List of Interviews
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Interview with CHAN Lai Fung
- Accession Number E001088, Track 1
- Former Chairman of A*STAR shares her thoughts on the guiding principle of her career in the civil service.
"I am schooled in the old school of, and I think that's a correct school to think about. That is, a civil service exists to serve the government of the day. The elected government has the mandate of the people, and the job of the civil servant and of the civil service is to offer our best advice so that the elected government can make informed decisions. So it is to me the hierarchy of where the power lies, right? In terms of who has the ultimate call on decisions. And ultimate decision must be the elected government, not civil servants, but civil servants are here to offer our advice, give our recommendations, and our guiding principle would be in the best interest of the public."
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Interview with HON, Patricia
- Accession Number 004827 , Track 5
- Pioneer Ballerina and dance professor on the importance of a dancer’s health.
"Well, you know, the weight thing is very important, but what's even more important is number one: the health of the dancer. Because if we just talk about weight, then some of them become bulimic, or some will become anorexic. And that that becomes a mental health issue, and some people do the diet until they die. You know, because anorexia is very... it's a very serious health problem. And yes, ballerinas need to be slim and toned down, maybe? But I would not let any dancer that I teach feel that he or she needs to lose weight just because of the ideals of the dancer's body, and or whatever. So what to me is more important is that health is the primary issue, because if you don't have health, you don't have strength and you do not have the ability to work with your male partner or your female partner. Because that would come with technique. It's how the body is used, and most often it's where the core area. If that's weak, the legs would be weak. The body would be weak. The torso would be weak, and so then you cannot jump onto another person. So so that to me is it deals with the technique of the dancer. So I don't say to someone you're too fat. You know you need to lose weight because that's a no-no in my vocabulary. But I do then tend to work them to a point where they are. They have to aim to be a lean, clean fighting machine. So yeah, so that becomes very important. And if you are able to work with ease with another person, then then you can perform. Then you are able to express what you have to express with your partner or whatever. So yes, no bulimia, no anorexia, but just to love your body. You know, you have to have a good rapport with your own body."
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Interview with KUO, Eddie (Prof)
- Accession Number E001237, Track 1
- Emeritus Professor and Founding Dean of Wee Kim Wee School of Communications and Information and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at NTU on why he chose to pursue Journalism.
"Anyway, I choose Journalism partly because I was not very good in Science, Technology. Not that I'm not very good. I could have joined in that. My maths is good enough, but I have no interest. It's not there. And journalism, if you ask why so, you know, as a young man, there's always a passion. You can serve the society. You can work for the disadvantaged, and so on. [Interviewer: Even though there were lots of restrictions on the press.] We were naive. [Interviweer: In Taiwan at the time.] And that's why I did not continue. I see. We, you know, of course you have a passion. You must have a passion. At eighteen [years old] and so on."
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Interview with MAEDER, Maximilian
- Accession Number 005039, Track 1
- Formula Kite Professional Athlete on how his perspective changed upon realising the symbolism of his participation in sports.
"And that's in the end what upset me, because we had a procedure for racing, which I then did not stick to during the racing. You know you have a plan and you need to follow it, and sometimes it's difficult to do. So you get impatient in the heat of competition and you make rash decisions, and that's what happened that day. And so coming back after the second finals day on the reserve day, I was in a in a state of frustration. I was upset. I was disappointed. I mean lots of other things due to the performance. Purely, I was just looking at the performance and my world was very small. You know my world was just what happened on the water that day. In the past couple of hours I had nothing else on my mind after I had processed a little bit. I came back to the beach and this small world opened up and I saw everything around. I saw the happiness that I had been able to bring, the pride that I had been able to bring, the emotions shared and the magnitude of what had happened that day and the reception of what it was, and I think that really moved me. It changed my perspective. It changed my view to say that yes, perhaps I may not be happy and content. I may be disappointed and upset about what had occurred that specific day or in those past couple of hours with racing and with my decision making, but not what actually came out of the competition, and what actually was achieved, and what it meant. And so that really made me able to put a smile on, not because I had to for everyone to see, but because I felt that way, and because it it shifted from just seeing what had happened and about my racing to generally what everything meant. And that really was a- [Interviewer: Open your mind.] Yes, correct! It opened up. My world opened up to the whole context of the competition, not just that one race, right."
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Interview with Najib Ali
- Accession Number 005025, Track 5
- Entertainer and television personality on the factors that grow artists.
