Mr Brown at SMU

If you've been in Singapore for a fairly long period of time I think you would have heard Mr Brown (AKA Lee Kin Mun) mentioned at some point (a friend described him as Singapore's equivalent to Jay Lenno?). He points out the weird and dysfunctional things about Singapore in his satirical blog and as that grew in popularity, he created the Mr Brown Show, which hosts his podcasts and parodies. In addition to that, as a self proclaimed social media junkie and "geek" he also created the WTF! show (That's "Wah! That's Fierce!" by the way), which focuses on gadgets and technology, and the "See What Show".

So, yesterday Mr Brown came to SMU and shared with us his life, passions and love of poking fun at the government Singapore. I've only seen his photos and profile pictures, and the one that I remembered more clearly was his twitter profile (because I've become slightly addicted to that lately), then when he arrived he looked a lot slimmer and trimmer. Later I found out that he used to be pretty big in size and if you look for him on Wikipedia and compare his photo there to what he looks like now (see below), he's done really well for himself! Well done on all your hard efforts Mr Brown =) (I hope you get better sleep now).

He shared with us some of his spoofs such as 'send ah kong' (means send Grandfather) and "Mee Siam mai hum" (Click here for the explanation if you don't understand) and other government blunders topics that he's been following. His presentation was refreshing and funny, it really showed me the stupid a different side to Singapore and he's proof that Singaporeans do have a good sense of humour.

Even though I had only heard of Mr Brown 2 months ago, I could tell more about his personality in that one hour presentation than I could reading his online materials. He's a really humble and down to earth guy living in a HDB flat, has a love for cycling (which is now his main mode of transport), a great sense of humour, young at heart, a loving husband and father, proud Singaporean (despite what you may gather from his writings) and probably has the best job in the world. You can tell he enjoys what he does through his creativity in his podcasts and the other sites that he hosts.

It was a great end to a stressful week and I wish him all the best in his future projects! =)
*Hmm...According to him I do sound like a Singaporean, so perhaps I should continue to follow his stuff when I return to the UK to keep in touch with my inner Singaporean?*

Me with Mr Brown