Former Singapore Idol contestant Olinda Cho and Campus Superstar champion Ng Chee Yang are among 12 singers here competing for three spots to appear on a popular Chinese TV show.

They will perform tomorrow for a chance at being selected to go to China for China Super Vocal, which is judged by Mandopop king Jay Chou and other established singers. Formerly called The Voice Of China, the television contest is being branded as a new show due to a legal dispute with the Dutch format owner.

At a press event yesterday, Cho tells The Straits Times she responded to the audition calls out of nationalistic pride.

“I want to give singers in China a run for their money. I want to show that we may be small, but we are strong,” she says.

This will be her first singing contest in 12 years since she placed third in the inaugural season of Singapore Idol in 2004.

Since then, she has been giving vocal lessons and running talent agency Nu Management with model-actress Sheila Sim.

Besides the stiff competition she is likely to face if she makes it there for the show, Cho, who is more comfortable conversing in English, will also have to overcome the language barrier.

But she is undaunted. “It’s not like I have to write an essay. I may not know the ‘cheem’ Chinese, but I can communicate and joke in Mandarin,” she says, using the Hokkien term for “complex”.

She will perform Wu Bai’s Wanderer’s Love Song tomorrow.

While Ng declines to reveal what song he has chosen, he says he hopes to be mentored by Chinese singer Na Ying – a judge on the show – if he gets to represent Singapore in China Super Vocal.

“She’s nurturing, yet she’s critical at the same time. I believe she will be able to help me improve my singing. She’s supportive of her team, which I like,” says Ng, 26, who won Campus Superstar, a home-grown student singing contest, in 2006.

He is based in New York because he wants to carve out a singing career in the United States, and will tour with American a cappella group Vocalosity over the next few years. He was in Singapore for his singing projects last month and decided to take part in the China Super Vocal auditions, in which 1,700 hopefuls took part.

In the show, contestants show off their singing prowess in the hope of getting picked by celebrity mentors, including veteran Taiwanese singer Harlem Yu and rocker Wang Feng, who is actress Zhang Ziyi’s husband.

Last year, when the show was called The Voice Of China, husband-and-wife singers Alfred Sim and Tay Kewei performed in China, but they were not picked by the mentors.

The 12 finalists here will battle it out tomorrow at a concert held at The Coliseum in Hard Rock Hotel Singapore. All 2,000 tickets to the concert have been given out.

Judging the show are producer- songwriter Billy Koh, singer-songwriters Paul Lee Wei Song and Dick Lee, and veteran radio deejay Eeva Chang Mei Hsiang, whose company Eeva Productions organised the auditions here.

Largely based in China, Koh, 52, says he is back here to “update” himself on the scene and find out if the younger generation of Singaporeans has what it takes to replicate the success of JJ Lin and Stefanie Sun.

Sun’s mentor Paul Lee, 47, says: “I’m not looking for someone who is just out to show off his vocal techniques and hit high notes. It has to be someone with a human touch.”

This article was first published on May 20, 2016.
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SINGAPORE – Parkway Parade re-opened to customers on Friday (May 20) after being shut for four days following a fire, but not all shops are open.

“We are pleased to announce that Parkway Parade mall is now open, following the rigorous testing, clean up and rectification works due to a fire incident that recently closed the mall,” said the mall in a press release today.

No one was injured when the fire occurred at Fox Kids and Baby, a clothing store on the second floor of the mall, on Sunday (May 15) night.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated.

During the time that the mall was closed, the mall took the opportunity to clean up and carry out maintenance works.

For instance, The Straits Times reported that some lifts and escalators were shut down for maintenance on Friday morning when it visited, as they had been affected by the fire.

Photo: ST

Some stores, including Mothercare and Winter Time on the second floor, and Uniqlo at Basement 1 remained closed.

Department store, Isetan, only opened its first floor to customers, reported The Straits Times. The second level will remain closed for a few more days for further clean-ups.

Photo: ST

Jenny Khoo, GM of Parkway Parade said: “The Management team at Parkway Parade is very thankful and appreciative of the support, understanding and patience of our retailers, shoppers and occupants…I would like to apologise for all the inconveniences caused during this period.”

“Some rectification works are still ongoing in parts of the mall, and we aim to complete them as soon as possible,” she added.

