AUG 10 — Singapore, we first met 29 years ago in a hospital room at Toa Payoh. You were 20. I was… well, a new-born. It was all very exciting.

My first impression of you is blurry. The earliest moment I can clearly recall is watching you from my grandmother’s flat in Tiong Bahru.

You had recently introduced your exciting Mass Rapid Transit system — now more mass than rapid — but in those days my “paati” would perch me on a chair to stare out of the window and count the carriages.

Spoiler alert: It was always six carriages.

But orange was my favourite colour — anytime I was on it, I would drag the adult clutching my hand to the orange plastic seats. To me, it looked like candy.

I met your other children: My older brother — who changed my life by boldly insisting he wanted ice-cubes in his Milo; introducing me to my biggest comforts in life: a sibling and a good glass of Milo-peng.

His earliest memory, by the way, is of me. I am a swaddled baby lying on a strung-up sarong surrounded by doting parents, aunts and uncles and he is told he isn’t allowed to touch me or carry me.

My first friend — a sprightly girl who lived next door to my parents’ flat in Seletar Hills. Elizabeth.

Our entire world existed on those narrow cement corridors between her gate and mine.

There we dodged plant pots and bicycles as we played catching or masak-masak. We would painstakingly recreate meals inspired by the expansive coffee-shop that faced our block; rows of stalls from rojak to roast duck.

I have no idea where she is these days but in those afternoons we must have been very happy; there is still a photo of the two us with our arms casually swung over the other’s shoulders.

It’s the people and places that fill you that make us love you.

The National Day of Singapore is celebrated every year on August 9th. — AFP pic

This year, I spent your birthday weekend at a soiree hosted by the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. The cake was a flag, the bar served Singapore Slings and as a toast they played Majulah Singapura.

But more than any cocktail or confectionery-based flag, what really filled me with pride and patriotism however was meeting a bevy of newly minted Singaporeans.

With hardly a year of citizenship between them, they were at the reception shaking hands, savouring chicken rice and announcing their newly-acquired status to the world.

These 18-year-olds were really proud to be Singaporean and that made me proud: that all these years later, Singapore continues to be open where so many others have closed and it continues to look after its children — including the recently adopted.

It is a nation of immigrants that is still welcoming talent, hope and aspiration from all over the world.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.