Why is the singer not wearing a mask on the bus in the new NDP 2021 music video?

Dear Linying,

Congratulations on the positive response to your National Day Parade (NDP) 2021 theme song, The Road Ahead, you composed with producer Evan Low.

I am not going to report you for not wearing a mask on the bus in the music video as you were lip-syncing to the song even though all the other passengers were wearing a mask.



I understand that we would not be able to see you lip-syncing to the song if we could not see your lips if you were wearing a mask.

However, I am a little perturbed that you were quoted in The Straits Times report last week as saying: “I’m quite grateful because I was so prepared for the hate, but it turned out well.”



Why were you “prepared for the hate”?

What hate?

Don’t you know that our NDP songs are so universally beloved around the globe that at least one person in India has plagiarised Count On Me Singapore and claimed to have written it?



When that happened a few months ago, all Singaporeans stood up, stood up for the song as ours, proof that we have nothing but love for the NDP songs.

So I am not sure why you were expecting hate for yours.

Is it because every new NDP song since Dick Lee’s composition Home in the past 20 years or so has not been as well received such that it has practically become a national tradition to criticise every new NDP song and ask whether we really need yet another new NDP song?

One year, 2013, the NDP song, One Singapore, got so much hate that it was decided that, no, we did not need yet another new NDP song the next year.



At least it was not a song about fun packs sung to the tune of a Lady Gaga hit.



To be fair, that was not meant to be the National Day song that year, 2011. It was just a song about fun packs – meant to be sung on National Day.

Since your song does not mention fun packs or sound like Bad Romance, you are safe.

It also helps that you resisted using any Singlish in your song unlike the Ministry of Health, which lacked such self- restraint with the Phua Chu Kang Covid-19 music videos.



The chorus for The Road Ahead could have easily been “Come what may on the road ahead, just you wait and see, steady pom pi pi.”

But you said no. Why? Because you have standards. And an Ah Beng contractor in yellow boots is not singing it.

Maybe next year.

Also, great job not mentioning “Singapore” in a song about Singapore.

Otherwise, you would have to rhyme “Singapore” with “more”, “roar” or “a land to treasure right down to the core”, whatever that means. What “core”? Earth core? Apple core? Softcore?



One drawback is that without “Singapore”, you are making the song easier for people in India to copy without having to change the lyrics.

No, wait, “island” is mentioned several times in your song and India is not an island. Well played, madam. Well played.

But if videos start popping up on YouTube of Mumbai school children singing The Road Ahead with “nation” replacing “island”, that would just be reaffirmation that the song is good enough to steal.

It feels weird not mocking the new NDP song like Singaporeans usually do.

Is this the abnormal new normal?

The next time people ask me to put on a mask on the bus, I will just show them your video on my phone and start lip-syncing to it.

I will also tell them I used to be from the navy.

Steady pom pi pi.

- Published in The New Paper, 12 July 2021

I feel like a fool for believing Joey Mendoza didn't copy Count On Me, Singapore

Dear Mr Joey Mendoza,

The Internet, right?

Here you are, living your life and making YouTube videos of your jaunty performances of Row Your Boat and other ditties, and out of the blue, some foreign government asks you to “substantiate” your claim that you wrote some song in 1983.

We are aware that a song titled “We Can Achieve” that bears striking similarity in tune and lyrics to our national song...

Posted by Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth - MCCY on Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Who can substantiate anything they did almost 40 years ago?

The only thing I did then that I can substantiate is that I passed my O-level Chinese even though nobody can believe I did.

Fortunately, my O-level cert has not been destroyed in a flood, I mean, ponding.

Unlike all your evidence, which was supposedly lost in the 2005 Mumbai floods.

So you caved.

Mr Joey Mendoza had earlier claimed that he wrote “We Can Achieve”, a song that is practically identical to “Count on...

Posted by Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth - MCCY on Saturday, March 20, 2021

What happened to the living proof that is the 250 orphans you taught the song to in 1983? Floods again?

I believed you.

I thought maybe it really was a coincidence that in 1986, some ad agency paid to write a song by the Singapore Government more than 3,000km away came up with almost exactly the same melody and lyrics as your song, We Can Achieve.



You know what they say, a monkey hitting random keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will eventually bang out the complete works of Shakespeare and, apparently, also the words to Count On Me, Singapore.

I didn’t agree with my fellow Singaporeans who accused you of copying one of our beloved national songs composed by a Canadian working for an American company.

It’s like accusing Weird Al Yankovic of copying Michael Jackson.

All you needed were a funny moustache and a Hawaiian shirt, and people would have just thought you were doing a parody. You know, since you already have Weird Al’s hair.