A team of experts has been assembled to facilitate the cleaning, testing and rectification works, which include recovery works to the fire protection and electrical systems.

maryanns@sph.com.sg

SMRT has partnered with local clean-energy provider Sunseap Leasing in a move that will see the train operator’s Bishan Depot, Singapore’s first and largest rail depot, running on solar power by the end of October.

Installation of the one megawatt peak (MWp) solar photovoltaic system on the main depot building will begin in the third quarter of this year.

Covering 10,000 sq m, it is expected to meet the depot’s operational energy needs, including lighting and air-conditioning for its buildings and workshops.

Under optimal conditions, the system can generate in a year electricity equal to the annual energy consumption of about 270 four-room HDB flats.

Train movements within the depot, however, will still be powered by existing electricity sources.

This is SMRT’s first use of solar power and is expected to help it reduce its output of carbon dioxide by 553 tonnes annually.

“It will allow us to diversify our energy sources and reduce the carbon footprint from our expanding train operations,” said SMRT senior vice-president for systems and technology Ng Bor Kiat.

Sunseap director Frank Phuan said: “We believe this move will encourage the other transport companies in Singapore to step up their sustainability efforts.”

SMRT will also look at using the remaining available roof space at the depot to expand the system to generate up to 5MWp, which would allow it to power nearby MRT stations as well.

In December last year, Sunseap won Singapore’s largest tender for solar panel installation, the first under the SolarNova programme aimed at encouraging government agencies to come together to use solar power.

This would allow it to supply 76 MWp of solar power to 831 Housing Board blocks and eight sites under the Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Utilities Board, including the Tuas and Woodlands checkpoints, by the end of next year.

In 2014, the Government announced that solar power would fill 5 per cent of Singapore’s annual energy needs by 2020.

This article was first published on May 20, 2016.
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Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat remains sedated and in a stable condition, his fellow Tampines GRC MP Baey Yam Keng said yesterday.

Mr Baey, who is Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth, said he had not had the chance to visit Mr Heng. MPs and grassroots leaders have been asked to put off visits till a later date.

“The family needs some space and that takes priority,” he told The Straits Times.

He also said some Tampines GRC residents had asked if there would be a site for people to leave their expressions of good wishes as well as flowers and fruit for Mr Heng.

“Our view is that these are kind gestures we and the family really appreciate, but the most important thing now is for Swee Keat to recover,” Mr Baey added.

Mr Heng, 54, had collapsed a week ago during a Cabinet meeting after suffering a stroke.

Doctors at Tan Tock Seng Hospital had successfully closed a ruptured aneurysm that had caused bleeding in his brain.

He remains in intensive care.

The Straits Times understands that flowers, cards and gifts for the minister continue to arrive at the hospital’s Heritage Museum, where they are kept.

Mr Heng’s duties have been taken over by several ministers and MPs.

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the previous finance minister, is back helming the ministry, while Mr S. Iswaran, Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry), was appointed co-chairman of the Committee on the Future Economy.

The four other Tampines GRC MPs will take turns to visit constituents in Mr Heng’s Tampines Central ward, and attend to their needs at his Meet-the-People Sessions on Mondays. They will be helped by former Tampines GRC MP Sin Boon Ann, who has been appointed deputy chairman of the People’s Action Party branch in Tampines Central.

This article was first published on May 20, 2016.
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When Mr Rayden Chia Yong Xiang got a letter of acceptance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in March, he read it twice over to make sure it was real.

“I didn’t dare to tell anyone… It sunk in a week later,” said the graduate from Nanyang Polytechnic’s (NYP) information security course.

He was doubly thrilled when, later in March, he learnt he had been accepted by Harvard University.

“I applied to MIT and Harvard on a whim,” said the 22-year-old, who had secured a place at the National University of Singapore earlier.

With some help from an education consultancy, Mr Chia, who graduated from NYP with a perfect grade point average of 4.0, applied to seven American universities: MIT, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Columbia University, Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley.

He was accepted by the first four, and has taken up MIT’s offer after attending pre-orientation programmes held last month by MIT and Harvard. “(MIT) has more specificity in terms of what it offers… For what I want to study, it offers more depth and breadth.”

He hopes to study computer science and engineering and do information technology research at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His tuition fees will be covered by a scholarship.

The polytechnics do not keep track of graduates admitted into the top universities in the United States or prestigious British institutions. But officials said it is rare for a polytechnic graduate to get offers from both Harvard and MIT.

For instance, the first and only Singapore Polytechnic graduate to get into Harvard is Mr Kuriakin Zeng back in 2010.

