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SINGAPORE : Jade Seah's an old soul trapped in a young body. In a day and age where hip hop and R&B music rule the airwaves, the girl remains devoted to oldies and even dreams of becoming a deejay on MediaCorp radio station Gold 90FM which plays classic hits from the '60s to the '80s.
"I am a very oldies kind of girl," said the 26-year-old. "I think I told my manager that [I want to be a Gold 90FM deejay] and she said, 'Huh? You mad ah. It's out of your age range.'"
"[But] nowadays, what I do is I flip between the stations, so anyone, anyone that would take me," she said, unleashing her infectious laugh.
Seah's love for deejaying started at a very young age. Describing herself as a "very restless kid", she used to entertain herself by recording songs off the radio onto empty cassette tapes using her grandmother's old hi-fi set. In between songs, she would play deejay by talking-up record intros and rattling on about anything under the sun.
"When I was young, I never imagined I would be on TV but I always thought I would be a deejay," she said. "I just enjoyed making tapes, enjoy music a lot, now I make CDs just for fun."
And music isn't the only thing the actress-host likes old school. Seah admits to being a traditionalist at heart when it comes to men and weddings, the complete opposite of her character, Michelle, in upcoming Channel 8 series "New Beginnings".
Michelle, who is engaged to a Caucasian guy played by "Fighting Spiders" actor Bobby Tonelli, fancies herself to be a rather modern person, so "I don’t think she really embraces the traditional side of the Chinese culture", said Seah.
"And the irony is that her fiance, being a Caucasian based in Asia, is very interested in the Chinese culture, so when they are going though the planning and the preparation stage [of the wedding], she very much wants a more modern approach and he wants to do it traditionally so I think therein is the difficulty for the wedding planner to come meet them both halfway," she added.
While the "First Class" actress declined to reveal if she is currently seeing anyone, she has never dated a Caucasian guy, which is a good thing because her parents wouldn't be very pleased about it.
The 2006 Miss Singapore Universe first runner-up said, "I generally am attracted to Asians. My parents are fine with me dating other races so long as they are Asian, and I have, just not Caucasian."
As for her wedding, she would like to keep it as traditional as possible and "do everything if possible".
"Because my grandma brought us up and we were brought up in a rather Peranakan environment, prim and proper, a bit conservative, so I guess that's how it will be like if I get married and I like that," she said.
"I think it's a fine line between being modern and just not wanting to embrace your own culture."
Though her father is Chinese and her mother is Eurasian (half Eurasian, half Peranakan), Seah admits that she doesn't know very much about wedding customs from either culture, including the very popular one where the groom is subjected to various tasks on the wedding day before he is allowed to enter the bride's house.
"Only recently did I know about this whole knocking on the door thing," she said.
"Because for my mom's side, we just go to church. Then I watched Chinese shows and quite a few of my friends have gotten married this year and they have asked me to be their jie mei (Chinese for bridal sisters) and all so I've never really done that. It's kind of fun, I might do that too."
But if she only had money for one thing, it would have to be the church wedding.
"It's about being married in front of God so to me, that's the most important and then everything else is kind of nice to have."
Since we were on the topic of dating and weddings, I finished off the interview by asking the eligible bachelorette to come up with a personals ad for Channelnewsasia.com - twitter style.
"Single female seeks someone to have fun with. Must enjoy eating and doing crazy things. Vegetarians need not apply," she said, after some hesitation.
"I don't eat vegetables - totally. So we cannot be friends. (Laughs)"
- CNA
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