraint and not an oversight.

Other than that, I'm overall satisfied with what the opposition had to say. At this point of time, there's really nothing new, it's all about reinforcing the point they want to drive home.

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The turnout at a rally is never indicative of how the votes will turn out, so if there's a rally with zero turnout, it will definitely be a loss of face. That's why a certain party actually brings people to their rallies. They would "request" for people from various places and most time lan lan these people would have to go, what to do, it's not really a request but more of a demand.

It's funny, I always thought that rallies are meant for people to go on a voluntary basis, but someone I know was forced to go to a rally last nite. In addition to that, in order to make sure that she really did attend the rally, they actually took attendance!! Suddenly it's like being back in school! Haha..

I think her case was pretty good already, all they did was take attendance. On my dad's side, other than attending the rally, they have to gather after the rally and report what was said by the people on the ground and in the crowd. So instead of being there to listen to the rally, they are really spies, mingling in the crowd and listening in to conversations.

That's really a little too extreme, no wonder my dad refuses to join in the madness.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the real world.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Just a point... Hong Kong also built flats more than 20 years ago, and theirs stop at every floor :)

Regards