Singapore (Vanda Raffles)

Please do not edit this page without my permission, thanks ! -MaidenPhoenix

Facebook Page (Roleplay) ~

Appearance
Vanda has a long face shape, broad tip nose and rounded, medium eyebrows. Her eyes are dark brown in colour but they look emotionless. This is due to her bad eyesight and reputation as a “soulless city”. She wears contact lenses instead of glasses because she finds it annoying and frustrating.

 

She has a medium tan skin tone due to her close proximity to the equator and tropical climate. Her face is prone to breakouts because of the heat and humidity of the climate.

 

She has straight, layered, raven black hair that reaches down to her armpits and blunt bangs that reaches right above her eyebrows.

The weird flipped 'J' ahoge, which sticks out,came out after her unusual independence. (According to her boss, most of the countries fight and declare their own independence but Singapore was expelled and had no choice.) The crescent-like ahoge symbolises the disputed island of Pedra Branca.

Note: They are NOT her sensitive spots.



She is considered petite when compared to the Western countries and has a straight body shape.

Personality
Vanda is the female personification of the Republic of Singapore, a country/city-state known for its order, strict laws and cleanliness.

After being expelled from the Federation of Malaysia on 9th August 1965, which resulted in her sudden independence, her personality changed completely. She turned from a cheerful, laid-back and easy-going person into a cold, introverted and fiercely competitive one.

One of the few major changes she had was how strict she became with her laws and shows no mercy to whoever who broke them. One notable example was the Michael Faye case which strained Singapore's ties with the USA. Her strictness came about because of the riots and unjust she witnessed in her short history and she didn't want to see history repeating itself. She also strongly believes that her tough laws would bring protect the innocent people In addition, is often referred as the "Disneyland with death sentence" due to her capital punishments for those who commit serious crimes.

Other than her strict laws, she is also known as a "kiasu" (怕输) person, meaning someone who is extremely afraid to lose out. She is always afraid of losing to another country in terms of rankings. Her fear stems from her constant thought of slowly declining and vanishing.

 Despite her cold exterior, she will eventually warm up to others with time. She won't be that formal and awkward to interact with. She can be a little more expressive at times too.

 She can be helpful and hospitable sometimes, especially towards her ASEAN family. This includes the countries she looks up to as teachers - India, China and UK/England.

Name
"Vanda" comes from the breed of orchid Singapore uses as her national flower. I decided against using a Chinese / Malay / Indian name & surname because it will be too messy and complicated. Since English is Singapore's language of administration and the first language of every Singaporean, I made my OC take up an English name. "Raffles", her surname, comes from the founder of Modern Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles. I personally think that Singapore would feel most grateful towards her founder instead of the country he was from. Therefore, she has his surname, "Raffles", instead of "Kirkland".

Backstory
Vanda first met Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. He founded her as “Singapore”. She adored and respected him as a father. She was then taken in a sa British colony in 1824. It broke her when she realised that he had died in 1826. Although the time spent with him is very short, she understood he was trying his best to help her as he envisioned her to be a great city in the future.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Life under the British rule was hard - Poor healthcare, sanitation and unfair treatment of her citizens. Immigrants swarmed in by the hundreds. Poverty and crime were prevalent. Even so, Vanda held on to Sir Stamford Raffles’ dream of becoming a great city. She remained loyal to him and was optimistic about her future.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">All of her respect and trust in UK was crushed during the surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. What was once known as “the impregnable fortress” fell in 7 days. Life under the Japanese rule wasn’t any better. She was renamed to “Syonan-to” and forced to learn the Japanese language. Her resistance was met with harsh punishments. The Kempeitai executed her citizens in the Sook Ching Massacre, which were mostly targeted at the Chinese population.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">In 1945, when she was surrendered back to Britain, she was happy to be relieved from the years of torture and fear under the Japanese. However, she changed within the 3 years when she was under the Japanese. Since the British were unable to defend their colony, her people had a different idea for the future. They didn’t want Singapore to be a colony anymore. They wanted independence. Ironically, their common dream of freeing Singapore from the British ended up dividing them. Some wanted Singapore to be a Communist country while the others wanted democracy. She ended up rebelling in her own way against the British rule. UK held on to her longer until she decided to merge with Malaya to form Malaysia.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">The days after the merger weren’t a peaceful one. There was constant racial unrest amongst the people in both territories. Indonesia and the Philippines were unhappy with the merger. Indonesia openly expressed his objection through “Konfrontasi” and Singapore got caught in the violence. Their people were having racial tensions and their bosses couldn't get along at all.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">In 1965, Malaysia decided to expel Singapore to prevent any more internal chaos. Singapore was expelled on 9th August. She had no choice but to declare independence on the very same day.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Singapore was fearful for her future. She didn’t trust her neighbours that much anymore. It took her a few more years to "wake up" and work hard for the progress and prosperity she had promised them. In order to communicate with her citizens better, she learnt their mother tongues – Chinese and Tamil. She learnt English during her days as a colony and Bahasa Melayu was the mother tongue she already knew. Her citizens worked hard together, regardless of race, language or religion, under the common identity of being a “Singaporean”.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Her first batch of soldiers was trained in 1967, with help and guidance from the Israeli forces. However, she cannot openly express her gratitude to Israel because of the fear of offending her neighbours.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">In the process of constantly upgrading herself with new knowledge and dialects, it also caused her to suffer quite a bit. Her eyesight deteriorated over time and she had to wear glasses. She was confused due to the languages and dialects she had learnt, causing her to unintentionally create “Singlish”, an English based creole which lends words from languages like Bahasa Melayu, Chinese, Tamil and Chinese-based dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew. Singlish is frowned upon by her boss and he constantly encouraged her to speak in proper English.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">After decades of hard work, the citizens’ hard work paid off eventually and the country developed exponentially. Singapore was then known as one of the “4 Asian Dragons”. Her survival in the world as a city-state was a miracle. No one, included Singapore herself, expected this country to live on for so long and prosper.

