"I Am An American" by the Ad Council

Trying to write an article for What's Up's Racial Harmony Day Special; my assignment's to write about What We Learned From 9/11. I'll be talking about my own experience of the event as a college student. One of my memories is watching this ad on TV:



Odd: I thought I remembered there being more overt representations of Arab-Americans. Kind of defeats the purpose otherwise.

I've been extremely behind with my updates.

But here we go:

1. I'm going to be a torchbearer for the Youth Olympic Games on Friday 13 August, roughly around 10:35am on Kallang Road, slot number 6081. You can stand by the road and support me if you like!


Announcements

Yes, I know it's ridiculous and that the YOG itself is really pretty fucked up, and the uniforms are fugly: baggy grey and orange, with clear stipulations that we are not to alter them or wear them in a non-uniform manner or promote any socio-political-cultural agenda with them while we're running.

But NAC Literary Dept asked me to be a teensy part of Singapore history, and since they've generally been pretty cool people, how could I ever say no?

2. My interview with Boo Junfeng about his upcoming film "Sandcastle" is up on Civic Life.



It's showing in Cinema Europa, VivoCity from 26 August onwards. Go early so you can convince the cinema to keep it in the theatres longer.



3. I never mentioned the fact that I've got a story up there myself: Last Kampong Boy, a brief summary of my father's memories of growing up in Tiong Bahru.



I think I'll talk about ContraDiction in a separate post.

Three Cheers for ACT3!!!!

With my editor's permission, I reworked an article for my kids' newspaper into a story for The Online Citizen, paying tribute to Singapore's first professional theatre group on their 25th anniversary. (Hint: it's not TheatreWorks.)

Going clockwise from the top, that's Jasmin Sumaat Simon, Ruby Lim-Yang and Rama Chandran, from their first publicity photo in 1981. (Wah lau, they're old.)

Click here.

I'm also a Trevvy columnist now.

Just did an article for Father's Day.

I've lost a customer!

As a Fridae reporter, I wanted to have some coverage of the Singapore Writers Festival for the benefit of furthering interest in literature of the region. I approached both the Malaysian novelists in English for interviews: Tash Aw said no, Tan Twan Eng said okay but don't pigeonhole me.

So I did an article about Twan Eng and his wunnerful novel "The Gift of Rain", which involves hot gay WW2 sex anyway, but I kept just in line with his demands, and I got hate mail in return:

Post #8 ken34my says (Posted : 30 November 2007 22:29) :

Ng Yi-Sheng , you were trying to trap Twan Eng? ... " æ: What advice would you have for aspiring gay writers in Asia? " ...

.. u didnt understand ... "Though Tan prefers not to discuss his sexuality as an author, Fridae managed to get him to agree to an online interview" ...

amazingly he went along with the interview with you at all ... so im going to get 2 copies of his book now ... (for his level of tolerance) ... and not likely anything of yours ... ever ;)

Haha, well, I've done my job as a journalist (most people in the posting gushed yes, buy the book, and isn't the guy smokin'). I got to meet Twan Eng over cocktails and he was cool with the article anyway.

So that was 80 bucks well earned. For the cause!