As evidence of your plagiarism, it was highlighted that in the chorus of We Can Achieve, the line “Count on me, India” does not rhyme with “Count on me to give my best and more” whereas “Count on me, Singapore” does.

What nonsense.

I would point out that in the verse of both versions, “We’re going to build a better life for you and me” does not rhyme exactly with “We can achieve, we can achieve” either.

So the lack of rhyme is hardly proof of song theft.

Also, if you are going to steal one of our National Day songs, couldn’t you have stolen a better one, like the ever popular Home written by Dick Lee?



It’s like robbing an Apple store and taking an actual apple.

Or if you were more cunning, you could have cribbed from a National Day song that Singaporeans don’t remember, such as, um… I can’t remember any. But trust me, there are so many.



Let’s just say any National Day song that is not Home and does not have “Singapore” in the title.

Then people might not have noticed your plagiarism.

But Count On Me, Singapore is way too obvious.

I feel like such a fool now for believing you. You are not my sunshine.

Ironically, thanks to your version and the controversy it created, the status of the song has been elevated somewhat, at least, in my mind.



I have always thought that it’s a lame nationalistic jingle forced down Singaporeans’ throats by our Government, but now that I have learnt that people in your country are singing it too (albeit as a children’s song), maybe it’s not so wretched after all.



It's like someone tryinng to steal your ugly girlfriend and suddenly she's the most beautiful woman in the world.

As our Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth said, imitation is the best form of flattery.

That’s what you’ve achieved with We Can Achieve.

So at least something positive came out of your copyright infringement.

Hey, did you write Row Your Boat too?

- Published in The New Paper, 22 March 2021

Dear Mr Ong

I like the way you hammered J Mendoza in today's thenewpaper. Hope he get to read it.

It would have been forgivable, if he defended his action as doing a cover version, rather than claiming to be the originator. This is worse than the similarity between George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and The Chiffons' "He's So Fine".

Lucky he did not touch our Majulah Singapore or else the composer's spirit would have haunted him.

This episode shows this little red dot cannot be bullied easily. But we are also forgivable, if one is willing to admit and apologise for wrongdoing towards us. Kudo to our MCCY for not pursuing the matter further thus maintaining the good relationship we have with India. It is moment like this that make me proud to be a true blue Singaporean.

With warmest regards

Is SAF using NDP guard-of-honour chiobu Gorgina Choo for recruitment? Yes, but...

At least it wasn’t a schoolboy giving you the finger.

That was the big controversy of last year’s National Day Parade. This year, the controversy doesn’t have to be blurred out.

It all started during President Halimah Yacob’s inspection of the guard of honour. Perhaps it was fitting that being our first woman president at her first NDP as head of state, Madam Halimah stopped for a few words with a female member of the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) contingent, Military Expert 1 Gorgina Choo.



Yes, Gorgina, not Georgina. The “e” probably melted off in the heat. Warner Bros should apologise.

By the next day, links to her social media accounts were posted in the HardwareZone online forum along with selfies from her Instagram.



Comments include “She has a very nice ass”, “Heading to CMPB on Monday to sign on RSAF liao” and “Figure really quite faps”.

The next day, the Alvinology website posted an article called “Who is Gorgina Choo? The chiobu guard of honour President Halimah Yacob spoke to at NDP 2018”, which included a poll: “Who is Singapore’s top chiobu in uniform?”

Then last Wednesday, another website called Rice Media posted an article criticising the focus on the looks of ME1 Choo and other military women by Alvinology, SAF and others.

Unfortunately, the article was misleadingly headlined “Does the SAF only hire attractive women?” which was not the article’s point at all.



This apparently created enough online chatter about the “objectification of women in uniform” that The Straits Times asked the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) about it.

Mindef said it regularly features its servicemen and servicewomen across various platforms and channels. These pictorials may include glamorous shots of them in their civilian attire, taken with the approval of those featured.

“This is standard commercial practice used by many organisations to highlight individuals in their multifaceted roles and attributes and in no way dilutes their contributions in the SAF,” added Mindef.

The question is, why does Mindef seem to highlight only servicewomen who are chiobu?

The answer is – it doesn’t.

Just last week, Mindef on its social media platforms featured SAFVC Volunteer 2 Chi Meina, a mother of two who volunteers as a Command, Control, Communications and Computers expert with RSAF, and SV2 Arlene Pang, who joined the navy as a bridge watchkeeper despite her father telling her: “Sailing is not for girls.”



Why aren’t they getting more attention? Could it be because they are not chio enough?

Is it Mindef’s fault that the buayas in HardwareZone only pick on those they consider to be chiobu, ignoring the non-chiobu?