NYP said Mr Chia is likely to be its first graduate to be accepted by Harvard directly after finishing the diploma programme.

“I came from a background where almost everyone went to junior college… But I wanted a more unique experience and to get industry exposure,” said Mr Chia, a Catholic High School alumnus who scored seven As at the O levels.

“I hope (my being accepted by Harvard and MIT) will serve as an inspiration for more poly students to try this route.

“Don’t think that just because you don’t have a JC background, that’s not something you can do.”

The only child of a housewife and an engineer – the family lives in a flat in Bishan – said his interest in computing started at age nine, when he meddled with an old computer.

“It was a sandbox for me. It was how I picked up basic programming with the help of library books later on,” said Mr Chia, who while in secondary school joined IT competitions run by the polytechnics.

His time at NYP confirmed his interest in IT security, and his team won first place in 2013 and 2014 in the Singapore Cyber Conquest.

His reward was two fully paid trips to the Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Las Vegas. It was also then that he extended his stay in the US to visit Stanford and University of California, Berkeley.

Mr John Lim, NYP’s course manager for information security, which was renamed cyber security and forensics in 2014, called Mr Chia independent and determined. “He’s not proud; he’s very humble and he works closely with friends.”

Mr Chia said: “I’m looking forward to stretching my mental faculties… and ultimately rediscovering myself. I guess that’s what college is about.”

ateng@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on May 20, 2016.
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Madam Tan Teck Soon says, for 26 years, she has paid the Housing Board $277 each month – mortgage instalments for the three- room flat that she lives in.

She paid over $117,000, including upgrading costs and conservancy charges, said the 76-year-old canteen vendor, but she might soon have to leave her home. In March, she said, she learnt her granddaughters were trying to sell the flat.

To stop this, she has sued both Ms Michelle Ng Li Xuan, 26, and Ms Isabella Ng Su Xi, 25.

The case is pending in the High Court, and the two sides met for a pre-trial conference on Tuesday, said lawyer Chia Boon Teck, who is representing Madam Tan pro bono.

Both sisters are registered owners of the flat, which they inherited when their father died in 2009.

But Madam Tan said she had single-handedly paid for the flat since its purchase in 1990. Her granddaughters were only holding it in trust for her, she said. In her affidavit, she said they were trying to sell it and “swallow” the proceeds.

The 10th-storey flat in Bedok South was bought under the name of her son – the sisters’ father, Mr Ng King Nguang – said Madam Tan, who was then registered as co-owner of another flat with her older son. The disputed flat has an estimated value of about $330,000 now.

“The flat was registered under Ng’s sole name at that time with the understanding between Ng and me that I was the sole owner,” she said, adding that she paid the initial sum of $20,000 for the down payment and renovations.

She was registered as an owner of the flat in 1992, after the other flat was sold. But seven years later, Mr Ng chalked up about $100,000 in debts, she said. He then purportedly asked her for help. She said he wanted her to sell him her share of the flat so he could get an HDB loan on the pretext of paying her.

She said she did not get any money from the sale, but lent him $61,000 instead. He used the entire sum to pay creditors, she said.

“I’m not a lawyer. I didn’t understand the implications. My son and I understood the flat still belonged to me,” she told The Straits Times.

In 1992, Mr Ng divorced his wife, who got custody of Michelle. Isabella, about one then, grew up in the flat with her father and Madam Tan.

In 2009, Mr Ng died after a heart attack. The sisters inherited the flat, along with his mortgage life insurance payout of $40,200.

“I did not understand how (they) could sell the flat and throw me onto the streets when I had paid for the flat entirely single-handedly,” Madam Tan said in her affidavit.

Both sisters denied trying to sell the flat without her knowledge.

Ms Michelle Ng disputed that Madam Tan had made all payments for the flat. “What I understand is that my dad was the one doing the payments,” she said, adding that she and her sister let Madam Tan live there as it was near Madam Tan’s workplace.

Ms Ng said Madam Tan made some payments for the flat after Mr Ng died, but that was because Madam Tan was living there then.

Ms Ng said the flat was an asset passed down to both sisters by their father, which they should be able to sell, and they had offered Madam Tan an alternative place to live – with Ms Isabella Ng at her upcoming BTO flat in Choa Chu Kang.

Said Ms Michelle Ng, a former marketing executive: “I’m not working at the moment. I’m expecting my second child. I’m not taking the money to go and enjoy myself.”

This article was first published on May 20, 2016.
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