Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his Chinese New Year message says:

Ultimately we all want to make Singapore the best home in the world for ourselves, our families and our children. We all want ours to remain an inclusive, meritocratic society where every child has the chance to realise his dreams and aspirations. We all want our children and grandchildren to enjoy many opportunities in Singa­pore and beyond, even as they remain rooted by a deep sense of belonging in Singapore.

He could have been speaking for everyone in Singapore — and for everyone who loves Singapore.

Gong xi fa cai! It’s the Year of the Dragon from tomorrow.

“The Year of the Dragon is likely to see more uncertainty in the global economy,” said PM Lee. So, here’s wishing everyone good luck.

To sign off, what could be better than a poem on Singapore?

Here’s a poem from Quarterly Literary Review Singapore dating back to July 2008. Here’s where I found it online. I love this poem and, surely, so will you.

A Malaysian Comes to Singapore

By Irian Way

The checkpoint looks bigger than Singapore!
Glossy doors and uniforms slide aside
Automatically, away from lips curved
Like whips, neatly fixed over the preserved
Tips of blunted nails. They key us inside
The system, and then we’re off as before

Down the expressway – though now everything
Is in English, all but stray traces
Of race safely effaced in the bright
White letters of white words bleaching places
And faces. They wait at the crossing

(Here the traffic lights actually function!)
– then tick on scentless feet through the doors
Of nine-to-five jobs, across citrus-washed floors
Stacked sky-high in this “city in a garden”

Where the manicured trees trapped in the breeze
Of our engines tremble.

Green leaves, blue seas,
In the shadow of whitewashed HDBs

Clean as teeth in the gold maw of a lion
God – it’s a colouring book of a country,

Waiting for a story.