Maybe that’s how Rice Media got the impression that SAF “regularly parades these attractive young women in front of thirsty male citizens in order to get them to sign on with the army”.

If this were true, all Singaporean men should give Mindef the finger for treating us like such shallow lechers, even though we are. #MenToo

Sure, more than one buaya in HardwareZone joked about joining the air force after seeing ME1 Choo, but did any of them actually follow through?

Thanks to national service, most of us are forced to enlist anyway, whether we want to or not, unlike those women who paid to join the 2D1N “boot camp” next month to “experience the day-to-day routines of our national servicemen”.



They are likely part of the demographic that Mindef is targeting with its video about ME1 Choo where she gave advice to women thinking about joining SAF and not advice to guys on how to date her.

“If boys can do it, girls can do it too,” she said.



So you see, SAF is really parading these attractive young women to get women to sign up, not men.

Because god knows SAF already has us by the, uh... let’s say “HardwareZone”.

Whether Singaporean women should give Mindef the finger is up to them.

Just don’t do it at NDP.

- Published in The New Paper, 20 August 2018


Dear Mr Ong,

You have an interesting write up. I am disturbed by the use of “chiobu” in a national paper.

The choice of the name chiobu which has been misused in Singapore as a hot babe and buxom woman. In the older generation (I belong to now), it means more than that.

Growing up in a Hokkien speaking family with my late educated uncle (whose age could be my grandfather) and father from Xiamen, the word goes in the direction of offensive and degrading of women. It is known to be an unrefined expression and does not befit the image of The New Paper which is read by foreigners from Taiwan and Hokkien Province in Singapore. A check with one of them, she agreed me that “chiobu” is anything but flattering to woman and has been misused in Singapore.

Just a comment from an traditional Singaporean auntie.


EARLIER: NDP 2017: We have a new national bird

Majulah Walk & Run for National Day

A run where I could just walk to the starting line from home.

The Majulah Walk & Run this National Day morning started from the Choa Chu Kang Stadium and ended at Gain City Megastore @ Sungei Kadut.

I joined the 8km run



Even my New Balance shoes were patriotic.



Minister Lawrence Wong flagged off the 8km run at 8am.



I bumped into my ex-secondary school classmate, Chin Hau (again!), at the stadium. Don't know why even though he moved out of Yew Tee more than 10 years ago, he still volunteers at the community sports club.







Crossing the road to Pang Sua Canal, my regular training route.



Water, anyone?









Just strolling along the Rail Corridor with a flag on his head like nobody’s business.





It was good weather for a run. No rain and not too hot.





There used to be an outdoor brothel that operated at night in this area which I jogged by a couple of times.



Heading into Sungei Kadut.







Back to the canal again.







Turning into Sungei Kadut again.

Here was where the 8km runners and the 3km walkers merged, causing a bottleneck.



Then it was an open road to the end.



The Gain City Megastore. I don't understand the van either.









There appeared to be two finish lines,



France won the World Coke, I mean, Cup.



I would feel sorry for anyone who had to massage my feet.



Really long queue for the Milo van.



And of course, the obligatory selfie with the ambulance.



Happy National Day!

National Day makes people do crazy things like 'haka' cheer video & shuttlecock flag

Blame National Day.

Okay, maybe not blame National Day, but blame the people who seem to go a little nuts because of National Day.

Every year, starting in July, you see National Day decorations in every HDB estate, presumably put up by the residents’ committees (RCs).

Flags are to National Day what ex-SAF senior officers are to SMRT management – you can never have enough of them.

In the Yew Tee area where I live, the RC would hang something 10-storey high between blocks 673 and 673A. It could be one giant flag or many smaller flags arranged to form a number representing the age of the nation in case you forgot.





And it’s usually a disaster because at that altitude, the strong wind would wreak havoc on the display and it would be removed before National Day.

But the people who put up the display never give up.

Every year, they would hang something different up there, hoping to beat the wind. And almost every year, the wind wins.

If I were a cornier writer, I would say their persistence symbolises the resilience of Singaporeans who have faced countless challenges in the nation’s 53-year history. But I’m not.

I wish they would give up.

This year, they hung up one small flag with many little holes in it, presumably to let the wind blow through.



Unfortunately, the flag was misshapen due to the holes and from a distance, they resembled bullet holes. Our national flag looked like it had been through a war and Singapore lost.

What’s wrong with these people?

There’s something about National Day that seems to cloud your one’s judgment. For some people, the cloud can be a thunderstorm.

It’s like a form of patriotism-induced temporary dementia.

You hear the National Day songs so often that you can’t think straight any more.

So maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on the folks from Keppel Corporation who were ridiculed for their National Day cheer video, where they performed their awkward version of the haka, the traditional Maori war dance from New Zealand.



And you thought the Keppel Offshore & Marine bribery scandal was bad.

I guess I also shouldn’t be too hard on the Yew Tee RC. At least they try and they mean well.

Then one day, the bullet-riddled flag wasn’t there any more.

But it wasn’t gone – just moved to ground level. The wind claimed yet another victory.

That was when I got a chance to see the flag up close and realised the holes weren’t holes.

Plot twist!

The flag was actually made up of thousands of shuttlecocks.

Yes, the feathery thing you play badminton with that’s so much fun to say. Shuttlecock.



For the upper half of the flag, the shuttlecocks were painted red. The crescent and stars were just cardboard cut-outs, but I was still impressed.

All the hard work the volunteers must have put into collecting the used shuttlecocks and creating the 2.3m-by-1.5m flag symbolises the resilience of Singaporeans who have faced countless challenges in the nation’s 53-year history.



You might ask me, why shuttlecocks? I would ask you, why not shuttlecocks?

But why the RC initially hung the shuttlecock flag 10 storeys high where you couldn’t see the shuttlecocks I don’t know.

Maybe it was due to the patriotism-induced temporary dementia caused by National Day I mentioned earlier.

But now that the flag has come down to earth, they don’t seem so crazy after all.

Shuttlecock.

- Published in The New Paper, 6 August 2018

NDP 2017: We have a new national bird

Let me first say, I love my country.

And I dislike the new National Day song, Because It’s Singapore, because it’s not Home — like any true pink IC-carrying Singaporean who did his national service and queued up for the nasi lemak burger at McDonald’s even though it was kind of overrated.



But despite my overweening patriotism, I decided to skip watching the National Day Parade on TV on Thursday because I realised they could re-telecast last year’s parade and I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

So on our nation’s 52nd birthday, I binge-watched Rick And Morty on Netflix instead.



Now in its third season, Rick And Morty is an M18 cartoon series that’s like a frenetic cross between Back To The Future and Doctor Who but with more decapitations and dick jokes.

I was in the middle of the second season when my teenage daughter interrupted my binge to inform me that some kid showed his middle finger at the NDP and was blowing up on Reddit.

She said there was even a picture of the schoolboy being scolded by his teacher (who reminded me of actor Rami Malek from Mr Robot).

Aiyah, why must something exciting always happen at the NDP when I’m not watching it?

Faster than you can say “guitar-playing grandma”, the video clip of the NDP kid was shared all over social media.



As one Reddit user commented: “$40m spent on the parade and the only thing people are going to remember about it is this. Godspeed, young prince.”

Reactions to the obscene gesture on live TV ranged from disapproval to approval to disapproval of the approval.

It’s like a national Rorschach test. How you react reveals more about your own values than anything else.



The principal of the boy’s primary school told The Straits Times the next day: “The student regrets his action and is deeply apologetic. The school and his parents have counselled him, and will ensure he learns from this incident.”

I’m not sure what the boy will learn from this incident though. That you can be called a “national hero” for flipping the bird at the TV camera during NDP?

Radio DJ Rosalyn Lee wrote on Facebook:

“It’s just a finger. That finger can only be offensive to a person with a deviant mind. Chill the fuck out and leave my lil hero alone.

“He made so many people laugh, and gave the terribly dull NDP an exciting boost! Shouldn’t that be celebrated? Hahaha! #thuglife”

But my former fellow New Paper columnist Ivan Lim (the disgruntled parent of the special-needs student rejected by Yamaha Contempo Music School) disapproved of calling “Littlefinger” a hero.

He wrote online:

“Celebrating the heroics of Littlefinger might start an unhealthy fad: Children could start posting videos of themselves flipping the finger, and we could become famous for starting a trend we couldn’t possibly be proud of later.”

But a video of another young man waving the finger on TV supposedly at last year’s NDP has surfaced in the wake of Littlefinger, so the trend may have already started.



Like I said, they could re-telecast last year’s parade and it would be almost like the same thing.

And that was why I was watching Rick And Morty.

After my daughter’s interruption, I continued with an episode called The Ricks Must Be Crazy.

By some cosmic coincidence, this is the episode where the characters are flipping each other off because it means “peace among worlds”.



Hey, I thought, maybe Littlefinger was just gesticulating “peace among worlds” as a tribute to Rick And Morty.

What does that reveal about my values?

Nah, the show is rated M18 so the primary school kid couldn’t have possibly seen it.

I guess he could just really hate this year’s National Day song.

Peace among worlds, y’all.

- Published in The New Paper, 14 August 2017

UPDATE: I received this e-mail: