August 9th is Singapore's national day when all the public buildings and many homes display the national flag. In previous years every home was supplied with a free goodie bag which included a hand-held flag to wave.
At one time, if I remember rightly, which I rarely do, it was the rule that the flag was flown only on National day, and taken down the day afterwards. Nowadays the rule is that the patriotic people are allowed to fly the flag for the whole month of August, which makes the summer holiday a jolly time.
The symbols you see here are the red and white of the flag, and the head of the lion. The name Singapore comes from the word lion city. Whilst the lion is the symbol, the symbol of strength, in many countries, Singapore does not have lions roaming, although in the early years of the previous century it had tigers.
The popular story is that the last tiger in Singapore was shot under the table in Raffles hotel.
The latest version of the story, as recounted over dinner by my husband, who has worked for two decades in Singapore and now in active semi-retirement as a Singapore Permanent Resident, who likes researching everything meticulously. He is now checking wines as a Sommelier for a club, and writing a book on Singapore railways. He told me that the tiger was not a wild tiger but had escaped from a zoo. It was not in a public area but in an annexe and underneath in a store room.
As the popular saying goes, (I first heard it repeated to me over lunch by in England by the late Mr Edmund Rothschild), why let the truth get in the way of a good story!
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