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USA
<p class="MsoNormal">Singapore became friends with America/Alfred F. Jones when she was still under the British rule. They became good friends shortly after she gained independence. <span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">They share a good bilateral relationship in business and defence. However, they can't get along at times due to Singapore being overly strict with her laws. She also doesn't like him mistaking her as a province in the People's Republic of China.

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UK
<p class="MsoNormal">Even after her independence, they still remained as good friends. She still respects him as a father. Afterall, he was the country who guided her when she was younger. H<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">owever, she couldn't bring herself to trust him as much as she did before WW2.

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People's Republic of China
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Their bilateral ties are gradually warming up after a few ups and downs. Singapore looks up to him as a teacher, but at the same time, she is fearful of him. He <span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;"> recently loaned Singapore two of their pandas for 10 years in recognition of their friendship.

Brunei
<p class="MsoNormal">Singapore is good friends with Brunei and their currencies are on par. They conduct military exercises together annually. However, they rarely had a common topic to chat about, so, they just enjoy each other's company in silence.

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Malaysia
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Their relationship is usually unstable. They can fight over the smallest things but can patch up after some time. For example, the railway tax issue and disputes over Pedra Branca. She views Malaysia as an annoying "older sibling" and a rival. Malaysia is her closest neighbour geographically. However, she doesn't really trust Malaysia because he often threatened to cut off his sale of water to Singapore. This forces Singapore to seek more innovative methods to be self-sufficient in her water supply by 2061. === Japan=== <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Even though Japan caused her to suffer during World War II, she decided to forgive his actions as she didn't want to drag the hatred from generations to generations. However, she is still very awkward when around him because the memories of the war still remained in her head. However, Singapore doesn't hate him. Instead, she is now envious of how advanced Japan is when it comes to technology. She likes his music and culture too.

Indonesia
<p class="MsoNormal">Indonesia is Singapore's friend and neighbour, despite having conflicts and a few tensions. Their relationships are still a little strained because she feels that Indonesia is too bossy. She doesn't like being treated like a child by Indonesia.

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Israel
Israel helped young Singapore set up her military and defense and she is thankful for his help. However, Malaysia and Indonesia doesn't like her friendship with Israel, therefore, she rarely visited him to avoid provoking her neighbours.

====''<< 4 Asian Dragons >> Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore are the 4 Asian Dragons.''====

Hong Kong
Her friendly rival. <span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">They were once British colonies. She engages in a healthy competition with him and she strives to overtake him in global rankings.

Taiwan
<p class="MsoNormal">They have a rocky relationship after quarreling with China but their friendship returned to normal. She is considered one of Singapore's closer friends in East Asia. She introduced Singapore her drink, bubble tea, and she loved it.

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South Korea
<p class="MsoNormal">Singapore considers South Korea as her good friend. He introduced her to K-Pop (dance and music) and she loved it, and it is also the current trend in Singapore.

<p class="MsoNormal">  Quirks 
 * She would always have at least 2 or 3 packets of tissue with her. These are her "weapons" during the peak hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She leaves the packet of tissue on the table to "chope" (reserve) the table. The people who are looking for empty tables would automatically know that the table is already "reserved"and they would search for another one.
 * She tends to judge a food stall’s food by the length of their queue. The longer the queue, the better the food.
 * She queues up for almost everything – Food, freebies to Hello Kitty plush toys.
 * She doesn’t like making small talk with her fellow country personifications and people.
 * Being “kiasu”.
 * She avoids the priority seat on the trains in fear of being STOMP-ed.
 * She likes staring at something. It can be anything at all. People's faces, their attire, handbags and even the food they are eating.
 * Despite her appearance, she can be feisty towards her significant other. From her mood swings to her ordering him to carry her shopping bags.
 * She can't hold her liquor well. Half a cup of beer is enough to make her drunk.
 * She likes saving money by comparing prices and quality between several items.
 * She is obsessed with academic performance.