A lot of this boiled down to Stephanie's statement that she didn't feel proud to be a Singaporean and many Singaporeans reacted angrily because they felt proud to be Singaporeans. Many of the responses on Youtube (such as DeeKosh and Divian Nair) went on and on about Singapore's economic success and how it is one of the richest countries in the world today. Now no one can deny the fact that Singapore is extremely rich, but can you claim personal pride or responsibility for Singapore's success? What have you done for the Singaporean economy lately? Would the Singaporean economy collapse without your precious contribution? Can you personally claim credit for something amazing you have done for Singapore? Like honestly, really? What have you done for Singapore, eh?
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| What have you personally done to make Singapore the great country it is? Anything? |
The fact is most of these people who claim to be so proud to be Singaporean actually have done absolutely nothing to contribute to Singapore's success. I can think of some amazing individuals, such as Lee Kuan Yew, who can personally take a lot of credit for Singapore's success and thus Lee Kuan Yew can feel a lot of pride for what he has achieved personally for Singapore's success. But if you're a freaking nobody who has done virtually nothing outstanding with your life, how can you justify any sense of pride by simply attaching yourself to your nationality - which by the way, is not something you can claim credit for. You just happened to be born in Singapore as a stroke of luck and not some war-torn African country. So unless you're someone like Lee Kuan Yew or Goh Chok Tong who has done great things for Singapore, any kind of pride one feels for being Singaporean is quite meaningless. I just find the concept of attaching your pride and self-worth to the GNP per capita of the country of your nationality quite ridiculous.
Think about the football fans who go out and celebrate when their team wins - now I live in London and I see a lot of that. Whenever there's a big game in town, you can be sure that the supporters would come into the West End after the game, get hopelessly drunk, run amok through the streets and cause the usual mayhem associated with football fans. Some of these men don't even play football despite being big fans of the team they support - so why are they attaching themselves to the fortunes of their team and 'borrowing' the sense of pride and victory when their team actually wins a game? I refer you to the skit below by Mitchell and Webb which explains how utterly ridiculous football fans are - please click on the link here in case the Youtube link doesn't show.
Well I feel sorry for people like that, for I would rather feel proud about the achievements that I can personally claim credit for and I have a CV as long as my arm when it comes to accomplishments from scholarships to awards to gold medals. But what about people who have virtually nothing to feel proud about when it comes to their achievements then? What if they look back on their vapid lives and realize they have nothing to feel proud about? What then?
So as for why she said, "I don't really feel proud to be Singaporean" - well, perhaps she was responding to the way K-pop Star Hunt was international contest where each country is represented by a singer. Thus in the series, Stephanie was the contestant "representing" Singapore along with another Singaporean contestant, Yvonne Chua. In fact, over 400 aspiring contestants auditioned for the two slots: Stephanie and Yvonne were the two eventual winners selected to represent Singapore at K-pop Star Hunt 3. A total of 14 contestants from Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore took part in this contest which was broadcast across all of these countries. So as you can see, these contestants were pretty much portrayed to be representing their respective countries in the show - this is hardly surprising as the producers expect the audience to support the contestants from their respective countries. This is a tried and tested international reality TV format - they are not reinventing the wheel here.
Now did any of the contestants think, "I want to join this contest to represent my country and make my country proud." I don't think so - the thought at the foremost of their minds would be, "I wanna win and become a famous superstar!" Thus for Stephanie, being proud of her nationality wasn't a prerequisite for her to take part in the contest - no, she simply had to beat the other 400 aspiring contestants in the audition to win one of two slots for Singaporeans in the contest. It was a very personal journey for her by that token - she was even in direct competition with her fellow Singaporean Yvonne Chua (who got knocked out in round 3) so there wasn't even any kind of 'team Singapore' experience for her at the competition - it was all these individuals competing against each other. I wonder how many of the Singaporeans attacking her actually know anything about the format of this reality TV programme?
