May Schooling takes some persuading to say yes to this interview.

“Joseph is the one you want,” protests the mother of Singapore’s first Olympic gold medallist.

“I’m just his mother. What is there to write?”

Or, she suggests, why don’t I interview her husband Colin instead?

No, I say, readers are interested in the woman behind the swimming champion.

After some to-ing and fro-ing on WhatsApp, she finally agrees and arranges to meet at Violet Oon Singapore in Bukit Timah.

Just hours before, Joseph, 21, smashes a record at a college swimming meet in the United States where he’s studying.

It’s no wonder his mother is looking pleased when she walks into the bistro-styled Peranakan restaurant in a bright red blouse and black slacks.

She and Ms Oon, the owner and food writer, are friends who go back more than 20 years when Mrs Schooling’s publishing business did a book on Ms Oon’s recipes.

“When May told me ‘Joseph wants to win the Olympics’ many years ago, I said, ‘Oh, really?’,” Ms Oon recalls, arching an eyebrow.

324993

2016-08-13 10:54:01

Photo Gallery

Schooling brings home Singapore’s first Olympic Gold

Source: The Straits Times, Reuters, AFP

• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–

Many Singaporeans were equally sceptical when the Rio Games rolled round in August last year.

Would Joseph – touted as Singapore’s big Olympic hope – pull it off? He did, beating not just Michael Phelps to win the 100m butterfly, but also setting an Olympic record.

Since then, his parents Colin, 69, tall and dapper, and May, 62, motherly and gregarious, have become Singapore’s most famous parents.

They are recognised wherever they go.

Because Joseph is not here, they have also been receiving awards on his behalf, including The Straits Times Athlete of the Year.

The family also won The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year award last month.

Life must have changed for you, I say as we dig into our starters of kueh pie tee and tauhu goreng.

“It has changed in a good way,” she says.

“I’m very happy that Singapore has embraced what Joseph has done and I’m so happy that he did Singapore proud.

“I have told the papers before – I have lost my identity. I don’t have a name any more. When people meet us on the streets, they recognise us and it’s always, ‘That’s Joseph’s mummy and Joseph’s daddy’.”

325131

2016-08-15 09:02:11

Photo Gallery

Hundreds give Joseph Schooling triumphant homecoming at Changi Airport

Source: The Straits Times, AFP, Reuters, The New Paper, Hannah Alkaff, Lianhe Zaobao, AsiaOne

• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–

The attention hasn’t always been positive though.

There have been nasty comments online, especially before his Olympic win.

Of these social media trolls, she says: “I’ve always told Joseph, ‘This is the one per cent who are just troublemakers. We don’t care’.”

But actually, she does care, because in the next breath she says she wishes she could fight these keyboard warriors and go online to take them down.

“I’m very protective,” she says.

Then she adds with a shrug: “But it’s okay. We accept them as well. We hope to turn them around. That’s why I told Joseph, ‘As long as you keep doing well, they can say what they like’.”

Mrs Schooling has a reputation in swimming circles for speaking her mind.

In person, her manner is friendly but also feisty and forthright.

She has a don’t-mess-with-me (and my family) vibe and she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

She has always been outspoken, she says, as we move on to dishes including chap chye, a vegetable stew, which is her favourite and which she eats with relish.

Read Also: Schooling happy with run

She puts it down to growing up in Ipoh, Malaysia, where she was involved in plays and debates while studying at the Methodist Girls’ School there.

She was also a tomboy who loved sports and did well in them.

She represented Perak in tennis, netball and athletics – the throwing events – and played softball at state and national levels.

Ironically, swimming was one sport she didn’t do.

She learnt to swim only after Joseph was born and is an average swimmer.

“Ipoh is an inland town. We don’t have that many swimming pools. There is only one swimming club and the swimming club is for the rich. I was from a poor family, okay? We never thought of swimming.”

Her late father was a civil servant who became treasurer of Perak.

But even then – and she likes to remind Joseph this – he was earning just RM1,300 (S$412) when he retired.

“But we all survived and before that, his salary was even less.”

She was number two in a family of four girls and one boy.

Read Also: Schooling smashes 8-year record at US swim meet

Although her father and family were entitled to live in government quarters, her mother insisted that they own their own home. Her father did extra jobs to pay for their house in Housing Trust, off Kampar Road.

Her mother, who’ll be 89 this year and lives in Ipoh, did not have an education but made sure the children had dance and piano lessons, scrimping to make this happen.

