What makes you proud to be a Singaporean?

I was brimming with pride when I caught the trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. One of my old time favourite actor Chow Yun Fatt exclaimed "WELCOME TO SINGAPORE!", highlighting the wild side of Singapore.

How can I not be proud of my birth country where even Krrish, the bollywood superhero was seen flying around our very own fountain of wealth at Suntec City and hey! Singapore is also a country known for its sophisicated, high tech and premium quality manufacturing.. it's the place responsible for making Batman's high strength costume as mentioned in Batman's Return. :)

Jokes aside...

I am really proud with the effort Singapore has put in to make the tiny island known to the rest of the world. Many times I have heard stories from elder colleagues and friends on their past encounters with our foreign counterparts whereby our foreign friends asked if Singapore is part of China, the Philippines or Malaysia, etc.

However, my experience in USA as part of my graduation tour about 4 years back, things were very much different. I was working in an amusement park in New Jersey for 3 months and the locals there whom I interacted with know about Singapore. :)Mainly because Singapore just signed the Free Trade Agreement with USA back then and had been in the news. And very interestingly, they also remember Singapore because of Michael Faye's caning and the ban of chewing gums. While many of them cannot understand the logic behind the ban, I think my fellow colleagues who were in charge of cleaning the amusement park will be more than delighted if there were such ban in USA. Haa.

And I always feel very fortunate to be a Singaporean whenever tourist friends from different countries praised Singapore for its cleanliness,orderliness and of course the corruption free government.