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| How many of Koh's critics understood the programme she participated in? |
So perhaps Stephanie's comment should be seen in the context of the format of the competition, rather than a huge debate about whether Singapore is a nice country or whether you like Singapore or not. Everyone has been chasing a red herring and it is quite frankly, ridiculous, the way insecure Singaporeans have lashed out at her over this issue. She and I actually see eye to eye on many issues - particularly on our response to the things we don't like about Singapore. Instead of trying to change Singapore, I simply left the country to seek greener pastures in Europe where I have been successful and happy in pursuing my dreams here.
I wish Stephanie Koh all the best in seeking greener pastures wherever she wishes in this planet of ours. I also think it is bullshit that you must automatically, by default, love the country you were born in and feel proud about it, live there and work there until you die. It's a free world - if she's not happy in Singapore, then I hope she finds somewhere else where she can access the opportunities she is looking for and find happiness and success. If you have not heard Stephanie sing before - check out her acoustic cover of Gangnam Style (youtube link embedded below), she is pretty darn amazing!
As usual, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think of the issue. Thank you!
Hi Limpehft,
ReplyDeleteHow do you deal with low confidence (or how to raise your own confidence) ? I had very discouraging parents and sibling (I was the youngest one) and no matter how I tried, I am always the worst one. I had always been very insecure and never thought that I was actually right (my parents and siblings always think that I am wrong) even though I was! I realised it now when I recalled back when I was in Primary one and there's a IQ test about 3D figures and I figured it out immediately, faster and better than all of my classmates. However, again, I had very low confidence and choose to copy my classmate answer and got it wrong. (I carried the assumption that other's decision/answer is always right) and during a playtime, I build a house with lego bricks and called it "ugly" because my sister will always think it is ugly, despite my teacher telling me that it is actually very nice. I realised that I am actually a very capable person if I have the confidence and motivation about the challenges I am about to face but this part of me, being not confident had always been a huge block for me. (I always think that others are going to be better, no point trying. Even if I got it right this time, it is just luck. ) which I had an example when I was learning archery, I shoot the bullseyes just for the very first time I fired the arrow. My instructor told me that I am very talented because he didn't get it for his first time. However, I carried the thinking that "I was just lucky" and never know how to shake it off, for the next few practices I kept on missing and later stop learning archery. I only now realised that this is my biggest block to success (no confidence, just luck) and because of it, I missed many great opportunities in life and never realised my full potential in many areas because I think whenever I succeed, it is just luck and I gave up soon after.
Need advice from you, thanks.
Hi there. Thanks for your comment, a little bit out of context but I always welcome any questions.
DeleteI totally recognize what you say. My parents believed that if they ever praised me, it would make me complacent and lazy - so their idea of 'motivating' me or encouraging me was to put me down, criticize me, make me feel inadequate so that I would work twice as hard as everyone else in order to do as well or better than them. Pretty shit parenting - but it sounds like you're faced with the same kind of attitude.
For me... I guess there was a big part of me that wanted to prove people wrong. There were people in life who looked down on me: my parents, some people at school, some people in the army I encountered... I was motivated by a desire to show them, "you think I am stupid and useless, well I will prove you wrong because you're judging me by your standards and I will prove to you that I will do things my way and become successful and happy. But I will do things my way, rather than your way because I am going to please me, make me happy and in being able to turn around and show you - hey, look: I am successful and happy today. That will be my greatest revenge, my greatest statement to them."
Look, sometimes life puts us in situations when we encounter people who want to put us down. We just have to know how to channel that anger into something constructive: in my case, it was turning it into a desire to prove these people wrong, rather than allowing them to break me down - because I didn't want to let them win. Allowing them to break down my self confidence would be allowing them the victory they wanted: in succeeding in life, in becoming a well rounded adult with a healthy sense of self-confident and self-worth, that's my way of revenge, because I have denied them what they wanted.
So, can you understand what I did and are you willing to channel this anger into a motivation to want to prove these people wrong?
Hey there Luck,
DeleteI totally know what you're talking about. I too have a bunch of parents who thought that the best way to "motivate" me was to constantly compare me with my ridiculously talented cousins and neighbors whenever it was about grades, achievements or whatever. Instead of motivating me it made me feel like I was a fucking prize hog for them to flaunt around to my parents' friends whenever I did something great. For me, life as a child was fucking terrible and the only reason why I didn't perform poorly was because they would beat the shit out of me for it.
