This picture. Oh my God, this fucking picture.
If there's ever a single visual representation of every Singaporean boy's first day of National Service, this image is exactly it. Uploaded yesterday on the Basic Military Training Centre Facebook page, this young boy (oh, such innocence...) is about to transform into a Singaporean man.
It's such a flawless picture that we feel obliged to overlay the golden ratio on it. We're definitely doing it wrong, but we don't give a damn — it's just too sublime.
Why is this so perfect, you ask? Just look at the expressions; they encapsulate everything about the emotions and thoughts of the subjects.
Mum is smiling the widest, ever so radiant and cheerful that her ah boy is growing up. Bless her heart; she doesn't know what it's like in National Service, and will never fully understand.
Dad is smiling too, but less so than Mum. This is because he himself has experienced first-hand this tough, bittersweet ordeal that is National Service — but he knows that his son needs to go through it to be a man.
The Son represents all Singaporean boys on the first day of enlistment. Just look at that defeated facial expression, that slumped body posture, that shame and itchiness of a freshly botak-ed dome. He has probably looked at the food, and he knows that it'll be the last (relatively) decent meal in a while. His spirit slowly ebbs away at each glance of his fellow fresh recruits, all of whom sport similar hollow expressions too. It's the all-too-familiar thousand-mile stare we all had on our first day too.
Thank you, whoever captured this piece of art and put it up for the world to appreciate.
http://singapore.coconuts.co/2016/0...fect-encapsulation-first-day-national-service
