I had a great time chatting with Kimberly on the podcast The Real Deal by Our Grandfather Story. Thanks for having me!
Click the image above, or this link to watch the interview: https://youtu.be/yaSxkBdIQyo
(And yes, the Behind the Scenes photos were taken with my Fujifilm Natura Classica point-and-shoot film camera mentioned in the podcast.)
Apparently there is a trend of people using AI to make themselves look like they are from the 80s. I just had to pull out some photos of myself and my family from my photo albums (the kind you can physically hold).
Because I was there, Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago.
These are circa 1980-1984.
And just to be clear, the trophies on the TV are almost all my athletic younger brother’s, who was a competitive school swimmer, and later a water polo captain.
I, the non-athletic family nerd, only won small trophies for Literature stuff. I think this small trophy in the photo below was something I won for a poem.
This gate was the loudest thing on the block. My parents never lubricated it. So whenever we opened or closed it, the entire block could hear the creaking.
That said, we never closed the gate during the day and neighbours would come and go into each other’s homes all the time. Kids would come over to play. Mothers would come and borrow sugar and oil.
We only opened it in the morning and closed it at night.
This was us with my father’s younger brother’s family. We did the CNY visitation to his older siblings’ families, together every year. This tradition of meeting up over Chinese New Year continues in our generation.
Mm Suk (五叔) and Mm Sum’s (五嬸) family lived in the opposite block from our flat. Which made it easier to meet up.
The Malay lady in the photo is Auntie Sharifah, our neighbour from the opposite block. These are her two sons.
She looked after my youngest brother at her home after school. I also went to her home after school for lunch and homework. At one point in our young lives, we could speak fluent Malay.
The corridor seen here was my playground. The neighbourhood kids all hung out there. It was also my escape route when my mother ran after me with a cane for not doing well in my tests and exams. I could run down that corridor faster than Usain Bolt. Usually barefoot because I had no time to wear my slippers as my mother bore down on me in righteous fury.
I was really fond of that Raleigh Chopper my neighbour’s kids had. I wanted one but my parents said it was too expensive. I rode it when I could borrow it.
Our HDB flat was a 3-room flat, with one small toilet in the kitchen and our family of five fit into it. My brothers and I shared one bedroom whilst my parents had the master bedroom. It was our first home, my parents bought it when they got married and stayed in it for 18 years.
We did eventually move to a bigger HDB flat. And I am actually currently living in it. But that’s another story for another day.
It is once again time for the Lee Clan to go on vacation. 19 of us — three brothers and our families — with kids ranging from 25 years old to the three-year-old twins.
We go big or we stay home.
As children, my brothers and I heard of families going to Lake Toba in Medan, and we always wondered what it was like.
For some reason, our parents never brought us here, even though it was a popular tourist destination for Singaporeans back then. So we said, let’s do eeeet.
It helps to have extremely switched-on younger brothers who are pro-active and travel-savvy too.
We had a little trouble with Faith, our autistic firstborn, getting her out of the Comfort taxi into Changi Airport Terminal 1, but once we convinced her that she is going with all her cousins, she seemed less afraid.
We spent the first day getting to our resort in Taman Simalem, and having dinner at Gundaling Farmstead Berastagi (we had to preorder our food since there were so many of us) on the way there.
The weather in the highlands was surprisingly cold. We looked at the wrong weather report, that of Medan city itself, which was warm. But in the highlands, where we stayed, it was 15-19°C and windy. Our rooms didn’t even need air-conditioning.
It got slightly warmer once the sun came up in the morning on the second day.
Our second day was spent trekking down to the gorge of the Sipiso waterfall. This was something we underestimated a little. Some parts of the 1,000m trek down to the base of the waterfall were somewhat tricky but all of us made it down and back up. Even the kiddos and Faith.
Faith did have to stop a few times to rest and loudly complain in her non-verbal way. But she made the climb back up to the car park, like a trooper.
We spent a good 3-4 hours at Sipiso. Then all went back to the resort and knocked out for the afternoon.
We spent the evening getting massages and having dinner in our resort. And laughing about how garang we were to even attempt that waterfall trek with toddlers in tow.
But it’s good to try new things and hard things. Because that is how families bond and learn to help each other climb the mountains of life.
[Photos made with Nikon ZF and the Voigtlander 40mm f2 Septon, and a Nikon 26mm f2.8]
Thanks to the hard work of the Happiness Engineers at WordPress, decades of posts and photos — we are talking thousands of posts, images and links — have been successfully imported and relinked into this new home for mrbrown.com.
I sigh with relief because I was not sure if it could be done. They had to do the imports in batches, because of the immense number of posts, and it took almost a month. This was not an undertaking that could be done with a one-click import tool.
There will be some older posts with broken links and missing images, which is inevitable because over the decades, websites come, and sites go. So I seek your kind understanding.
What a long journey it has been, getting the site back. But at my age, I have learned to take it slow. Not everything has to be a 100m sprint. A brisk walk will also get you there.
Someone on Threads asked, “Men and Men ONLY: Post a beautifully captured, thoughtfully angled photo — taken by YOU — of the woman you are proud to love.”
So I shared these photos.
These photos are of my wife, with my firstborn, who has autism. The first two photos are 25 years apart.
We had two more children after Faith. Our youngest one, Joy, just graduated polytechnic. Time goes by like a dream.
This photo was a pensive moment on the bus ride home from church, this year.
I know. I am a very blessed man.
Some of you may have noticed that mrbrown.com has been down for the last few months. My host of several decades, Typepad, shut their service down and gave us all just one month to leave, which was pretty impossible for many of us with thousands of posts to migrate.
