I have just finished a voice-over gig in Mandarin (普通话), Cantonese (粤语 / 广东话), Teochew (潮语 /潮州话) and Hokkien (Minnan, 闽南语) to dub over a government video that is in English.
Note: Cantonese , Teochew and Hokkien are Chinese regional languages, but are erroneously translated into and referred to by Westerners as 'dialects'. There are commonalities among the languages, but they are not variants of Mandarin, the national common language in China. The written characters however were standardised 2,000 years ago in China by the 1st Emperor of Han China Shih Huang Di (18 February 259 BC – 10 September 210 BC).
Southern Chinese languages are hardly spoken in Singapore nowadays following the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1978. Instead, a confusing cocktail of Mandarin and English, spiced with Chinese regional languages and Malay is spoken in a single dialogue.
Therefore VO gigs in Chinese regional languages are messy, as we often have to sort out what is authentic and what is commonly spoken, but borrowed from Malay.
Here are some examples:
'Clever' in localised Cantonese is 'panlai', which is borrowed from the Malay word 'pandai'.
'To marry' in localised Hokkien is 'kowyin', which is borrowed from the Malay word 'kahwin'.
'Toilet' in localised Teochew is 'lianglang', which is borrowed from the Malay word 'jamban'.
'Lianglang' is almost always used and understood by all local Teochew speakers, as opposed to 'cesou' (厕所), so we use that in recording, since it is a public service announcement video where colloquialism is tolerated, rather than an academic video where accuracy is prime.
However, for other instances, it is important to stick to the original as far as possible.
Unfortunately for regional language VO gigs, scripts are often translated by young people who have a superficial understanding of the languages and do not speak the language in their day-to-day life. As such, they rely on online translators, which can yield hilariously wrong results, as Aritifical Intelligence (AI) in its current state still cannot pick up context and nuances properly.
As a result, my previous Hokkien VO took 11 grueling hours and I needed two days after that to recuperate and rest my vocal chords.
Thankfully, we did this one in 1 hr 45 mins, wrapping 15 mins early. Bravo!!!
ONLINE RESOURCES:
The following may help you to improve your knowledge of the regional languages, but for professional media translations, do consult a human language specialist.
Among the Chinese regional languages, only Cantonese has an online translator, though without audio output.
"Dreaming" is translated into "發夢" which is correct as opposed to "做梦" in Mandarin.
Curiously, the Cantonese 'discover dreams' (發夢), while Mandarin speakers 'make dreams' (做梦). Wonder why.
I also found a Cantonese online dictionary, but it is more complicated and less helpful when tested with the entry of "dreaming", as it gives a clutter of related texts. See http://www.cantonese.org
HOKKIEN TRANSLATION RESOURCES ONLINE:
There are also no online Hokkien translators online, but I found a useful dictionary instead, which yields satisfactory results. (http://niawdeleon.com/hokkien-dictionary/). The following is the result of translating the word 'dreaming':
There is also an online Penang Hokkien dictionary, but it could not translate the test input 'dreaming'.
TEOCHEW TRANSLATION RESOURCES ONLINE:
There are no online translators or dictionary online, but there is a mobile Teochew dictionary app WhatTCSay, that has audio outputs.
It could not translate my test input "dreaming".
But it does understand what is "dream".
I suspected that it did not understand verbs in continuous tense, but I was wrong, as it translated "eat" and "eating" correctly.
Now let's enjoy some songs:
Cantonese:
The older ones will love this song from Cantopop star Sam Hui. You know who you are. :) It is about life's journey and destinies.
Hokkien:
This song encourages unceasing hardwork. It is so popular that it is even sung in corporate team building activities in Singapore.
Teochew:
This one is about a Teochew emigrant reminiscing about his hometown.
Sadly as the older generations die, so will the languages and the cultures, as there will be less and less in the younger generation that will have the proficiency in these Chinese regional languages.
Lastly, this one is from Mandopop superstar JJ Lin, a proud Singapore son and one among the new Mandarin speaking generation.
I love working with Chinese regional languages as they remind me of my childhood and the multilingual environment in Singapore during the old days. I learned them before the age of six and therefore do not need preliminary translation from another language when spoken.
As a Teochew, it is easy for me to learn Hokkien, as they are from the same Min family of languages. I learned Cantonese (Yue language) from my neighbour which spoke the language though they are Hakkas.
I was gradually coming to grips with Hakka and Hainanese before, but lost them completely when I went to live overseas for many years. Now even my feeble abilities in French and German are probably better than my Hakka and Hainanese.
