[Media Invite] Yesterday Once More - 那些年那些歌

It was a great evening to be taking a break off revision with Xav and went for an awesome mummies' night out attending Yesterday Once More - 那些年那些歌 together with Jenn, Karen and my sister. We indulged in a full 2.5 hours of listening to songs from yesteryears 1970s to 2000, performed by at least 20 artistes old and new! To name a few, Roy Li 黎沸挥 , Macy 美心 , Henry Thia 辉哥，Ryan Lian 廖永谊,  Suhaimi Yusof who rocked the halls with the rendition of 特别的爱给特别的你！

The hosts; Jack Neo 梁智强 , Mark Lee 李国煌, Getai Princess Li Peifen and Wang Lei 王雷 kept the 6000 audience entertained with their uproarious humour!

The youngest star for that evening was the 11-year-old, Singapore's electro-pop prince representing the frontier of the millennial generation. Emiliano Cyrus, EC 一平 ! Finally, I get to hear him sing LIVE! At this tender young age, the achievement for this child celebrity in the entertainment industry is something to be applauded for!

His appearance sent his groups of fans seated in different areas around the halls, cheered for him, with cameras and mobile cameras clicking away non-stop. He serenaded "The Closest Embrace" 最近的拥抱 with his euphonious voice while his fans were waving the fluorescent boards in the air and quite a number of fans presented him with bouquets and gifts!




This has already shown us something about his rising popularity! Read more about it here: https://www.zaobao.com.sg/zentertainment/music/story20191028-1000696

Photo credit: https://www.zaobao.com.sg

Emiliano Cyrus was also the only child singer last year be invited and sang 5 of his own songs at the Nanchang Music Festival in China to a 50,000 strong audience! 

This amazing wonder boy is making another breakthrough! This time, on the big screen, not one but two movies 'The Slam Dunk' and 'The Ultimate Opposite'.

Emiliano Cyrus is the child lead for The Slam Dunk Movie, which is a remake a popular Japanese manga series in Chinese. Originally written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue about a basketball team from Shohoku High School in the Shonan area. Emiliano Cyrus will be casted as Hanamichi Sakura 樱木花道 (will be renamed in the movie as Jiang Yi 江译). This Chinese version is scheduled for release in China and worldwide in late 2020!  

The Slam Dunk Movie灌篮高手

The Ultimate Opposition Movie 终极对垒

A detective spy themed thriller where Emiliano Cyrus is the main child cast, starring as the detective’s son, also scheduled to be released worldwide in late 2020. 

More about Emiliano Cyrus

Emiliano Cyrus was invited to participate in a Music Reality TV Show where various famous singers and music composures from various countries came together to make live music together along with international musicians such as veteran singer Chyi chin from Taiwan as well as Jane Zhang (Zhang Liang Yin) from China. EC also has endorsement with NBA Stars for AND1 (China) and he has also released his own themed collection exuding his persona for The Slam Dunk Movie.  

For more information, do visit Emiliano Cyrus Instagram and Facebook page for more updates! Even EC 一平 's YOUTUBE has a strong 70.4k subscribers following him!

Thank you AT Marketing and PR Consultancy for the invitation to a nostalgic evening!

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[New Book Launch + Review] Make Animals Great Again and Other Creature Campaigns

You read about "The Great Singapore Poo Sale and Other Beastly Business" which had the first edition sold out within half a year! In March 2019, we attended the launch of the second edition and in the month of October, Maureen had a new book launched "Make Animals Great Again and Other Creature Campaigns", the sequel to The Great Singapore Poo Sale and Other Beastly Business! How exciting!

Ideal for avid readers aged 9 and up- and for animal lovers and the young at heart everywhere -
Make Animals Great Again looks at what happens when the animals have to elect a new leader. There are many candidates, but who will be the best animal for the job? What values should they look for in a leader?

Xav was totally engrossed and enjoying the read during lunch while the beautiful illustration of the animals captured Vera's attention such that she said she had to share it with her teddy!

I have read the book too and loved how Maureen had used the animals to describe the Singapore culture to relate how parents are going all out just to get the kids into the top schools. Kids are being 'pushed" so hard to make sure emerge the top in the rat race such that parents began to take away the unstructured play, which is supposed to be there to have a balance of work and play, the government and the education system in a fun and humorous manner. Not only that, but readers also learnt about Singapore's biodiversity!

This animal lover was fasinated over the drawings! 

