The one and only time I was told about a Miss Singapore who couldn’t speak proper English, it was by my Secondary 3 English teacher who was then giving us a scolding over the bad English composition we wrote. That was more than 20 years ago.
So, when the video called ‘[SG FAIL] Miss Singapore World 2009 – Ris Low (with subtitles)’ was sent to me via an email,I had originally thought it was a video making fun of her use of Singlish. However, whatever she said was nothing like Singlish and in the end I was quite put off with what I considered her lousy attempt in faking an accent. On top of that, I simply felt that either her comments and responses were shallow, or she simply isn’t an eloquent person. My first impression was that it will be disastrous if she represents Singapore in the Miss World Pageant in South Africa. On second thoughts, my view is that if this interview was done immediately after her win, it is not surprising that she is at a lost of words because of the euphoria she’s feeling at that time.
That was like at least a month ago, because I recalled chatting over this matter over drinks at Helipad with some friends. We unanimously agree that if anyone is to be faulted for Ris Low’s win, it should be the judges. During the chat, a friend pointed out that many of these Singapore girls participated in a pageant without any sponsorship – not until they have won anything! In other words, instead of criticising them, let us give some of these girls credit for their courage, not to mention that the winners mostly achieve their titles at their own expense and time.
I furthered joked that perhaps Singapore should have a ‘Foreign Beauty Talent’ scheme and ‘import’ beauties from Venezuela (a 5-time Miss Universe winning country) just like our female table tennis players who are ‘imported’ from China. I was then told (though I could not verify this) that the Venezuelan beauties are specially groomed for exactly the purpose of winning in beauty pageants. Either way, we laughed about people who asked for Ris Low to be replaced because we felt that beauty pageants are not competitions of eloquence or brains. That’s not mentioning, we aren’t invited as the judges of the Miss World Pageant to decide who is the fairest of them all.
Then came the news of her credit card fraud case. For a moment I suspected that this was a case of mistaken identity (since there was once the New Paper mistook a hit-and-run van driver as an ex-DPM). At some point, I even thought of it as some kind of government gahmen propaganda for the Yellow Ribbon Campaign, until Lee Bee Wah (MP, Ang Mo Kio GRC) said that she should not represent Singapore as a matter of honesty and integrity.
While Ris Low could have won herself some sympathy had she asked for Singaporeans to give her the same chance just like the judge who ruled leniently in her case, she responded that the probation sentence means it would not be a stain. That was not only media suicide, it was completely unwise. Many Singaporeans wasted no time to lambast her for being unrepentant. For Ris Low’s sake, the meaning of probation and acquittance is vastly different. Her claims of compensating her victim from her own pocket money would have made a stronger impact had she not attempted to brush it aside with her earlier comment.
To make matters worse, it was later exposed that she had not revealed her fraud case to ERM World, the organiser of the event. ERM World was given a rude awakening when it discovered this shocking fact on the newspapers. This contradicted her claims that ERM World has prior knowledge of the case and yet permitted her to participate in the pageant. It further reinforced the idea that she is dishonest and without integrity. Had all of the above not happened, it was almost as if there is an evil force that is deliberately setting her up for failure. That’s not mentioning, I had originally thought that if Ris Low was already as famous as Gillian Chung or Britney Spears, or as rich as Paris Hilton, the rest of the world wouldn’t have been so hard on her. In fact, they might even have worship her as an idol just like those tramps.
Just as I thought Singapore can breathe a sigh of relief over the news of her resignation as Miss Singapore World, I was shocked to be informed that someone in the Straits Stooge Times has actually named her photo ‘sg-stupid.jpg’. (The Stooge Times has since been taken down this picture, but I have made a screen capture here.)
To whoever who did this, this is not only just unprofessional, it is also utterly cowardly and completely unoriginal. A staff from CNN has done the same by naming some of George ‘Warmonger’ Bush’s photographs asshole.jpg and moron.jpg before.
Have a heart for the poor girl. While she really had handled it badly, give her credit for standing up to this onslaught from both the traditional and so-called ‘social media’ for almost a month. Whatever mistakes she has made and her bad handling of the matter is her own follies and if anyone would want to call her stupid, at least have the courage to do so in her face. Consider the fact on just almost 2 months this 19 year-old was on the top of the world after her win, and now she is humbled, if not humiliated. Consider how you would feel, if that has happened to you!
On top of that, the Stooge Times should apologise to Ris Low for this fiasco. There is no need to try and hide by taking the picture off the server. This is almost as bad as (if not worse than) the Helpdesk staff of SingNet asking a customer to ‘go to hell’ in an email, or the SBS Transit staff who ‘got stomped’ for sitting on the priority seat on a N-E Line MRT. While SingNet has mentioned that it reserved the right to sue that staff, and SBS Transit has disciplined the staff, I expect no less from the Stooge Times, a paper holding the mantle of our national daily.
However, the Stooge Times can really disappoint me no further ever since the way it handled the AWARE saga.