Two of Mrs Schooling’s sisters became piano teachers.

“People say I’m a Tiger Mum but no. It was instilled into us that education is important,” she says.

She, too, plays the piano and is qualified to teach it.

But she has no patience for teaching and regards the piano more as a means to let off steam.

“Sometimes when frustrated, I’d go on the piano, bang on it and after that… you feel all calm.”

She pounds her hands on an imaginary keyboard to illustrate.

What she was more keen on was sports. To pay for her sports gear, she gave tuition and played the piano at ballet classes.

“You can earn a few hundred dollars a month and that was how I paid for my games.”

Read Also: Schooling, Zheng Wen, to focus on world championships

Sports was how she met Colin.

Their paths first crossed when she was 13 and he 20, at a Pesta Sukan softball tournament in Penang.

She was part of the Perak team and he was playing for Singapore in the Pirates team.

Colin, she says, likes to say that was when he first saw her. But she was oblivious to him.

“I was only 13, I had no time for boys. I mean, we admired Pirates the team because they were the top team, but when you are 13, you don’t think about these things.”

Their teams were thrown together again in the years that followed and she got to know him, his brothers and cousins, who also played softball.

After A levels at Anglo-Chinese School in Ipoh, she went to TAR College in Kuala Lumpur and got a diploma in accounting.

In 1979, she came to Singapore and joined Goh Tan & Co where she did audit work, and also studied for her Association of Chartered Certified Accountants qualifications.

Still crazy about sports, she joined the Singapore Recreation Club to play softball.

And there Colin popped up again.

A lot of their dates revolved around sports.

“He didn’t propose. It was just like we did this, this, this, and then, want to get married or not?” she says.

“When he was young, he looked like a better version of Prince Charles,” she adds.

Both sides of the family had to adjust when they got married in 1983.

“All my friends were Chinese, he was Eurasian. Difficult. My mum at first said, ‘Gwailo, leh!’ (Cantonese slang for Westerners). My mother-in-law, of course, thought I shouldn’t be marrying him because I’m not Eurasian. So it was a very interesting marriage where we had to overcome cultural differences.”

Mr Schooling was then selling boilers for Guthrie.

For a while, they lived in a rental flat in Hillview Avenue in Upper Bukit Timah.

In 1990, they started their own company M’exim, which deals with manufacturing machinery.

Four years later, Mrs Schooling set up a publishing business Pen International.

She had three miscarriages before Joseph came along in 1995, 12 years into their marriage and when she was already 40 and Mr Schooling, 47.

By then, they had bought an HUDC flat in Bedok Reservoir, and later moved to a Lagoon View condominium.

Joseph knew at a young age that he wanted to be an Olympic champion and his parents sent him to the US when he was 14 to pursue swimming.

They took turns to go there to be with him.

Did the marriage suffer during those years?

She says they were preoccupied with Joseph and in any case, “we were already quite senior, lah”.

She gets irritated when people say it was cruel for Joseph to have been sent away at such a young age.

“I’m the one who said, ‘Don’t go, wait until at least Secondary 4’. But he said, ‘No, mum. I must go now’, because he was aiming for the Olympics – not me.”

She recalls how the mother of a swimmer once asked how her child could get the “scholarship” Joseph got.

“We said, ‘What scholarship? This is a papa-mama scholarship’.”

It’s been said they spent $1 million on Joseph’s Olympic dream.

I ask if the figure is accurate.

She says his school and swimming fees, housing and airfare for the family travelling up and down would have been about US$100,000 (S$140,000) a year.

It’s been eight years.

“I haven’t done the maths yet, okay? All I know is that I’m always looking for money somewhere or other. But Joseph was quite lucky in the sense that things fell into place. When we needed the money, the money came. That’s why I say God guided him along the way.”

There was a house in Perth, Australia, that they sold, and an endowment policy that matured.

“Things just came along, not much, but enough… you struggle along.”

She says she has been asked why Joseph’s studies and training aren’t being fully funded by the Government.

“I was told, ‘Why you so stupid? If Singapore wants your son to swim for them, they should pay.’ I said, ‘Tan ku ku’ (a Hokkien phrase for “it won’t happen”).

“That’s why I keep telling everybody, if you feel your son or daughter has it, it’s up to you whether you want to support them. If you’re going to wait for people, don’t do it, okay?”

Still, she is grateful for the support shown to Joseph and wants to do her part to “rally sports” here.