So who will you choose to be the next leader and what kind of quality should the leader possess? Physically strong? A leader who gives instead of taking? A leader who could give everyone money? Or a leader who is constantly thinking about how to help others? I shall not tell you which animal or insect won the unanimous vote, go get this book from Huggs-Epigram if you have not visited this store that sells books written by Singapore authors and enjoy some reads over a cup of great coffee. This is perfect as a gift too if you are starting to think of penning down your list to get for Christmas or birthday gifts!

The book launch will be held at the lobby of Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. It is going to be educational fun for both the young and old alike! The event is FREE but you need to register and RSVP for your attendance.

An excerpt of the story will be performed by the Players Theatre, everyone will be in for a treat! There will also be a trivia animal quiz as well as a chance to view some of the best works of National Geographic award-winning wildlife photographer, Jayaprakash Bojan and also to hear him share about his experiences.  

Admission to the museum lobby is FREE but for those who pre-order at least one copy of "Make Animals Great Again" can get discounted tickets to enter Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at the following rates: 

Singaporean/PR Adult ticket: $12 (u.p $16)

Singaporean/PR Child/ Senior Citizen ticket: $7 (u.p $9)

Non-Singaporean Adult ticket: $16 (u.p $21)

Non-Singaporean Child/ Senior Citizen ticket: $10 (u.p $13) 

I asked Maureen what inspired her behind the writing of "Make Animals Great Again and Other Creature Campaigns" and the message she would love to bring across to all, especially the younger generation.

"For this new book, I was inspired by all the buzz about 4G leadership recently. When I was a teacher, I found that my students knew little about our political process, so I wanted to write something that would start youths thinking about how to elect a leader and how to be a leader. I hope this book opens an entertaining way for parents to talk with their children about what is going on in the government and the education system. Many parents go from zero to one hundred, not discussing current affairs before a child is 10, then suddenly urging the child to start reading newspapers at Primary 5 to help prepare for PSLE. Using fun animal characters, I think it would make it easier for parents to engage their children on these complex topics from an early age." 
                                                                                                                                                   Maureen
Details of Event:

Date: 16 November 2019 (Saturday)

Time: 3pm - 4pm

Venue: Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum

Address: 2 Conservatory Drive, Singapore 117377

Tel: +65 6601 3333

RSVP for the book launch here: https://maureenyeo.wixsite.com/website/event-info/new-book-launch 

Book orders can be placed here: https://forms.gle/9jMuZvriGYtkPH7M7

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maureen Yeo is the author of Make Animals Great Again and Other Creature Campaigns and The Great Singapore Poo Sale and Other Beastly Business (which was nominated for the 2019 Singapore Book Awards Best Young Adult and Middle Grade Title). Her travel articles, short stories and poems have been published in various periodicals. Formerly an English and Literature teacher, Maureen is now a full-time mum to a small child and a big dog. She is also the wife of “The Most Irritating Person in the World (Self-Proclaimed)”. Follow her on Instagram at @maureenyeosuiyin. Find out more at https://maureenyeo.wixsite.com/website 

ABOUT EPIGRAM BOOKS

Epigram Books began its trade publishing imprint in July 2011 to champion Singaporean literature. Since then, it has published more than 350 titles, including award-winning titles such as The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (winner of three Eisner Awards); State of Emergency and Ministry of Moral Panic (both winners of the Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction) and bestselling children’s book titles such as the Amos Lee and Sherlock Sam series. 

ABOUT PLAYERS THEATRE

Players Theatre together with Players Workshop makes up one of Singapore’s leading Children’s Theatre companies, with almost 20 years of experience creating,

producing and presenting top quality content for children’s and family entertainment. Players Theatre was nominated for Best Production For The Young at the Straits Times – M1 Life Theatre Awards. Besides its Main Season programming, the Players Theatre also offers touring skits and puppet building workshops to schools. On the industry level, it provides services such as content creation and conceptualisation, producing, directing, writing, and set-prop-costume design including puppet and mascot building.

ABOUT JAYAPRAKASH BOJAN

After 18 years working in big corporations, JP decided to quit and pursue his passion for travel, photography and conservation. He shot to fame in 2017 when his picture of an orang-utan in the water won him the award for National Geographic Wildlife Photographer of the Year. He has won a slew of other awards and his work has been published in international magazines. JP is currently based in Singapore.

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[Review] FARM Florist Singapore

A box of gorgeous, fresh smelling, elegant hydrangeas in hues of light violet and lime cream petals, arranged beautifully with some other flowers were sent right to my doorstep.

No occasions needed, the day was made sweeter with the surprise bloom box from FARM Florist Singapore.

You really don't need any reason to send love to your special someone or just to put a smile on a friend, with flowers at an affordable price, starting as low as $25, there is a selection for terrariums too!

You can pick from a selection of:
Hand Bouquets choose from fresh Gerbera, Carnation, Roses, Baby's Breath and Sunflower to name a few or if receiver loves something rustic, then go for Dried Flowers Bloom Box or Bouquet.

Graduation Bouquets - Surprise sunflower bouquets that allow you to choose from 1,3 or 5 stalks

Surprise Bouquets for senders who are totally clueless about flowers, leave it to Farm Florist team to come up with a bouquet for you! I am going to order these stalks for the year-end graduation concert.

Bloom Boxes for senders who would love something special from the usual hand bouquet. The flowers will be arranged in a tote carrying 'bag', with a ribbon beautifully secured at the handle.

Thank you Farm Florist for the Hydrangea Box, it had definitely brightened up my day!

Why choose FARM Florist Singapore? Not only the price range is affordable, you can have the gorgeous bouquet plus a personalised message card sent to your recipient within an hour of ordering with the express delivery. And why not give your support to Farm Florist Singapore, they only partner farms that are sustainable with anti-slavery policies. Read more about it here. For more updates, do visit:

                                                    Facebook | Instagram | Website

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[Media Invite + Review] Lim Boon Keng, The Musical

[Media Invite]

I love how our local history is now brought to life through interactive and immersive exhibitions. Coinciding with Singapore's bi-centennial, I was looking forward with much anticipation when I got to read about the upcoming of our very own local production by Musical Theatre Live MTL as it is going to present to us, the first-ever musical of a prominent historical figure of Singapore in the early 20th century; Lim Boon Keng, The Musical.

Prior to the musical, I got Xav to read up a little on Dr Lim Boo Keng so that he could understand the musical better. Who is he actually? Think about Boon Keng Station and Boon Keng Road, this figure had played a prominent part for sure in shaping Singapore's history to have districts named after him.

What did he contribute to the people whom he had served and why did he end up being accused as the spy who collaborated with the Japanese during World War II. It was a great learning session for both of us as we attended the opening night of the musical together with Jenn and her son.

The most suitable candidate to write the script and lyrics for the musical is none other than the great-grand-daughter of Dr Lim Boon Keng, Stella Kon, who was also the renowned playwright behind Emily on Emerald Hill. Drawing on the family's memories and the historical events in the process of crafting the script for this 90 minutes musical with no intermission.

Photo credit: The Makeover Inc

Dr Lim Boon Keng, The Musical, had "Broadway Beng" Sebastian Tan starring as Dr Lim with his flamboyance turned serious stage performance this time, showcased the inspiration, dreams, contributions and love life of the young Dr Lim as well as the rich culture of Peranakans.

Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

Like the saying goes "Behind every successful man, is a strong woman." but Dr Lim had two! Both his wives championed strong feminism and supported him fully in their own ways. Unfortunately, Dr Lim's marriage with his first wife was shortlived as she passed on early.

Left: Sebastian Tan, Right: Audrey Lup (starring as Margaret), Dr Lim's first wife
Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

Left: Sebastian Tan, Right: Celine Rosa Tan (starring as Grace), Dr Lim's second wife
Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

Grace, who shared the same vision as Dr Lim, was also actively involved in community work. During Sino-Japanese war, Grace had organised donation drives for China Relief Fund, headed by Dr Lim and was detained when Singapore fell to Japanese in 1942 because of this. 

Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

Grace was detained by the Japanese and made to kneel down for hours under the hot sun to pressurize Dr Lim to head the Overseas Chinese Association to help raise funds for the Japanese War effort but he hardly took part in the activities and he was exonerated from the British Authorities after the war ended. 

Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

A successful musical does not need fanciful nor elaborate lightings and props. Lim Boon Keng, The Musical, had minimal props set up, no fanciful lightings nor elaborate props but they had a company of talented cast who had successfully retold and brought the life journey of Dr Lim to life with a normal projection of different scene against the backdrop of the stage and had the choral ensemble sang harmoniously on the upstage for certain scenes. You deserved a thunderous ovation from us! 

Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

We had definitely learnt more about Dr Lim, here is a summary given by Xav about Dr Lim's background and his contribution:
- First Chinese boy to receive a Queen's scholarship to study medicine.
- Founded OCBC Bank.
- Made education reforms and strongly supported the idea that girls should be given a chance to go to school and founded Singapore Chinese Girls' School. 
- Led the fight against opium smoking and founded an anti-opium society.
- Was forced to help Japanese raised funds and being labelled as a traitor or spy during Sino-Japanese War. 