As I crept into adolescence they began to figure that I wasn't "normal". Back then, "Asperger's" or "the autistic spectrum" didn't exist in Singaporean vocabulary (I wasn't diagnosed until I was 14 months into NS and nearly blew my brains off with my SAR-21's muzzle in my mouth during guard duty from being bullied by my superiors) and so they labelled me as an EQ-retarded child. They'd call my teachers and tell them to treat me like a toddler because I was emotionally like a baby. Singaporean teachers, being the shitty teachers that they were announced this in class and told everyone to call me "Baby Ng" and that nickname stuck with me throughout the year. Then my parents would fuck with me by telling me to study hard or I would amount to nothing but to do menial work like spastic adults do like repackaging SIA headsets for $2/hr.
I think it's a fucking miracle in itself when I realized what my condition truly was in NS and decided to get my shit together and constantly show the finger to my parents. I started by qualifying for US university enrollment, and once I hit US soil I began to receive that recognition and validation in school that I never received back home in Singapore.
You need to realize that LKY was right in describing that Singapore is not a "normal" country. It isn't. It's fucking dysfunctional and full of dysfunctional people exhibiting dysfunctional behavior, but they don't realize it because everyone's all neck-deep in being dysfunctional. Define success on your own terms.
Wow. You sound like a brother-from-another-mother - your parents sound just like mine. Crikey.
DeleteYeah, dude. I think we really are. :/
DeleteOh and by the way, do you have an email address I could send to? There's something I need to seek your advice on... you can send me a poke on davin.ng@outlook.com
Sorry Davin, I usually prefer to deal with questions like that publicly on my blog. You see, you may be addressing an issue that concerns other people as well and as I have thousands of hits on my blog a day, we may be able to talk about a topic that could concern some of my other readers - so we can open it up to be a wider discussion about the issue. An email conversation between you and I would be.... just that. I prefer helping thousands of people if I am going to spend as much effort replying to your email , it's nothing personal mate, but I hope you understand my stance. So - what can I help you with? Could we discuss it publicly?
DeleteNo worries.. I totally understand your point of view.
DeleteOkay then.. I don't know where to start. Right now, I have 1 term left till I graduate and I frankly don't know what to do with the next step in my life/career. My GPA is 2.7/4.0 which isn't fantastic at all, because for the past two years I have deliberately chosen to take on challenging courses taught by competent and tough professors as I wanted to get the most out of my education. It would be a waste of US$50k++/year to just cruise by with easy As and bullshit classes. But the unfortunate byproduct of taking these challenging courses is that my professors would award me Bs and C+s for my work - I'm not unhappy with those grades by the way, because I know that those Bs and Cs would be As anywhere else and I have been totally satisfied with what I've learned. But the problem is that many graduate school admissions officers and interviewers for jobs may not see it that way: I'm seeing way too many requirements of GPAs of 3.0, 3.6 or whatever. With 2.7 on paper I'm going to look like a mediocre slacker in comparison.
Being fully aware that my grades aren't going to be fantastic I've tried my damnedest to make up for that deficiency by keeping myself busy over the past two summers. The summer of 2012 was spent on a research project with a Professor C. where I received US$4,000 from the school to work with Professor C. to come up with material for the syllabus of a new class that she pioneered. The summer of 2013 was spent in London with the Hansard Society where I took classes at the LSE and also interned with the IISS at the same time. My grades with the LSE were absolute shit because this was the point where my severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea began to kick in and it began to severely affect my concentration during the daytime. I was always tired and dozing off every 15 minutes despite my best efforts to stay awake. To combat that, I became a Red Bull dependent just so that I could jolt my system into constant wakefulness during my classes at LSE and my internship hours with IISS. Still didn't work, though. But despite my shitty LSE grades, my internship turned out okay. My boss at IISS was happy enough with my work that he told me to email him if I wanted to intern for them again, and to pass on the message to the Hansard Society to send more interns his way (most if not all participants of the Hansard Scholars Programme are attached to MPs at Westminster). To top things off, Professor C. who had since left my current college is now simultaneously working for a NGO in Washington and lecturing at George Washington University just nominated me to write an entry in the Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy. I haven't heard from her about any confirmed details yet but being published as an undergrad sounds fantastic to me.
