Brunei Marks N-Day With Great Joy And Splendour
By Aemy Azlena

Bandar Seri Begawan - The nation marked the 24th National Day with great joy, pride and splendour yesterday as thousands converged in the capital to witness and participate in the grand parade of celebration at the Taman Haji Sir Muda Omar Ali Saifuddien.

As patriotic songs such as ‘Laksana Puteri’, ‘Bahagia Brunei Darussalam’, ‘Cita Negara’ and ‘Brunei Darussalam Tanah Airku’ were being sung and played in the background, more than 100 teams with some 18,000 people comprising students, uniformed personnel, government officials and representatives of the private sector participated in the march past in the National Day parade.

Leading the march past were 47 participants who carried the giant-sized national flag followed not far behind by 245 people carrying the Brunei Darussalam National Flags and Logo Flags. The 245 flag carriers were the first to break off to circle the perimeters of the field. As the parade progressed more and more participants broke off to move in formation and congregate onto the field to do the theme performance later on.

After the parade, the National Day oath was read.

As one, representatives from the public and private sectors, repeated the oaths in renewing the commitment, loyalty and solidarity of the people to His Majesty and his leadership sovereignty, peace and security of the country.

This year's National Day field performance was based on the theme "Tunas Bangsa" or Nation's Youth. Some 7,700 participants took part made up of private and public sector and various agencies, including about 1,400 primary school students, took part.

"Tunas Bangsa" symbolises two things, including the start of something small (such as a sapling) that will grow and develop into something big that can eventually do its bit to contribute to the development of the nation.

Additionally, Tunas is a combination of two words taken from ‘tunak’, meaning loyalty, and `national' (Malay for national) resulting in loyalty to the nation.

The theme and symbols of the theme were incorporated in many segments of the performance. From the green garbed theme performers to the background of the field performance, in which there was a picture of a pair of hands cradling new growth of leaves in the shape of Brunei.

The performance was spectacular as it combined colours and patterns, musical rhythm and creative movements to amaze the crowds at the Taman and those at home watching on TV.

The show was divided into three segments; "Tanah Yang Subur" or fertile land, "Benih Yang Baik" or good seeds and lastly, "Tunas Bangsa", the theme and grand finale.

At the start of the field performance, about 6,300 participants filled the field, covering it in green. The first segment of the performance had the participants waving their fans and props as the music started to create three flowers, first in orange, then in red and lastly in yellow.

Then came the second segment where the performers used the variety of colours of umbrellas to portray rows of colourful landscapes before the row turned into shapes that reminded one of seeds.

The last segment had the performers in the front row moving to the side and making room for 1,400 lower secondary students dressed in white caps, white shirt and white pants, holding white pom-poms moving forward to make a giant "T".

The performance was brought to a grand finale as the music swelled and colourful confetti were shot up into the sky coming from seemingly all sides of the field to the cheers of the crowd. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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