There are also the more obscure languages like Hockchiew and Heng Hua, which are Min languages, but are less intelligible to me. I suspect that some young Singaporeans today would not even know these languages exist, let alone understand or speak them.
I will post the dubbed videos later when they are released.
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! Join our Facebook Group "Maid In Singapore", click
DATES ON POSTER WRONG!!!! SHOULD BE THE MONTH OF OCTOBER 2019!!!
"So Long, My Son" could well be called "So Long this Movie", as you would have had 3 hours taken away from your life if you had watched it. It is something the producer and director Wang Xiaoshuai ought to reflect on.
There are numerous extraneous scenes that could have easily landed on the editing room cutting floor and had it reduced to a 90-minute film. There are also numerous confusing scene flashbacks that are swapped in-and-out among three time zones within the story. I think if the editor had wanted to confuse the audience and then call it art, then he would have certainly succeeded.
While the film has interesting content, the tensions are not built up gradually into a climax, but instead they go through a repeating saw-toothed up-and-down journey on a relatively flat plain. This makes it quite a drag at times.
The film won the Silver Bear (Best Actor & Best Actress) awards in the 69th Berlin International Film Festival this year.Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei definitely deserve the award, as they fleshed out their characters brilliantly. Their characters go through a series of excruciating grief - the grief of losing their son, of losing friends, of finding them back, of living through the changing political climates in China,...etc.
In all, it is a film worth catching if you do not mind killing 3 hours away. In the era of Youtube and Netflix, I suspect this will not go down well with the majority of people.
I watched it at the Asian Film Archive's Oldham Theatre.
Once in a while, it is good to do something different and fun that lifts the spirit. So here I am at the launch of Mobile Legend: Bang Bang (an online game) at City Square Mall in Singapore on the 19th May 2019. They wanted the presence of local legendary characters, and so interestingly, they found me. No, rather they found Warrant Officer (WO) Lee Teck Hong, a character in Hentak Kaki, that is arguably a legendary character to those who have served in the Singapore Army. I think they were looking for local characters that could draw crowds that are different from their usual target groups.
The Encik is back!!! LOL
I was to appear, smile and wave, and then throw a Planking Challenge to members of the audience,. The one that planked longest with me will walk away with game character figurine.
#MLBB #515UNITE
We were not short of participants. We asked for 5 and got 10 participants rushing forward. They came up on stage, did the planking and dropped out like flies, bar a few, as the clock ticked away. By the 5th minute, the emcee was getting impatient, as he was wondering how long it was going to last. So when there was only one contestant left, the emcee declared him the winner and awarded him the game figurine. The planking lasted about 6 minutes, longer than my usual practice of 4 minutes.
I lasted longer than usual that day as the stage was flat and carpeted, and so it was easier to plank. This contrasted with training outdoors in the park, where the ground is uneven, slippery, sloping and painful on the lower arms as they press against twigs and other hard objects. As a result, the body is constantly struggling to maintain the equilibrium planked position, adding a lot more tension to the abdominal muscles.
This is the clip on that day:
During the brainstorming and planning sessions, we wanted to do tougher challenges like power push-ups,...etc, but gave those ideas up because of the risks of injuries. So we ended up with planking - still tough, but safe. Low risks.
Crazy Rich Asians the movie, brought a horde of netizens screaming about the lack of minority representation in the movie - that among the super-rich in Singapore, only the Chinese are depicted. The online and offline press were abuzzed with such outcry, with the local tabloid, The New Paper, joining in the fray. See, "Crazy Rich Asians should have been called High SES Chinese" by columnist S.M. Ong (The New Paper, Sept 3).
The article hits a little 'below the belt' in some parts (see quote below), but then, hey it is a tabloid. What do you expect?
Quote:
Dear Kevin (the author),
….
Not everyone in Singapore is Chinese as depicted in the movie, they complain.
But that's not your fault.
Coming from old money yourself, you emigrated from Singapore at age 11 and evaded national service so you probably didn't get to interact much with other races here.
"As a child, you're cloistered in this world," you said in an interview.
"You don't know how other people live until you leave that world and realise not everyone has an airplane in their garage."...
Unquote.
While I respect the opinions of those crying out loud, I too have my views, so I wrote to them and was surprised to get it published.
Here:
(A rewrite of the print, in case display resolution is poor in small devices.)
No reason for Crazy Rich Asians to be like MediaCorp drama
I refer to the article "Crazy Rich Asians should have been called High SES Chinese" by columnist S.M. Ong (The New Paper, Sept 3).
I assume the article is written tongue-in-cheek and I should take it with a pinch of salt. Crazy Rich Asians in not a documentary. It is a film version of a book based on the author's observations of super-rich Chinese in East Asia. So let it be.