Mrs Schooling, who is a permanent resident, is thinking of setting up a sports academy to help and inspire youngsters to take up sports at a competitive level.

“We want to tell all the kids, no matter what sport you do, if you really train hard at it, you can get to whichever level you aim for. It might not be the Olympics but at least let’s try and get into the national teams.”

She surprises me when she says she believes talent and genes play a very small role in what makes an athlete good.

“I think most people can be trained. Seriously. The only thing the kid has to have is ball sense… Talent is only like 10 per cent of the equation.”

Hard work, however, makes all the difference.

She says Joseph, who’s studying at the University of Texas in Austin, is “technically good for two more Olympics” and she believes that the number of golds he wins in future depends on “how many he wants”.

They speak twice a day, even if it’s just “a good morning and a goodnight and love”.

Does she have a view on girlfriends?

“I encourage Joseph to have friends, whether girls or guys doesn’t matter to me,” she says.

“He makes his own bed and if badly made, he will have to live with it.”

We’ve finished lunch but there’s quite a bit of food left.

Mrs Schooling asks for it to be packed up.

“Never throw food away,” she declares.

“I go back I can still eat, no problem.”

In the days that follow, Joseph goes on to break two more records at the college meet.

Here in Singapore, you can bet the woman who loves him the most was beaming with pride.

WHAT WE ATE

VIOLET OON SINGAPORE

881, Bukit Timah Road

• Kueh pie tee: $17
• Tauhu goreng: $9
• Dry laksa (x2): $44
• Rebong masak lemak (chicken stewed in spiced coconut gravy): $19
• Sambal bendi: $10
• Chap chye: $15
• Jasmine rice: $1
• Bubur cha cha panacotta: $10
• Pulot hitam: $12

Total (with tax): $158.90

sumiko@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 5, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

One would think that as the owner of a bookstore, Mr Kenny Leck would have plenty of time to devour as many books as he wants.

But don’t be so quick to judge a book by its cover. Like many of us, Mr Leck does not get to read as much as he would like to.

“I don’t get enough time to read at all,” said the founder of local bookstore BooksActually.

“Most of my reading is done in the hours before I sleep, because when I am working here, I don’t get much time to read.”

Mr Leck, 39, works nearly every day at the bookstore, which is currently located in the quaint Yong Siak Street in Tiong Bahru.

In its 12 years, BooksActually has moved three times. It has been in its current premises for the past six years.

But the relocation has not taken away the bookstore’s character.

BooksActually has carved out a distinct feel, with various knick-knacks and vintage items – collected by Mr Leck – on display and for sale alongside paperbacks and hardcovers.

“People tell me that the interior is nice, but I don’t actually put much effort into it,” said Mr Leck. “It’s more like, I put the items wherever I see there is space.”

Mr Leck’s passion has always been books.

Before starting BooksActually, he worked at Tower Books and Borders – experiences he said were invaluable in helping him start his bookstore.

Mr Leck started out selling books at various book fairs, but his vision was to open a bookstore of his own.

He said: “It had to lead to having my own space. It just makes sense to have a bookstore.”

It took him just seven months to accumulate enough money to rent his first space, the second storey of a shophouse in Telok Ayer Street in Chinatown.

The best part of having a physical store?

Laughing, Mr Leck said: “I get to have all the books I want. Naturally, I can’t read everything, but still, nothing beats seeing so much stock and being able to run my hands all over it.”

CHALLENGES

Running a bookstore has its challenges, obviously.

He constantly worries about rent – it has motivated him to save for a property for BooksActually.

The day-to-day operations can also wear him down, as the bookstore is open nearly every day.

Mr Leck cut a humble figure when talking about his staff – he has three full-timers and six part-timers – saying how important they are to him.

“I need to put in place a good team to support me to ensure that, as we move ahead, the bookstore achieves things that it wants to achieve,” he said.

Mr Leck offered many reasons why he founded BooksActually: He grew up with a love of reading, readers here need a place to get less “commercialised” titles and – practically – he wants to make money.

But what seems to be the strongest reason is his desire to ensure the longevity of local literature.

“There are not enough access points for local books.

“We should try to carry as much Singlit (Singapore Literature) as possible, because it is our narrative at the end of the day,” said Mr Leck.

“If we don’t carry our stories, who will?”

Other than ensuring that his bookstore is well stocked, Mr Leck and his team manage publishing company Math Paper Press, which regularly releases works by local authors.