"I think that the scene in Malaysia, they are very dynamic, in the sense that it is evolving. Things are- the younger ones are taking the older ones' music, and whether rock music to something, even if there are influences that are coming in, they are taking it, they are interpreting it, they are grinding it, they are looking at it in a different way. The scene is innovating. I think it's dynamic in that sense, because only in Malaysia and Indonesia, our life is because it was so small, we reach a standard, and we've succeeded, that's it. So they are spreading. They are moving because they have more. An artist is only good when they practice their art, right? They have places to perform. Television shows, they have ten television stations, so you are only as good as how you develop and you pursue your art, and then you practice your art, and you realise by practising, you find new sense, new meaning, and new wisdom. And that's where I very envy the countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, because we Singapore, we don't have that we have only Suria [television channel]. We only have Mediacorp [broadcasting station]. We only have Esplanade, and sometimes you know some of the community centres that can pay, so we are stuck with that idea. There are so many talented people in Singapore, but there's no space for them to grow to find their... their art is speaking. Their art is moving. Their art is impacting, so these we need. We need that idea of encouragement and belonging."
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Interview with SINGAM, Constance
- Accession Number 004916, Track 1
- Published writer and Former President of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) and the Singapore Council of Women's Organistions (SCWO) on identity and politics.
"And 1960s, 1970s, that's when we started talking about identities. And identities became challenging when we had all these public policies. This is when I get angry, which is why I don't want to talk about [it], because it works you up, you see. Because the politics of the day is what confuses your sense of who you are. See how much stronger my voice is when I talk about these things? But those days you're a daughter. You're a sister. You're a student. That's your identity, but you don't think about it. You're just a person doing all these things which you have been told to do, you know? And it's much later that the whole idea, I suppose, after the war and the 1960ss, 1950s, there was a lot of refugees and people moving around. [...] That's when you start thinking about your identity. Nobody bothers you. I don't think I even thought about identity till I became AWARE president. That is in 1980, something before that didn't bother didn't matter, you know, and 1970s is when the language policy came in, and so those are the times when you begin to think about your identity. Lots of people still don't think about it. They just live their lives. You don't think you'll meet the demands of the state. You'll meet the demands of the policies, but you don't. And that's why it was interesting about that book Growing Up Indian. You know what we inherit, because then they began to look at themselves and trying to find out. What is it that influences them more than the most, and for a lot of them it's the family dynamics which influences the most, you know, and very interesting stories there."
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Interview with THOMAS, Thomas
- Accession Number 004952, Track 8
- Former Nominated Member of Parliament and Chief Executive Office of the ASEAN Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Network on his experience advising corporations regarding outsourcing.
"So I remember going and telling the company, you have to outsource your health to a doctor. But do you go and see the cheapest doctor or the best doctor? Okay? So why not for the company? Instead of going for the cheapest guy you outsource to do that, because the outsourcing means overtime there are people who have better skills than you, so you can do better with outside expertise than in-house expertise, but it must not be because somebody can give you cheap [services]. Unfortunately, there are still this mindset that everything must be cheap, good and fast, so I have argued that. But they use words like quality delivery price, et cetera, but I always used to say that you cannot have all three. If it is cheap and good, it can't be done fast. It's fast and good, it cannot be cheap. So we have to be realistic."
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Interview with Ustaz Dr Mohd Hannan
- Accession Number 004947, Track 5
- Deputy Mufti, Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS) on how COVID-19 shone light on the unique Singapore community.
"COVID-19 was a trigger and an opportunity. What I mean is that we have developing certain principles. Principles, values, outlook for the community. COVID-19 came to provide that opportunities for us to see those values in action, those qualities in action, and to then polish it further and to move on, right. And Singapore, indeed, it's unique. The Singaporean Muslim community is unique, and I think that what happened during or at COVID-19 was a result, not just during COVID-19, but the many years of nation building and many years of community building of certain qualities, values, and so on. And also many years of policies, laws structures that gives us that that advantage that uniqueness. Now I say this because our Singapore community is unique. Because we share certain conditions that others do not enjoy. For example, [in] Singapore, we have the administration of Muslim law at AMLA that governs in some ways our social religious life. It gives birth to MUIS, our Syariah court, our MM, and various other laws. Nowhere in the world minorities have that that law, so therefore we have minister in charge of Muslim affairs. Singapore is a secular state, but it is not a secular society. Our society is religious. We have ten religions registered here in Singapore. [...] We enjoy this where other communities may not enjoy that right, so all this provide the opportunities, the conditions for us to to excel to prosper, Alhamdulillah [Paise be to God], so therefore, because this is unique, I do not compare our community with other communities or societies elsewhere, because they may not have those conditions unless we share the same condition. That probably we can compare. They all have their own challenges in Europe, the diversity, the plurality, but yet they don't have the system, the laws to govern that, right, so my compounding note is that it is truly unique Singapore, and we are fortunate that we enjoy these conditions to help us prosper, and we need to continue to protect these conditions."