Minority inclusion in this instance and context is not necessary. I would hate to see it turn out like a MediaCorp drama with minority races artificially inserted. That is understandable for MediaCorp as it is a national broadcaster.
But this movie has not such obligations or objectives. Neither should it set out to sterilise or pontificate. It is fiction. It is satire. Cut it some slack.
Audiences don't want to watch real life. They want drama, art with creative licence to entertain.
For all movie reviews in this blog (including this post), click here.
Aamir Khan needs no introduction to any Indian. He is a Bollywood superstar that has consistently made lotsa money with movies he acted in, often also championing social causes.
He was in Singapore to promote his new movie "Secret Superstar" and to meet his fans at the event, "In Conversation with Aamir Khan" @ Mastercard Theatres, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. 2 Oct 2017.
4 things I learned from the interview:
Aamir makes sure he gets 8 hours of sleep during shoot days. He loves sleeping.
He is attracted to unusual things.
It is more important that his audience loves his films, than if his films win awards.
Between a camera take that captures the inexplicable magical moment but technically imperfect, versus one that is only technically brilliant, he will choose the former.
Performed a 6 minute Standup Comedy at the event with very local content.
For non-Singaporeans, you may need some background knowledge to appreciate the sarcasm. Click here and here. Also, 'Angmoh' means White people or Caucasian.
The next event will be at 8pm on the 26th September 2017 at the same venue. Come and join us.
For other blog post on standup comedy, click here.
If you are in your 50s or 60s that have lived the pop scene in Malaysia-Singapore in the 1970s, you must watch this movie. It is based on the real story and teen years of Singaporean singer-composer Dick Lee - with lotsa drugs, sex and music.
Such films wouldn't have been possible, say ten years ago, with our censorship board in this draconian part of the world.
To the younger audiences, this may be your chance to take a peek at how your parents might have lived their lives once upon a time. And understand why they may be nagging at your hanging out with friends during the wee hours of the morning - knowing the perils lurking in the dark.
"WonderBoy" will bring you monumental detail of nostalgia, like: buying your first cigarrette and taking that timid first puff; and your crush on school boys in all-white uniforms, or girls in blue pinaforte at your favourite bus stops in town. And also those house parties and slow dances where very soon you find everyone else snogging away like hippies.
The trailers:
y.
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I particularly like the concern for details to the locations, set design and props used in the movie. Like the choice of colours that symbolises the psychedellia presiding in youths as they stoned their brains away frolicking, amid high colour saturation and smooth camera movements bringing the surrealism to the surface.
The film is well scored musically, as it should be with Dick at the helm, directing it with the help of Daniel Yam, a director that has made films that literally got millions of people cry their hearts out all over the world. This is Dick's first time directing a film, as in a non-stage production.
I would rate "Wonderboy" highly as a musical with great cinematography and acting.
Benjamin Kheng carried the nervous and frustrated teen and lead character very well, so did the rest of the main cast delivering their parts.
However, I do find the script a little weak with relatively flat character arcs. Also, while I like all of Dick's compositions, I find the last song in the film, sang by Dick himself, a little out of place. But I won't spoil your fun by telling you,l. Go and watch the film and find out.
UPDATE:
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---------------- ------------------------------- COMMERCIAL BREAK: This is MM2's first foray into an English language movie. Do support, so that it will pave way for future such films to be made.
"WonderBoy" movie premiere gala @ Marina Bay Sands Mastercard Theatre, Singapore on 1 Aug 2017.
In Singapore, PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) form 55 percent of the workforce, but 72 per cent of the local workers who lost their jobs in 2016.
PMETs also find it harder to re-enter the workforce. Only 44 percent of those who lost their jobs managed to get a new job within the year, compared to 48 percent for the rest. That means only less than one in two managed to get a new job within one year.
Officially, the unemployment statistics for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents is 2.1 percent in 2016. I suspect that the figures for Citizens alone will be much higher.
Long ago, a person without a job is simply called 'jobless', then they change it to calling him 'unemployed', as 'employed' is two positive syllables in a three syllable word. It sounds better, more positive. Then after some time, they realised that they can get away with reframing you as someone 'in-between jobs' - like you have just finished a job and as if the next one is just lurking around the corner. And it helps to give hope that the next job may happen as quickly as next month or the next day. Remember hope is more powerful than fear. Then after some time, they say that since you are 'in-between jobs' so frequently, let us label you as a 'freelance' - knowing that a freelance can be virtually unemployed or well be a billionaire forex trader. So there you go, everyone saves face and the government manages to reduce the unemployment figures instantly, without spending a dime.
