Remembering Fiona Xie when she was 'nobody'

Zoe Tay said she was “just sexy”, and that men love her and women hate her.

I can’t speak for women, but as a man, I don’t exactly love Fiona Xie. And no one is “just” sexy – Fiona is also bilingual

I remember the first time I saw Fiona. It was back in 2000 and she was hanging around the Phua Chu Kang rehearsal studio at MediaCorp.

“Cute, but a bit short,” I opined silently to myself. “Who is she and why is she hanging around outside the PCK rehearsal studio?”

We made eye contact and ... that was it.

I learnt later that she was acting in the Channel 5 sitcom as a PCK client named Mrs Lopez. So for a long time after that, I believed she was a married Eurasian woman in her 30s.



I only found out her name after I heard about her rape scene in the Channel 5 drama A War Diary about a year later. (Yes, local dramas were big on rape scenes even back then.)

Hey, that was the chick I saw hanging around outside the PCK rehearsal studio! But for some reason, I still thought she was a married Eurasian woman in her 30s.

I only met Fiona for the first time rather unexpectedly about a couple of years later when I went to Goodwood Park Hotel to chat with Eric Khoo about possibly doing a project together. (I had a brief cameo in Eric’s first feature Mee Pok Man.)

I showed up at one of the hotel’s swanky F & B outlets only to find Eric chilling in a booth with Robin Leong and Fiona, whom I gathered were an item at the time. Both had just appeared in Eric's football movie One Leg Kicking.



Of course, by then, everyone knew who Fiona was. She had made her name in the Channel 8 sitcom My Genie and even returned to PCK to guest star as Genie.

Eric introduced us and it was I could do not to blurt out: “Remember me? I saw you hanging around outside the PCK rehearsal studio a few year ago when you were nobody!”

I just kept my mouth shut. Man, it was awkward. Or perhaps it was sexual tension.

It became even more tense for me years later when after an unwelcomed turn of events, I suddenly found myself the executive producer of the second season of Maggi & Me starring Adrian Pang and who else but the erstwhile Mrs Lopez.

When I met her during the show’s production, Fiona commented that I didn’t talk very much. I wondered if she recalled our two previous explosive encounters.

So amid speculation why she pulled out of the upcoming Channel 8 drama Together at the last minute, let me clear something up once and for all: Fiona is not actually a married Eurasian woman in her 30s.

She is only in her 20s.

- Published in The New Paper, 26 July 2009

2016 UPDATE: Fiona Xie to make local TV return in August following six-year absence

A post shared by -fiona xie- (@xplacidacidx) on Aug 11, 2017 at 11:27am PDT

I see your shaved head and raise you two eyebrows

Two Sundays ago, about 1,000 people showed up at Velocity@Novena Square to get their head shaved for the Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF).

I wanted to be one of them, but then I found out that I had to donate a minimum of $30 to CCF before they would even raise an electric shaver to my noggin.

According to the CCF website, this was because in previous years, people had taken advantage of the annual Hair For Hope event to get a free haircut.

And thus my devious plan to get a free haircut was cunningly thwarted.

You know what this tells me? Merely getting your head shaved for charity is not enough.

This is especially true for Singapore men, most of whom have already suffered the unkindest cut when they entered national service.

Also, nowadays a shaved head can be considered cool. Just look at celebrities like Bruce Willis and Chris Daughtry (but not Britney Spears).

So how can we up the ante for next year’s Hair For Hope?

Let me share with you a story my wife loved telling her friends to show how idiotic her husband was.

One day, she returned home and was shocked to find that I had come back from the barber’s with my head cleanly shaved. At this point, her friends drew a collective yawn. “Yah, so?”

My wife then added I had also shaved my eyebrows.

Her friends squealed with disbelief. “Oh my god! Why? What was he thinking?”

My wife explained that I had looked in the bedroom mirror at my shaved head and said to myself, “I still look too good.” And so I took a razor to my eyebrows.

Her friends laughed until they cried.

Shaving your head was one thing, but to intentionally shave your eyebrows took a whole new level of stupidity.

I regretted it almost immediately. I knew the hair on my head could always grow back, but since this was the first time I had erased my eyebrows, I was afraid I might be browless for the rest of my life.

Because my wife didn’t want to be married to an extraterrestrial, she penciled in some eyebrows but that just made me look like a transvestite from outer space.

Fortunately, my eyebrows did grow back. And you know what? I’m willing to shave them and my head again – for a good cause.

Plus I challenge everyone out there to do the same.

(Of course, you don’t have to shave both your eyebrows, but if you shave only one side, you’ll just end up looking weird.)

After all, don’t cancer patients in chemotherapy lose their eyebrows along with their hair? This will help us better understand the ordeal they go through.

But I’m just not giving the 30 bucks. This is how far I’d go for a free haircut.

- Published in The New Paper, 19 July 2009

Ad guru Neil French shares a secret over lunch

A number of years ago, I had lunch with Neil French.

You may not have heard of him, but he was - and still is - like the Michael Jackson of advertising copy. Like the King of Pop, this king of ads has won countless awards and is no stranger to controversy.

A larger-than-life ad man, the Brit made his mark with ground-breaking work in the '80s and '90s when he was based in Singapore.

In 2005, he left his position as the worldwide creative director of WPP Group amid uproar over sexist comments he made at an event called "A Night With Neil French". When asked why more women didn't make it to the top in the advertising profession, he replied it was because "they're crap". The word "suckle" was also bandied about.

My lunch with him took place some time before that infamous incident. It was the first and last time I had ever spoken to him. It was so long ago, I don't even remember the purpose of the meeting now. I think I might have been fishing for a job.

Perhaps it was to provide an anecdote for this article.

Anyway, just like today, there was some furore over some other ad campaign at the time.

Mr French wasn't involved in the campaign, but I asked the ad guru how an ad agency would react to such negative public response to its campaign.

He leaned forward and whispered: "Let me tell you a secret."

I leaned forward to hear better. "It's the Holy Grail," he said.

I didn't quite understand. This was long before The Da Vinci Code came out, so I wasn't thinking of Mary Magdalene.

Mr French explained that every ad agency was secretly gleeful when its ad campaign received public complaints because with the huge amount of advertising messages out there, controversy could help an ad cut through all the noise.

In other words, bad publicity is better than no publicity.

I wasn't sure if Mr French was yanking my chain, but because he was Neil French, I assumed he knew what he was talking about. Again, this was before the "crap" remark years later.

I thought it would've been impertinent of me to argue that sometimes, the controversy might be remembered, but not the product.

For instance, remember the jaw-dropping Zoe Tay's "I swallow" ad a couple of years ago? Yes, but can you name the product she claimed to have swallowed? Neither can I.



It would've also been presumptious of me to point out that courting controversy risks damaging the brand image.

For instance, back to the Zoe Tay ad again, would any mainstream brand (apart from Burger King) want to be associated with fellatio?



Unfortunately, Zoe Tay proclaimed her dietary habits some time after my meeting with Mr French, so I couldn't use her as an argument.

Also, I wanted Mr French to pay for lunch. To me, that was the Holy Grail.

- Published in The New Paper, 13 July 2009