We got fireworked

Isabelle Soh
Aug 2, 2014
3 min read

You know how there are special days we look forward to? Like the New Year, Chinese New Year, Christmas etc etc?

These holidays give us a break from that annoying boss who keeps bugging us for our market report or the teacher that enjoys the look of despair on our faces when she demands yet another TYS (Ten Year Series - the bible of practice papers that Singaporen students have nightmares of) to be completed.

For me, these celebrations had an additional incentive - family gatherings.

9th August has always been one such occassion. And no, it isn't my brithday. It is Singapore's birthday and the nation throws a hell of a celebration.

When I was younger, my extended family would gather to celebrate National Day and to watch the fireworks. Consumer fireworks are prohibited in Singapore and 9th August is the one, if not only, time Singaporeans can feast their eyes on such an extravaganza - the magical display of gunpowder, courtesy of all our taxpayers.

Well, time flew by and we grew up.

Our parents got tired of organizing such events and the kids were free to make their own arrangements on this public holiday. Somehow, strangely enough, the three familes still often ended up spending National Day together. I think we all felt like something was not right, like it was not National Day if we didn't meet.

(P.S. To the SOHs, TANs and LIMs, I hope you all will be spending time celebrating this National Day together. Skype me leh, don't leave me out.)

It is quite impossible to be home this year to celebrate Singapore's 49th birthday, so to make up for the homesickness that I anticipate I would feel, Mark and I bought some fireworks to play!

We also bought these two mini tanks that kinda spurted out sparks and burst into flames when we lit them. Cheap thrill but no doubt thrilling.

While most of the stuff we set on fire WENT UP in pretty coloured flames, check out what happened with RETALIATION, the last box of fireworks that we played.

Yeah, it is not a perfect video (hello, I was running for my life) but it shouldn't be too hard to realise that the box started shooting at us instead! I was a little confuse at first when I saw flaming balls like Ryu's hadouken (see below) coming towards me, thinking "Wow, it's kinda cool that the manufactuer actually made the fireworks that shoot out at different angles. This would make such a great video!"

Ryu's Hadouken

Then I felt a few specks of hot sparks on my skin and saw no fireworks in the sky.

Uh oh.

Mark and I were in an open area so there was nowhere for us to take cover. Squating down like in those army movie when under cross fire was not an option either because the hadokens were rolling on the ground.

So we just ran like crazy.

According to the book Blink, time distortion occurs when we are faced with life threatening situations because information is processed quicker, and as a consequence, we see things in slow motion.

So here is how I saw the box shooting fireworks at us. You have to agree it was at the very least really scary.

Yup, that's my monterous roar indeed haha. Now, don't you dare mess with me =p

While, we did not intend for the session to end with a bang, I'm glad we are alive and well. With laughs of relief, we reviewed the eventful night and thanked God. It will probably be awhile before we would dare to play with fire again.