Maid In Singapore

I wrote this novel "Maid In Singapore" in six months from conception to ready-for-print. Quite fast, thanks to the pandemic Lockdown. As acting gigs ground to a halt, I found myself having this luxury of time in hand for creative work. 

We are now working  on the distribution of the book and you will soon find them in online and physical bookstores.

"Maid In Singapore" is a story of an impoverished Filipina who escapes from a sleazy entertainment circuit to become a maid and subsequently working herself into an online celebrity influencer secretly until her life was disrupted unexpectedly.

This novel is inspired by the maids that I have met in Singapore, what they have told me, the stories I have picked up from employers and maid agencies, the sleazy bars that I have wandered into and the rapid rise of online influencers.

As of the year 2019, there were about 250,000 maids in Singapore with one in five households employing a maid; this is up from the year 1990 when there were 50,000 maids and one in thirteen households employing a maid in Singapore. These maids help with general household chores, cooking, elderly care, infant care or caring for disabled members of the employer's family. 

Having a live-in maid is no longer a luxury in Singapore. Some people would even perceive it as a necessity, as married couples both hold jobs and will need help in the housework and childcare.

While there are some articles about maids in the press, they are mostly superficial and cursory accounts of their life. In the extreme, they are ugly cases of maid abuses. There are few accounts about what these maids' inner thoughts and aspirations are.

Life as a maid is never easy. They work long hours each day away from home, living in somebody else's house. With poverty lurking back home, the need to make money to pull their family out of poverty, spurs them to push on. However, amid the hardship, there are also the funny bits while overcoming the loneliness and their yearning to fall in love. 

It is probably too painful to write a social-realistic documentary about maids in Singapore and hence this fictional romantic comedy so that we can all laugh about it.

It is a sub-culture in Singapore that most people would not stop and look amid the hasty urban life and architecturally glamorous cityscape.

We are planning to make a movie out of the novel and are already speaking to some parties about it. Currently, we are shooting the trailer (see photos below).

We are also organising a series of activities surrounding the novel. Watch this space!

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Cepat Jalan

Cepat Jalan (quick march) is a prequel of Hentak Kaki (marching on the spot). A full-length feature film script has been written and here is the concept trailer:

You get the gist of the story... the good old Warrant Officer Lee Teck Hong before his knee injury. 

In Cepat Jalan, the old school disciplinarian Encik Lee finds himself out of sync with an army that is transforming into a gentler and kinder doctrine. That runs him into many challenges with the Establishment. More on those challenges when we make the film proper.

The trailer originally had the happy-go-lucky Staff Sergeant Raj, but Muru (the actor) could not be cast because he was recuperating after a surgery.

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Here is the motley crew for the trailer at SP Jain Business School campus at Hyderabad Road at Hort Park, Singapore. Thank you for allowing us to use your premises. It is one of the few places in Singapore that retains the old British barrack feel.

Quite a lot of effort was put into the old SAF uniforms to give it the nostalgic 1980s feel. For that, we are thankful to find them from Mr Alvin Lee, a collector of army stuff .

Photo taken by Jo Ann Chen, aka the sexy Lance Corporal Sophie. :)

For other army films in this blog, click here.