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That's what I have to work with in terms of my track record and work done. My problem lies in the path ahead: what should I do? At this point it is too late for me to apply for graduate school in time for Fall 2014 because the application due dates were over on Dec 2013. In terms of grad school options I'm thinking of going back to Singapore for a gap year and then going to the University of Oslo for grad school so that I may reduce the financial burden on my parents (Norway offers free university tuition on all levels even for foreigners thanks to oil). My other option lies in hunting for a job. I emailed my contact in IISS and Professor C. asking for help a couple days ago and I've yet to hear from them, but I'm not going to put all my eggs on those baskets... but at the same time with my shitty GPA I don't know if anyone would ever consider me for a first interview.
DeleteThat's my quandary right now... I know that you've served as a gatekeeper before so I want to hear your opinion on my circumstances. What should I be doing? Everyone among friends and family are telling me different things but I can't really trust what they say. Dad is a fantastic executive who sincerely cares about workplace safety, but he's only worked for 2 companies in his entire lifetime. Mom is a stay-home mom who teaches private tuition. No one else I know who has offered advice has been in my position before and I'm grasping at straws here. :(
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Hi Davin, thanks for sharing your story. I don't think anyone has the 'right' answer as to what you have to do now - it is a combination of what options present themselves to you and you have to then pick the best one for yourself. The way I see it (I'm just working off what you've written here) - I see a rather Singaporean attitude towards your studies, ie. you are keen to use your studies to prove yourself as the intellectual superior by opting to do the harder courses at uni, rather than cruise through the easy ones and you're not paying the price for it. Are you looking to work as some kind of researcher in the long run? Is that why you are so focused on the academics? Or are you keeping your options open? And why grad school? You haven't told me what you wanna do is Oslo and I'm wondering if it's going to be that important for you to get that post-grad at this stage or to fill the gap with some concrete work experience?
DeleteUnless you are determined that you are going down the path of a researcher or even academia (is that one your mind?) - then the huge gaping hole I see as a gatekeeper is that you've yet to prove yourself in anything else outside your university studies (and presumably you did NS before you went to university, right?) So my gut instinct would be to ask you to get a job, gain some valuable work experience - prove to a gatekeeper like me that you do know how to function in the real world, Right now, from what I can see, okay I get it - you're smart, but how are you going to fit in, say in a team environment, in an office? Can you work with others - can you adapt yourself to the corporate world or other challenging circumstances outside the comfort of a university environment?
You see, your scope of experience is so narrow that I worry that you may be limiting your options to just seeking employment in academia in the future - if that's what you want, fine. But otherwise, it would be prudent for you to widen your horizon and seek different experiences. Not only will it make your CV look more balanced, but it will also help you figure out what you will need to do in the long run (even if it is by process of elimination).
Let me know what you think please, I hope this has helped.
Yeah, I do indeed want to be a researcher. I've already taken stock of what I have to offer given my Asperger's and I decided that the kind of place that would be most accommodating to my personal and emotional eccentricities are going to either be in academia (think of the weirdo professor) or in the think-tank circles. As for functioning in an office or team environment, I can only point to my 6 weeks at IISS where they gave me a desk, a task and threw me off the deep end to see if I could figure out what they wanted for research. There were no opportunities for teamwork since they were solitary tasks, but I still managed to get along well with the folks who were in my room and sought their help/advice on the tasks assigned to me. So yeah it's my aim to present myself as the kind of guy who may not be so fantastic with grades, but I already have a healthy track record which proves my ability for research work.
DeleteI want to go to grad school because for my field of International Relations, very little can be done with a Bachelor's degree especially in the NGO and think-tank circles. A lot of entry-level positions ask for at least a Master's or above and since there are a ton of NGOs in Oslo I was hoping to score myself a job following the internship phase as a Masters student in Oslo... I'm kinda trying my luck with Europe because frankly a lot of spots in the US are for US citizens only whereas Norway is eager to make itself a new Nordic hub for academic research and is all too ready to recruit people like me.