So, if you include those who are not holding a stable job and are categorised as 'freelance', then the figures would be much higher. Politicians love hiding inconvenient figures and exaggerating convenient ones. They figured that out long ago.
I cannot find statistics for unemployed PMETs above 40 years old, but I think the statistics will be horrendous. It is safe to assume that every reader here knows of at least one middle-aged PMET that has been out of job for more than six months.
Sadly, age discrimination is rife all over the world and particularly in Singapore. The Singapore Government allows foreigners into the country rather freely suppressing wages and intensifying competition. I am all for competition, but there must be a limit to things for long term stability and sustainability. The current state of play in Singapore is that employers hire mostly the cheap, young and willing, because they get away with age discrimination, then fire them once they hit 40 years old. This is not sustainable because no one, even the arguably hungrier foreigners will remain cheap, young and willing long term. They too will grow old, start families and spend time raising families (therefore turning 'less willing'). I believe this is a common story in most developed countries.
If you are an employer or hiring manager, do give the older workers a chance. Judge them based on their merits and not your preconception. It is not only one person you are affecting, but entire families that rely on your decision. Older workers are usually more loyal and patient, and most of all more experienced. You can't accelerate experience. It takes 20 years to have 20 years of experience.
It is hard if you are among those long term unemployed. It destroys self-esteem and confidence, while you see your financial burdens pile up. However, never give up. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Here is a video, an online commercial, illustrating the plight of one such unemployed PMET:
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If you are among those struggling,... 1. Avoid going down the Downward Spiral of Depression
If you have lost your job and have been unable to find a new one and everything else seems to be falling apart - finding yourself insolvent, your relationship and health in a mess, your house in a mess, the people around you looking down on you, picking on you...etc, and you feel helpless, then you are probably already sucked into the spiral.
Remember you have problems to solve, but the problems are not you per se. Your thoughts are not you and your mind is not you, so do not allow them to control you. You have a soul, a peaceful loving soul.
Seek professional help immediately.
2. Avoid Depression
If you are not in depression, then avoid slipping into it inadvertently. Get out of the house, exercise, meditate, help others, volunteer, and/or keep a pet. Stay useful. By opening our hearts we avoid depression. By helping others, we help ourselves. Volunteer in charities.
To learn more about meditation and staying positive, click here.
3. Rearrange Payments
If you are running into a financial crisis, re-negotiate your bank mortgages and bill repayments. That will buy you more time.
4. Keep the Happy List
Avoid negative people. You know who they are. If you find yourself spending time regularly with the same people complaining about your ex-bosses, ass-holes, foreign competition or the government, then it is time to re-examine the list of people you hang out with. Keep a list. Harbour around positive thinking people. You will start to see your life change mysteriously.
5. Network and Mingle
Network and mingle, but keep your dignity. Do not give the impression that you are desperately rushing and clinging on to the first piece of flotsam to keep your heads above water. Trust that things will get better, and they always do if you are positive. It is hard, but it can be done if you are resilient and discipline.
6. Retrain
Retrain, whether on-the-job or through formal training courses. There are also government subsidies and schemes available, look out for them.
7. Seek Help
Don't be afraid to seek help. Ask and you will be given.
THE FUTURE OF WORK The global economy is going through yet another transition. Technologies are persistently disrupting all industries and the future of work is going to be very different. Many jobs will rapidly become obsolete and finally disappear. Evidently, if we are to be honest about it, there is already a growing number of jobs that are useless, and are affectionately referred to as 'bullshit' jobs. Those holding these 'bullshit' jobs will be among the first to admit to the harsh reality. It is thus time to rethink the meaning of work. For more about this rethink, click here.
Also, read how technologies are disrupting us and the security issues that we will witness more of... click here.
FOR SINGAPOREAN READERS:The Singapore Ministry of Manpower's (MOM) Career Support Programme (CSP) provides for Singapore citizens, training allowances of up to $4,000 monthly for those attending training attachments. It also offers a wage subsidies to employers willing to hire PMETs aged 40 and above who have been unemployed for over a year.
This is a NYU Tisch Asia short film I acted in with Kelly Lim back in 2013. It was shot at the Peranakan quarters of Joo Chiat in Singapore. A lot of emphasis on the culture and colours of the place. This is where I get to speak English, Malay and Cantonese in one film.
The story is about a man who realises that he needs to exit the stale marriage he is stuck in, after stumbling on a discarded painting by the bin.
Here is the video:
For more of NYU Tisch Asia shorts in this blog, click here.
