Born in the wrong era? No. There is no wrong era.

once upon a time, there existed in south east asia, the fishy island village of tunasek.
the inhabitants of the island were simple people. they played catching, climbed coconut trees, and ate fish. life then wasn't too complicating.
well, those days are long gone now.
somewhere along the course of time, some brits with big boats and bad fashion came and renamed the island sinatuna. still fishy abit, but things started changing rather quickly from then on.

fashion got worse and sinatuna become more populated.
a couple of years and a few wars later,
sinatuna became sianachore. a democratic(erm...democratic-but-not-really-so-democratic) state and the land of much work.

what happened to the brits?
oh they were pretty nice people, apart from the fact that they left sinatuna to fend for herself when it got whacked by the japs.
yup, the new democratic sianachore government was determined to make sure that sianachore never needed to rely on other people ever again for her defence.

things went on rather smoothly after that.
save for some instances of civil unrest, epidemics of fatal diseases, economic crashes and whatnots..life steadily progressed as it would for a country as small as sianachore...regular boring historical stuff having little relevance to the whole point of this tale.

in modern times, sianachore even considered herself to be doing quite well on the global scene.
for one thing, she was rich.
the leaders of the sianachore government(the same democratic-but-actually-not-so-democratic government that has been in power since sianachore became sianachore) thus decided to follow in the footsteps of another great democratic nation:
acrimea, the free land of much crime(a crime a day is acrimea's way!).

but how would sianachore follow in acrimea's footsteps?
well, sianachore wanted to be seen as acrimea was seen on the international scene:liberal! and open-mined! back to the roots of capitalistic(i.e. money-minded) democracy(-but-actually-not-so-democratic).

sianachore thus started to invest in fruit-shaped theatrical things, huge ferris wheels and fruit-machine-filled casinos (with a playground for kids and a shopping centre for wives). sianachore was updating herself!
no longer just the land of much work, it was time to embrace pleasure!
sianachore began to reinvent herself as sinsomore!

it worked! business improved and money went up up up!
more people were smiling! the citizens weren't too sure about the government's actions then, but when they saw the immediate results, they were all just so supportive of the government's wisdom.

her last pro-liberalism initiative was to legalise homosexual relations. well it did face some opposition in the beginning. but that was normal. the acting people's party was used to it. the same thing happened previously with the casino too, but eventually things went the acting people's party way(the money-minded way...the democratic-but-actually-not-so-democratic way).

five years have passed since, and sinsomore is as open as ever. they've even come to allow the possesion of firearms! just like acrimea decades ago! finally, sinsomore is catching up with its ideal...

however it seems that along with the smiles...the crime rate has also increased in the country.
families are more dysfunctional than ever. corruption has thoroughly permeated the business scene. domestic violence is on the rise. youth crimes have become more rampant and daring. the rich get richer(and lesser), and poor get poorer(and morer).

standards have been blurred.
morality has been discarded.
liberty is celebrated.

few people are very much happier. some people complain. most people couldn't care less.
any other person that bothers to think though, wonders...
"where did it all go wrong?"
oh the mystery of it all.