Photo credit: Musical Theatre Live & AT Marketing & PR Consultancy

This 90-minutes show and will run from 10-13 October 2019, get your tickets from Sistic. Infants and Children below 5 yo are not permitted for the show. Children above 5 years and above would require an entry ticket.
Venue: Victoria Theatre
9 Empress Place
Singapore

Merci Beaucoup to Musical Theatre Live and AT Marketing and PR Consultancy for the invitation to this splendid performance!

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Wonderful Minds- Dermatoglyphics

Read this if you are:
- at your mid-life crisis and planned to have a career switch but have no clue on what you are actually good in and what is the next job you would like to land yourself in.

- facing parenting challenges from your child/children. If you think that you really know your child very well but apparently not and what parenting method suits best for the child as well as how to improve communication between parents and child.

- discussing with your child on their choice of the course they are planning to take on but is caught in a dilemma.

- you are managing a team and would like to find out the hidden talents or weakness of your staff and would like to improve their overall performance.

- curious to discover for yourself or for your child, out of the 8 intelligences, which intelligence is the strongest and the weakest and from there, you can choose to work on what has been suggested to improve it as well as which learning method suits the child best.

What comes to your mind when fingerprints are involved? Most of us will associate it to our unique identity but do you know that we can actually have neuro-mapping done by scanning the fingerprints of our ten fingers? Do you also know that different contours and markers on our fingerprints can actually tell us a lot more information about ourselves apart from that unique identity?

How did I chance upon this? I went on a trip with my poly friends and was having our night chat as usual. I shared about my parenting challenges with Xavier and I think she could sense my helplessness. Hence, she suggested me to give Wonderful Minds a try. It was a very simple and short process yet the analysis could bring insightful readings on one's persoonality traits and character on top of what I have mentioned at the beginning of the post.  

The report includes the tabulation of the Brain Capacity based on the fingerprints reading from our ten fingers, maps the 10 areas of the brain:

Thought Function (Left Brain (LB): logical & language ability, Right Brain (RB) Spatial and Creativity),

Kinesthetic Function (LB: Fine Motor Skill, RB: Gross Motor Skill),

Visual Function (LB: Visual & Observation Comprehension, RB: Visual and Image Appreciation), Auditory Function ( LB: Auditory & Language Appreciation, RB: Auditory and Music Appreciation)

Mental Function (LB: Communication Planning & Execution, RB: Leadership creation and Vision)

Read on as I am going to share some parts of the findings from Xav's report. Below picture shows the functional capacity of his brain. On the top right corner, it showed a reading of 338.33 which was derived that he has a very active brain even during sleep, unfortunately just like mine). Hence, his quality of sleep would not be good and the report has suggested ways to help calm his brain during bedtime. Do note that the brain capacity for every individual is different, so, do not compare. 

This table has findings from all his 10 fingers, the strength of learning style and what can help to strengthen. Click on the image below to enlarge, this is one page out of that few pages. 

The 8 kinds of intelligence from the strongest to the weakest, as well as learning recommendation as a guide for me as a reference.

He is by nature, a natural leader, probably the traits are not obvious now but I am definitely looking forward to see if the traits will show as he grows and matures.

In summary, this is what the report for Xav is about:
- Good with numbers
- Good at emulating (copy and learn) - highly influenced by good role models and environment.
- People-oriented, accommodates and get along well with others.
- Value relationship and togetherness -willing to go extra miles for family and loved ones.
- Takes action when motivated and vice versa.
- Very moulded and opened to absorb, willing to work hard and stay long in an industry or company.
- Highly emotional - gets affected easily by past experiences and emotions.

With a 'U' print on his right thumb, his talents could be natured and the weakness could progress from there weak/ average to strong.

By the way, this is not a sponsored post and these are the reasons why I would pay for this. This consists of a 16-page report which we could just do it once, keep and utilise the report for a lifetime as I do know that our fingerprints do not change as we grow but only enlarge.

I met up with Justin for the first appointment to have the scan done and the second appointment, to get the report (prints would be sent to the United States of America for analysis) from him and he explained the findings to me two weeks later.

If this report could help me understand Xav's mind even better, lessen my screamings and scoldings (yes, I am not a chill mom and I have low tolerance level for having to repeat and repeat umpteen times yet he still does not do it even though he knew he had to), before the relationship is strained further, why not! I got received a complimentary four-finger scan (worth $68) for Vera with a full paying pax for Xav at $299 nett. And I even paid to get a scan for myself too! How acccurate is this for Xav, I gave it 8.5 out of 10. Do check with Justin on the rate as the rate may differ due to the credits purchased.

Should you be keen to find out more or to engage this service, do drop a message to:
Justin, Mobile no: 97299073 

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