BooksActually was also part of the committee for the recent #BuySingLit campaign – an industry-led movement to celebrate local stories – which took place over the last weekend of February.

With so much going on, it is no surprise that Mr Leck hardly has time to read.

“The most I have ever read was when I was bedridden for a week and a half with an injury,” he said.

“I was in a lot of pain, but it was also the best time of my life – I got to read a lot.”

harizbah@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Mar 06, 2017.
Get The New Paper for more stories.

The six-year-old girl was less than a metre away from her father when a man approached her and showed her a video on his mobile phone – of himself engaged in a sexual act.

The brazen actions of American mixed martial arts instructor Joshua Robinson – who last Thursday was jailed four years for various sexual offences – highlight the fact that parents should be more diligent as sexual predators can lurk anywhere, said the girl’s father.

The 41-year-old American businessman, “Mr Peter”, and his Singaporean wife – their identities cannot be revealed for legal reasons – told The Sunday Times yesterday that their daughter, now eight, appears to have coped quite well since the July 2015 incident.

That day, Mr Peter had taken his daughter to a martial arts gym near Little India. She sat at the side watching him train less than a metre away, he recalled.

Read also: Singapore jails American MMA instructor for underage sex, having nearly 6,000 obscene films

Robinson, a regular at the gym, had sparred with Mr Peter several times before, and had even trained him personally.

So when Robinson, now 39, went up to his daughter and showed her something on his mobile phone, Mr Peter did not think anything of it.

He said: “I remember looking at my daughter and she was not engaging him. But that’s normal behaviour for her – she’s super, super shy.”

It was only later that night that the girl told her mother what she had seen on Robinson’s phone.

“She was very calm and described what she saw vividly, like it was a movie,” said Mr Peter’s wife, a 42-year-old executive. The girl had recognised Robinson in the video by his tattoos. The couple filed a police report immediately.

Unknown to them then, Robinson had, after showing the girl the video, asked her if she liked it. He then told her not to tell anyone about the incident by putting his finger to his lips and saying “shhhhh”.

The girl told her mother about it anyway, as her mother had taught her that she should not show her private parts to other people.

In a public Facebook post last Friday that has since been taken down, Mr Peter expressed disappointment at Robinson’s jail term, which he described as “a slap on the wrist”.

Among his other offences, Robinson had unprotected sex with two 15-year-old girls and filmed the acts on his mobile phone. He also had in his possession 321 films containing child pornography with children as young as two years old.

Robinson was out on bail when he targeted the six-year-old girl.

Mr Peter said he decided to come forward to raise the importance of telling young girls that it is okay to speak up if something similar happens to them. “You should talk about it. It’s safe, you will be protected,” he said.

The couple yesterday informed their daughter and nine-year-old son that the “bad man” was now in jail as a punishment. His daughter reacted by saying: “Cool!”

Mr Peter said: “We told her that she’s very brave and she’s like a hero to other girls for coming forward. I think it’s important that in her mind, there’s closure. These things can come back to hit you in a bad way later.”

Ms Rachel Lee, a principal social worker at Fei Yue Family Service Centre who works with children who have experienced trauma, said the couple should continue to talk about the incident with their daughter.

“They should also tell the child that what happened is wrong, but she is not at fault,” she said.

They should also monitor her for any sexualised behaviour in future, such as the tendency to expose herself or habitually play with her private parts, she said.

Ms Lee added that, in general, it is good for parents to talk to their children about sex, but in an age-appropriate manner.

“For very young children, talk about what’s a ‘good touch’ and a ‘bad touch’, and which are the ‘private areas’ and the ‘public areas’ (of their body),” she said.

“So if someone does something inappropriate, they’ll know to tell their parents or teachers about it.”

This article was first published on Mar 05, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Many Singaporeans are unaware of their monthly water usage even as they think that the recently announced water price hike is unnecessary – a reaction that shows they do not appreciate the cost of water, said water management experts.

In a street poll conducted last Thursday by The Sunday Times, 75 of 100 respondents said they did not know how much they spent on water each month.

When informed of this figure, water resource development expert Asit K. Biswas, distinguished visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, told The Sunday Times he was “surprised that a quarter of them even knew”.

He thinks that this has not come about because of a lack of transparency or information, but because of a bigger problem.

“Singaporeans have been taking water for granted just because nothing has happened in the last few years,” he said.

