A Letter to Myself Podcast: Singlish, serendipity and being a senior with Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
Well-known for her funny columns on Singlish, Sylvia tells Joel Chua that listening to radio shows, reading comics and magazines were the building blocks of her career as Singapore's first female humorist.
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Sylvia Toh Paik Choo is known as the Godmother of Singlish, as she was probably the first to codify Singapore's unique language with her groundbreaking book "Eh, Goondu!" in 1982.
She tells Joel Chua how she established a prolific career as author, broadcaster and being inducted into the Woman’s Hall of Fame, despite leaving mainstream education at 14.
Excerpts from the conversation with Joel Chua:
On why Singlish is special:
“Most of us can code switch easily. You and I know that in an exam we are not going to put “how can?”, “cannot lah”, “why you early-early don’t tell me”. We know what to do. Of course, most parents want their kids to speak properly. I will be the first to agree.
But Singlish is not broken English ... just a shorthand (of the way we communicate). It is a shortform speech (with its own grammar, rules, punctuation).
On what she thinks of her long and prolific career:
First, enjoy yourself. After that, you have to do the homework. I can't say, “follow your path”, because in my case, I'm not sure I followed a path, possibly the path chose me. (But) a few factors are luck, timing, hard work.
Some people are truly born with a (silver spoon) in their mouth ... born under a galaxy of stars, and those are few and far between.
(For most), I think timing and hard work has to be tied to it. What may look very easy, you actually had to sweat a bit there. You see, there are people with attitudes like, “Ah, napshot I can breeze through this.” I never had that. People think, “This should be easy for you.”
No, you actually have to do the homework, and you must know how to do it, so it looks like it was a breeze for you.
On being a cool senior:
When you run into friends, they say, “Let's catch up” ... But I say, “No, we don’t just say, we must make an effort to catch up.” We go out, sit down and talk loudly at the top of our voices.
We used to be ladies who lunch. Now we are ladies who lurch – you know, lurching from grabbing handrails, tables and armchairs in case we fall forward. So, all things being equal, there is the road ahead, although it may look kind of crooked because of the way we are with our knees and hips.
But you know what? You mustn't be sloppy. Even when I get into a cab, the driver says, “Where do you want to go, Auntie?”, I'll immediately get out the cab, go up and change my baju (dress). Once in a while they'll say, “where do you want to go Miss”? That makes your day.
(This interview was first broadcast on 6 September 2024.)
Listen to the conversation with Sylvia on A Letter to Myself. This podcast, hosted by Joel Chua, features people with remarkable life lessons to share and airs every weeknight on CNA938.
If you know someone with an inspiring story, write to cnapodcasts [at] mediacorp.com.sg (cnapodcasts[at]mediacorp[dot]com[dot]sg).
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