The Minister Mentor should be proud of Ms Ris Low. Single-handedly and in a shorter period, she has generated more buzz into this wilderness that is Singapore than the Singapore Tourism Board, the economic tsars, financial wizards, F1 and the two casinos put together. In fact, I should say she has rocketed the boomz factor in this sedate city.
As it turns out, bad publicity is better than no publicity. Now and a decade down the road we will all still remember this Ms World Singapore. “Ms Ris Low? Oh of course I remember. The beauty with boomz right?” Besides her, maybe only Ms Eunice Olsen and Ms Teo Ser Luck will be remembered.
Suddenly, Ms Universe has moved to the backseat and Ms World to the forefront. She has single-handedly done what years of marketing by the organizers could not do: get the media, the netizens, and coffee shops to talk about their Ms World Singapore contest winner for weeks.
There can even be profitable spinoffs. She can co-write a book like “The Ris Low Story: from crown to crawl”. MediaCorp can get her to act in a sitcom as a love interest of the only young adult of the Phua Chu Kang family. She can start a new teenage fashion label called BOOMZ, or a lingerie line labelled RAD. Even a bank can begin a credit card for teenagers called: Low Ris credit card. I know this is not America, but isn’t this what buzz is all about: rampant capitalism.
Beauty contests has always been about external beauty despite all the talk about inner beauty being as important . A certain look, a certain walk and poise, and definitely height, height, height is what wins contest. Interestingly, the media, new and old, have caused attention to be focused on what is true beauty: the inner person. This resonates with the ageless Christian truth:
“But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:4)
A Malaysian lady has gotten this middle-aged Singaporean pastor all “woked” up. Its just food: nasi lemak, laksa, chicken rice, bak kut teh and chilli crab. But she had to politicise it. Its not enough that these dishes are delightful, comforting and mostly affordable. Its not enough for her that these favourite dishes have been regarded vaguely as both Malaysian and Singaporean for decades. For ordinary citizens of both countries, taste and enjoyment were foremost and origins were set aside with a shrug of the shoulder. We have always assigned the dishes’ origins to ethnic groups, not to nationality.
She just had to claim the dishes originated with Malaysia, not Singapore, or Indonesia. It isn’t enough that we have been quarrelling over air and water, let’s quarrel over food too! To top it off she is the tourism minister, Datuk seri Dr Ng Yen Yen. She is supposed to promote friendship between Malaysia and Singapore, be charming and hospitable and get all the neighbours over. Instead she has accused other unnamed countries of having hijacked Malaysian local dishes!
from Hainan who lived on both sides of the causeway cooked up this food, having brought it from their island in China. So too with bak kut teh which is more associated with Teochew or Hokkien dialect groups. The origins of the five dishes were common to both countries or associated with immigrant races and dialect groups. Let us all agree and not get riled up or scratch each other’s car when we visit across the causeway. A solution would be to call these dishes Singma dishes. I visited a restaurant in Nepal called Singma where they serve these delectable dishes with authentic taste.
The chilli crab, however is, using Mourinho’s word, UNTOUCHABLE. It is definitely, thoroughly, absolutely, indisputably , legally, archaeologically, historically and hysterically MADE IN SINGAPORE. How do I know? Well I watch TV and I still remember one advertisement in particular. Furthermore, The Straits Times reported that a Madam Cher Yam Tian, a 78 year old of Roland Restaurant created it in 1950, and others have since improved it.
So its official. Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world having just broken the world record for 100m at 9.58 seconds. The second fastest man in the world is Cristiano Ronaldo who bolted from Manchester United for Real Madrid in record time. Third fastest man would be Elijah who ran away from an angry woman, mainly out of fear for his life but most men would add, out of wisdom too. Fourth, would be Charles ‘Chip’ Goodyear who ran away real fast from the Temasek stable, some say for the same reason as Elijah, but I think his appetite for risk outstripped that of his board. Fifth, is Gareth Barry who wanted to move from Everton to play Champions League football, but ended up in oil rich Manchester City who are not in the Champions League. He ran so fast everybody was surprised, especially Benitez. Sixth fastest man was Jonah, who was running away from a God assignment; he ran a slow time – taking a slow boat to Spain. Seventh was Adebayor who bolted from Arsenal. His timing was slow because he hesitated, hoping Manchester United or Chelsea would offer him more $$$$$. Some of the fastest men are the ones in Wall Street; they ran out of trouble through government help and back into it with outrageous bonuses, and are still running, so we have yet to complete timing them to rank them among the top runners. So this is my list of the fastest men in the world. You may beg to disagree of course.