Additionally, I have long-term reasons for preferring to go to someplace like Norway and to stay there if I can. Over the past couple years my research on climate change affecting geopolitics has pointed to the US being a huge loser over the next 20-30 years. As temperature averages rise across the globe, US agriculture is going to get fucked over badly. I mean, already for the past two years we could already see extreme weather severely affecting crop harvests in the US. The trend over the next 20-30 years is supposed to mean that previously agriculturally-unviable land in cold parts of Canada and Russia are going to be viable for agriculture. Now imagine how much hell that's going to play to regions south of that. Because US economic stability has its foundations on cheap and easy access to fresh food supplies that is going to play hell with the fundamentals of the US economy, and I do NOT want to be a permanent resident of the US when that happens. At least when it comes to Norway they have all the long-term stuff figured out, seed banks, oil money reserves and all.
DeleteSounds like you have made very sound plans and they make complete sense. Can I just make another suggestion with the year out then - why not just do a gap year of traveling, a bit of volunteer work: go see the world, backpack, relax, enjoy. Have some me-time, don't think so much about the rat race and getting ahead, getting work experience, getting training etc. If you're financially okay for the moment, why not consider that option?
DeleteHi Davin,
DeleteOur parents are just so similar in their parenting! If I get 87 marks for a test, they will say now Auntie X's daughter got 90+, why can't I be the same? They are always comparing with me others and telling me that I am in a shitty gangster school despite that it is an elite neighborhood school, and my classmates are these and that, all gangsters, don't makr friends with them and just simply assumes without even meeting them, so to them being top in class is still bad because I am in a lousy school.
Sometimes, teachers can get really insensitive about students. When my parents are divorced, my form teacher told everyone that and later all my classmates assume that no one wanted me, I am an orphan. (And they called me that for the entire year! )
From this episode, I just learned to never tell anyone private information of a person because I know it can hurt them. Still do not know why my teacher did that, if it's to help me gain sympathy or to make my life worse.
Well Luck, may I respond to what you have written? You will encounter insensitive and tactless people in life who will say horrible things to you because they couldn't care less about your feelings (don't get me started on the amount of hurtful things that my mother has said to me over the years and still says to me today as recently as last weekend). People are insensitive, tactless and stupid - such is life I'm afraid. And then you have people who are cruel, malicious and downright evil - they will want to hurt you by putting you down, mocking you and insulting you - and you have to protect yourself against people like that.
DeleteLike you, I have had plenty of crap from people who are either insensitive/tactless or cruel/evil all my life but you have to choose how to respond: do you let them win by allowing yourself to be demolished by their words - or do you deny them that victory by defiantly holding on to your self-esteem and self-worth and go on to prove them wrong?
You see, we can't stop shit from happening to us in life - but we can decide how we react. The ball is in your court my friend.
Limpehft, of course you can respond to what I have. I really enjoyed your views because I find them really mature and helps me to look at my problem in another perspective.
DeleteLetting go of people seems to be a difficult task for me and I am gradually learning how to. There's this guy in CCA who hates me and is insensitive in his comments. I tried to be nice to him for 3 years before I finally realised that the relationship is not worth having because I finally found a group of friends who accepted my every flaw and listened to all my problems. I feel less happy when I am with him and I guess that if you had been really happy before, you will never accept anyone that made you feel less.
My friends really made me feel whole and worth it. I finally let go of all one-way relationships which I felt so unhappy in.
Lucky,
DeletePretty much same thing here, except that I was in ACS(I) and while there was no chance of me joining any gangs, I was constantly being that crazy outlier ACS dude who always hangs out with and mixes around with neighborhood school people. My ACS uniform was a constant head turner at Orchard back then, because most people would usually see that color combination of navy blue and white mingling with the likes of RGS and SCGS. Nope! This ACS boy was swearing in Hokkien like the rest of them.
That was my form of rebellion against my parents and they were mollified. They're the very Christian sort who have never said a single swear word in their lives and here I was chain-swearing in Hokkien between every five words of English. They thought that it was a terrible influence back then but that kind of experience made my life in NS marginally better because this jiak kangtang fella who usually speaks in perfect English could swear in Hokkien with the Hokkien bengs. :P
Limpeh,
DeleteThat was exactly what I was thinking of when I raised the issue of the gap year with my parents. I wasn't thinking of being *completely* idle as I have several open offers for part-time work through which I could earn my spending money while I pass that gap year. But you know, Singaporeans being Singaporeans my parents were extremely uncomfortable with the idea and accused me of wanting to play more videogames. I really don't know how to get that concept through to them.
Luck: I think you need to recognize you have seem to have this need to please people and where it is coming from. Those of us who lack self-confidence often look people people around us to assure us that we're doing okay, for that assurance that comes in a variety of forms. We may look to our parents or teachers for approval or we may look to our classmates as well - whilst this may be a natural process for most of us, it can be detrimental if we become over dependent on their approval. Take that guy in your CCA who hated you and was insensitive to you: why did you even try to be nice to him in the first place? Answer: you were seeking approval from the wrong person. Yes, that was a mistake on your part and there's nothing wrong with seeking approval but you need to seek it from the right people. In this case, you were (subconsciously) seeking approval from the wrong person and that meant that you allowed yourself to be affected by this guy negatively. The only sensible reaction would have been to pretty much just ignore him, rather than try to be nice to him all this time.
DeleteAddendum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j47YsLryKk
DeleteThis guy encapsulates my earlier points about long-term prospects very eloquently.
Sometimes I do feel motivated to prove people wrong (like when I've topped the class in science) but I always had that feeling that, "Oh I am just lucky this time, the things I've read turned up for the exams (when I actually studied everything)", "The paper is easy", "All my classmates are lazy, I am in a lousy class (when the class i am in is in the the ranked 3rd in the entire level ) and the standard is not comparable to the top class/top school" and never attributed it to my hardwork or talent, just "very lucky".
ReplyDeleteWhenever I try to pick up new skills, the feeling creeps back on how I will never be good enough, how lousy I am compared to the best, and if I made it, it's all my luck, I am not good at all.
Well Luck, it gets to the point where you just have to turn that anger into something positive and I can't do that for you - you have to learn to help yourself. It's a simple decision: you have to just say to yourself, "I AM GOING TO HELP MYSELF." There's nothing complex about that. After all, if you're not going to help yourself - who will? There's nothing else anyone (not me, not your parents, not any teacher) can do to help you if you are refusing to help yourself if you're the first person to put yourself down whenever something goes right. You are being your own worse enemy in this context and if you want to help yourself, the first thing to do is to recognize that, stop being your own worse enemy, learn to feed yourself positive messages and claim credit for what you have achieved and if necessary, stand up to people who try to put you down. It seems to me that you're so busy blaming everyone from your sister to parents for not encouraging you enough - when really, you're the biggest culprit here.
DeleteWe cannot guarantee that people in life will always be nice to us - even our own family members can be uncaring and discouraging (that's where I share something in common with you). There's little we can do about it (since we can't choose our family members) - but what we do have control over is the way we feel about ourselves and you can choose to help yourself.
The ball is in your court. If you want to help yourself, then you have to choose to take the first step. I can't do that for you. No one can - you have to choose to help yourself and you can start by replying in a far more positive, optimistic tone to me. :)
I never felt smart nor accomplished until I moved away from Singapore. When I moved overseas to study, I blossomed and became a great student. I also stopped trying to get my mom's approval. Being in Singapore was torture. The comparsions within my family was awful. As far as my mom was concerned, I never measured up coz I did not see eye to eye with her on many things. Luck has to realise that we cannot control people other than ourselves. Nuture what you do best and BELIEVE. You will only shine when you stop listening to that voice that says you suck. One day at a time.
DeleteThere's another Singaporean artist by the name of Inch Chua who also ran off to LA after lamenting the fact that Singapore is a shitty environment for artists (the country didn't explode into a tirade criticizing Inch for doing it... but then again she wasn't open or in-your-face about it like Steph did). I honestly can't help but agree.
ReplyDeleteHeck, I wanted to be academic in the social sciences, and I had to run off to the Baltimore-Washington DC area to get opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to me in Singapore. I kind of like the idea of settling down at my birthplace for good but it's just sad that I get zero opportunities at my field, and Singaporean society doesn't give two shits about me for it unless I specialize in something that the government deems to be "relevant". To be fair, a place like the LKY School of Public Policy is something right up my alley, but a) I don't want to be a PAP government shill and b) I would rather thrive on a diet of rusted nails than to work under an idiot like Kishore Mahbubani. But that's another tale for another time.
