Home swee home.

• Main Authors: Lim, Jeremy Wei Zhong., Low, Priscilla Yong Qin., Tong, Sian Choo.
• Other Authors: Nicole Lorraine Draper
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Communication
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52952
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Migration is a hot issue in many countries around the world, but Singapore’s recent immigrant-driven population explosion has been exceptional in magnitude. The recent influx of immigrants in Singapore has caused tension and uncertainty, prompting us to question what it truly means to be Singaporean. Through Home Swee Home, the filmmakers explore our society’s rapidly changing demographics and learn about our common national identities. We set out to understand through research and interviews why some Singaporeans discriminate against immigrants, and find out what it would take to integrate them into our society. A key question was to define who qualifies as a Singaporean, by first defining the Singaporean identity. With our diverse cultural heritage, the Singaporean identity is a complex concept with dual aspects of nationality and ethnicity. We felt that the question of the Singaporean identity could not be answered by any one person but only as a collective community. To communicate these abstract issues to a local audience, we needed to express them in concrete experiences. We sought to make a semi-observational documentary that would show diverse subjects and their interaction with the Singaporean spaces around them, such as hawker centres and void decks. Through the everyday lives of three people who are all Singaporean in their own unique ways, Home Swee Home celebrates the diversity of the Singaporean identity. The title refers to the significance of Singapore as our home and highlights the relationship between our identity and the spaces we live in. Swee is a colloquial term for something beautiful and expresses our collective desire to live in a fine city.