The poll – conducted at six train stations in the north, west, south and central areas of Singapore – had questions ranging from whether respondents knew how much the 30 per cent price increase would cost them monthly, to how they were conserving water.

The questions were posed as many Singaporeans are debating the 30 per cent increase in water tariffs – the first in 17 years – which was announced in Budget 2017 last month.

Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing both spoke in Parliament last Wednesday to address the concerns of ministers and the public.

Read also: Twitter users share how to save water after Budget 2017’s announcement of water price hike

However, The Sunday Times poll revealed divided views on the increase, as half of the respondents felt the hike was unnecessary.

Mr Ong Chin Choon, 56, who is unemployed, said: “I don’t think

Read also: Singapore to raise water price by 30 per cent over two years

there is a need to do it now because of the poor economic situation.

“There have also been recent increases in other fees, such as the HDB service and conservancy charges as well as public carpark fees. It is too much at one go.”

However, experts believe the price hike was long overdue and would do Singaporeans good.

Read also: Budget 2017’s water price hike: What you’re not hearing about the 30 per cent increase

Professor Biswas said the results reveal complacency among Singaporeans and felt that the increase was too small.

“We need to realise that Singapore’s water supply is not reliable,” he said, adding that he would double the price of water by 2019 if it were up to him.

He said the 30 per cent hike was the best way to drive across the message that water is precious.

353978

2016-11-29 16:51:24

Photo Gallery

5 ways you didn’t know you could reuse your pasta water

Source:

The New Paper

The Straits Times

StockUnlimited

• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–

Professor Ng Yew Kwang, Winsemius professor of economics at the Nanyang Technological University, said “the 30 per cent price increase is highly desirable”, given that water has always been underpriced.

However, Prof Ng did think that the increase was too sudden.

378030

2017-02-09 13:15:49

Photo Gallery

Singapore’s fifth NEWater plant at Changi

Source:

The Straits Times

• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–
• 
  
  <!–

“The Government should have increased the price several times over the past 17 years. Now, it is too late to do this,” he added.

Besides the timing of the hike, 72 per cent of respondents added that they were at a loss as to how to further reduce their consumption.

Retiree Chee Saw Siew, 55, whose water bill was $12.75 for last month – well below the national average of $29.45 for households living in executive apartments, said: “There is a limit to how much water can be saved.”

However, Prof Biswas said there was “plenty of room to conserve water” if Singaporeans “saved smart”. He suggested reducing the usage of appliances that consume the most water or are the least water-efficient, such as washing machines.

This article was first published on Mar 05, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

She is studying to become an aerospace engineer, but Miss Brenda Ng, 19, has already participated in eight art and design competitions and bagged accolades.

Her latest win? The LINE: Search For Singapore’s Next Young Sticker Artist competition, for her set of stickers titled Little Yellow.

Her stickers were the most downloaded set on the chat app out of those of the six finalists.

It’s her biggest win to date.

Miss Ng said: “I wanted to create stickers that were relatable to Singaporeans and I called my character Little Yellow because yellow is bright and welcoming.”

The top three winning sticker sets were downloaded over 110,000 times by LINE users.

The winner took home $3,000, and the first runner-up $2,000, in cash value of FEVO Prepaid MasterCard cards.

Said a LINE spokesman: “The winning entry captured the witty essence of Singapore that every local can relate to. ”

But Miss Ng’s victory did not come easy.

The second-year Singapore Polytechnic Aerospace Electronics student, said: “I took about a month to design and it was especially challenging to come up with 16 designs and juggle schoolwork.”

A huge anime fan, Miss Ng has attended art lessons since she was five. She started with acrylic paints before dabbling in digital art after receiving her first tablet at 13.

“I would go online to look for online tutorials and just keep practising,” she said.

Since then, she has won several competitions.

First runner-up Chua Yong Ping, 18, was never a designer until he entered polytechnic.

The first-year Ngee Ann Polytechnic Product Design and Innovation student said: “I have always wanted to do accountancy as I was familiar with it, but I thought, why not challenge myself, so I decided to enrol myself into a design course.”

The LINE competition was Mr Chua’s first time using computer software to do illustration.

For his design, Mr Chua wanted to choose an iconic character every Singaporean recognises – the Singapore Girl.

He said: “I created four characters, all in different skin colours and kebayas to represent the various ranks and races in Singapore.”

huienl@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Mar 06, 2017.
Get The New Paper for more stories.