Steph might be a bit of an attention whore in this video, but I generally agree with her sentiment. The vast majority of Singaporeans possess this small village mindset (especially those who bitch and groan that travelling from Jurong to Pasir Ris is "far") that is goddamn infuriating to deal with when one wishes that their country could aspire to be more than what it is: a cheap corporate resort for foreigners where all the citizens are merely the help.
Hi there. I have not heard much about Inch Chua in LA ... it is a highly competitive environment and she doesn't have the kind of financial backing that Sun Ho has, so it's going to be an uphill battle for her, but you know, good luck to her, she's pursuing her dreams. She didn't just settle for a more conservative path like becoming a primary school teacher in Singapore or something like that y'know. The Malaysian singer Yuna has achieved quite a lot of success in the US and Indonesian Anggun has been a super huge star, she is based in Paris. So it can be done - but you need to get out of Singapore, like how many Singaporean singers are known internationally? The music scene just isn't quite there to launch an artist internationally, you can be a big fish in a small pond and be the kind of novelty act that would benefit from a lot of favours from local DJs to get airplay.
DeleteLet me give you an example: if you were around in the early 1990s, there was this music dedication programme on 987 FM called 'Say It With Music' and it was so popular then, cos they would get thousands of requests but only an hour or two to play them. So you know what was the one sure way to get your request read? Simple: request a song by a local S'porean artist. Dick Lee, Jacintha, Maizurah, just to name a few. It may not be your favourite song, but at least you almost guaranteed that you got your request read out cos they'll be like "woah, someone request a Maizurah song! Quick, put it in tonight's programme!"
Ironically, unless you're going to claim Vanessa-Mae as a Singaporean artist (singing in English), really the only one who has had any kind of impact internationally is still Sun Ho (controversy aside).
As for Steph, good luck to her. I totally agree with her sentiment but then again, I got out in 1997.
The irony of it all about Sun Ho being the only Singaporean to have any kind of "impact" is that she simply could not care less about whether she represents Singapore as an artiste anyway. She had stated during interviews that she did this solely for herself, and during the MTV Music awards (one of those shows...I cannot remember if I got this title correct), when she was called a 'rising star from China', she simply went along with the hosts who introduced her as an announcer of the prizes.
DeleteJust like what you said, the Singaporeans who question Stephanie Koh are asking the wrong questions. Granted, yes, she is simply not cut out for the conformist K-pop industry with her attitude which tends to be rather defiant towards authority, and she did scream at a producer for wanting to confiscate her cellphone until the show is over, that is her own independent personality. At least she is not shy or hiding it. Some of the haters online are seriously stupid too to talk about her accent, which is BESIDE THE POINT. She studied in Australia and lived there for a while, so it is not surprising if she sounds somewhat like an Aussie in her accent. I get asked all the time when back visiting my family whether I really still have family in Singapore, because I sound more Canadian in some parts with the rhotic and the vowels, and seriously, it's not the point.
Well yes, Sun Ho quite happily helped herself to the millions and millions of dollars spent on her career without asking too many questions about whether she represented Singapore or her church with her music - she was ALREADY rich, it was "spend money till I get famous". Oh gosh. And her accent, it's not quite Aussie but it's rather mixed - I call it the international school accent, clearly she has been all over (Oz, Taiwan, S'pore) and she will not talk like some auntie who has never lived outside S'pore. There's a part of me that wants to react to every stupid comment and attack every idiot on social media - but then again, I stop myself and realize this is why I blog, because I get to interact with smarter, more intelligent human beings on the internet this way rather than the thousands of goondu bodoh idiots who leave stupid remarks.