So I backed up the site, which I managed to do, despite their customer support being overwhelmed by similar requests, and tried to figure out a Plan B.
I am now here on WordPress, where I set up a small site ages ago. I even forgot I used to be on WordPress.com. Anyway, the mrbrown domain is pointing here finally.
I will try to repopulate the blog with my almost 30 years of posts, hopefully without needing to do it post by post, photo by photo, brick by brick. So please patient with us as we renovate. Sorry for the dust and noise.
Welcome back, my friends. I know I am still on my other platforms like:
But there is nothing like your own blog, it is like your own home.
And it is good to be back home.
This song was written way back in August 2008 for National Day 2008, by Marc Nair and myself, for the mrbrown show podcast.
And then we were invited to perform our sketches and songs live at Singapore Day 2009, in London.
Amazingly, many in the Singapore crowd who watched us at London, knew every word and SANG ALONG. We were beyond chuffed.
For SG60, we decided to release this 2025 edition, with help from James Lye, our Music Producer.
We hope the song resonates with you as it did way back in 2008.
Marc played the guitar for this, as he did in the original, and sang the backup vocals.
You can listen to this mrbrown NDP song, and the other mrbrown NDP single “Forever Family” on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube: https://orcd.co/mrbrown_lovesongforsingapore
2008 Original Version: Written, composed and performed by mrbrown & Marc Nair. Live version with Ivan Nair at Singapore Day 2009, London.
2025 Edition:
Vocals: mrbrown (Lee Kin Mun)
Backup Vocals: Marc Nair
Music Producer & Mix Engineer: James Lye @jameslyemusic
Distributed & Published by Maker Records @makerrecordsgrp
Pa sat at his kitchen counter, sipping on the flat white he just made. As he read the article, his curiosity was piqued. Was it true? Is Gen Z unable or unwilling to read in Third-Person Omniscient anymore?
Just then, his son, Isaac walked by. He looked at Pa curiously.
“Morning, Bruh.”
Pa said his Good Morning back, and muttered something about not being his bruh.
Isaac frowned and grabbed the open Cheetos packet from the fridge.
I will have that as my breakfast for now, he thought. Perhaps some Mee Kia later when I step out.
As he stuffed his face with the messy snack that pretends to be made of real cheese, his thoughts wandered to more important issues of the day. Should I play my Marvel Rivals game first, or should I submit my university application before the appeal window closes?
Iron Man won that round. There was still time to submit the application, he decided.
Just then, the youngest member of the family came downstairs.
Joy saw Pa lost in his thoughts. She wanted her double shot of espresso so badly, though she didn’t want to interrupt his deep thoughts.
Is he thinking about the Third-Person Omniscient thing again, Joy thought. Of course Gen Z can deal with Third-Person Omniscient, why does Pa think we can’t? He can be such a Boomer sometimes. Wait, is Pa a Boomer or Gen X? I cant remember.
Just then, Pa, looking nothing like someone age 56, looked up from his reading, as if instinctively hearing his youngest child’s need for caffeine. That was his Coffee Spider Sense.
“You want some coffee? I make for you now.”
Joy nodded with enthusiasm, and went to get the oat milk from the fridge. She smiled as she took the carton, knowing exactly what her father will say: You should stop drinking that stuff. That’s not milk. That’s just vegetable water with sugar.
Pa looked up from his espresso machine and over the hum of the rotary pump, said, “You should stop drinking that stuff. That’s not milk. That’s just vegetable water with sugar.”
Don’t assume power never trips in Singapore.
My block lost power earlier today, around 11.20am, just as I was about to make my second espresso of the day. Neighbours were out and about, checking with each other.
I took the stairs to the first floor to check if other blocks were affected. Seems like the entire area was affected because other blocks lost power too.
Some were stuck in the lift and were banging the door and pressing the emergency bell. A few of us tried to reassure people stuck inside that help was coming.
Then before the lift rescue team came, power was restored.
Downstairs, I met the cleaner who cleans our blocks. He was in his civvies.
He told me he was going back to Bangladesh.
“Oh!” I said, “Going back for good?”
“14 days. On leave,” he smiled.
“Ah good, good! Enjoy seeing your family and loved ones!,” I said, shaking his hand.
He smiled and thanked me.
The whole power failure thing lasted about 10-15 minutes.
Later, I climbed the stairs back to my flat, even though power seemed to be back, and the lifts were working.
A young lady was going down the stairs, as I was climbing up, and we both agreed it was best to use the stairs first, because the power just came back on, and we were not sure if it would trip again.
With the son’s help, I turned the circuit breakers in the home back on, one at a time.
I heard the power failure affected a wider area than I initially thought. As far as Hougang and Sengkang.
I wonder what happened. But we do take a lot for granted here. I am thankful the power was restored so quickly. Maybe it’s time to get a UPS for the computers and the router. Or more importantly, for my coffee machine.
Family watching Shang-Chi on free-to-air TV.
Me: “This movie was carried by Leslie Cheung.”
Brother-in-law: “I thought he died already. Tony Leung issit?”
Me: “Oh ya. Tony Leung.”
Halfway into the movie…
Wife: “That’s King Bentley, right?”
Me: “Who???”
Wife: “King… Bentley?”
Me: “…Ben Kingsley lah!”
Wife: “Oh ya. Ben Kingsley. He is The Orange.”
Me: “Orange?!”
Wife: “Ya. He was The Orange in Iron Man.”
Me: “…The Mandarin lah!”
Wife: “Orange… Mandarin. Ya.”
We are all getting old and forgetful.