DeleteYour description of Sun Ho basically describes it all. Seriously, I do not believe that any of these so-called aspiring star wannabes need to or even are interested in representing their country. It is the way the media in Singapore makes it out to be. In reference to Stephanie Koh, I actually decided that after hearing all these remarks--positive and negative--that I have to hear things from the horse's mouth, so I watched a few audition video recordings from the Kpop Star Hunt show, and her own video response to Youtube haters. From my own observations, she simply does not actually seem as 'entitled' as what people make her out to be, and in fact, she is actually very likeable on the set of the show despite her initial disobedience to the house manager's move to confiscate their mobile phones. In addition, she gave the impression that she wanted to be out of the show after the first few episodes, maybe because of her accruing of a greater understanding of the demands (mostly unreasonable at times) of the Kpop industry, and its conformist character. The fact that she still got into the top 4 even with that attitude--if it is to be construed that way--is that she is talented and more so than many of the contestants for all we know!
DeleteI gave up on trying to bother about these idiots. They pick on the most irrelevant things and do ad hominem attacks on the person. Seriously, Singapore is a sh-thole as it is, and they can get so personal and insecure when someone is telling the truth for their goodness's sake??!!!
Limpeh,
ReplyDeleteI find it insulting when you remark that football fans derive their sense of pride from their football team's victories. I wonder whether you have really stayed in the UK for more than a decade and understand anything about British communities. First and foremost, many people in the UK identify the community they belong to through their football club. The club represents their community and have a big part to play. Many community projects involve football clubs. When the club wins, it gives them a reason to come together celebrate and show the world who they are. It is their togetherness and spirit that gives these people a sense of pride and it is very hollow of you to belittle them as glory hunters who display unmerited pride.
Fans also play an important part in the club's success. Imagine yourself in a gymastic competition without any supporters supporting you, would you still be motivated to do your best or would you rather go through the motion and get the competition out of the way. It is the same in football. Steven Gerrard credited Liverpool's impossible comeback in the European Cup final Against AC Milan to the fans' support, Their cheering and shouting gave the team self belief even though the players came out of the dressing room after half time with none. The loyal fans go through thick and thin with their club. When their club go through bad times, they suffer together, when their club wins, surely they have every right to bask in their club's glory because they have paid their dues by supporting the club through bad times. When players win, they want to share their success with the fans, they just don't win it for themselves, but their fans also. When Brazil emerged from military dictatorship in the eighties, the people were demoralised and scared to call themselves Brazillian because the economy was in shambles. A Brazillian F1 driver Aryton Senna borned into an upper class family would then wave a Brazillian flag in his car every time he won a race to show his people he was still proud of Brazil despite its economic failings and dedicate his victory to his people to give them hope that Brazil can succeed. The Brazillians are humbled by his magnanimousness.
Contrasting him with you, you seem to be someone who seeks individual glory and refrain from identifying youself with any group or community because you want people to focus exclusively on yourself and not let your pride be diluted. You brag that you have a list of archievements as long as your arm, seriously if you are really that good, there is not need for you to brag because people would already know. There are many humble marketing people more sucessful than you who run their own marketing companies. I wonder if your insecrities comes from your upbringing. Why do you have put other people down and talk up yourself to make yourself feel good?
Oh pullease. For crying out aloud, not all British people like football. Granted it is popular here, but you're making a stereotype that's verging on racist - like ALL British people must like this or ALL British people must do that etc. Like I prefer coffee to tea, I guess that makes me extremely unBritish then? Duh.
DeleteI've been here since 1997 - I never liked football as a kid in Singapore, I hated football as a child in Singapore and what makes you think that moving to another country was going to change that? I enjoy gymnastics, ice skating and diving - and that's me, that's a big part of whom I am which has nothing to do with my nationality.
And whilst I recognize what you've described above about the community nature of football clubs (and their supporters from the local area), I reject it. I mock it and I think it's downright silly to attach yourself to something like that - I think it is better ... far more healthy to focus on yourself and things that you can personally be proud of. That's the way I was as a child in Singapore and moving to another country will not change that aspect of my character.
And if all you know about me is my marketing prowess, then you don't know half of what I have achieved yet - but then again, you don't matter, I don't need to impress you. I have a big meeting next week about an interesting contract I really want to get my hands on, it's the people I'm going to see next Tuesday morning whom I need to impress. You don't matter at all to me, so you can bitch and moan all you want.
Oh and in case I haven't made myself explicitly clear, I really don't give two hoots about football. Never have, never will.