Out of an immense interest in acting since I was a kid, and a general lack of acting talent in the Singapore population; I got to act in some Singapore television serials when I was younger. No thanks to my mean looking mug, most of the time I got roles such as a small time gangster, or as an illegal porno vcd vender.

My most memorable television role, was in one episode of a big kungfu television production "Legend of the Condor Heroes"; as an evil kungfu beggar, who eventually died trapped as a snowman in the 'snowy mountains of China', or really, 'studio 2' in Mediacorp (Singapore's very own television company).

Since then, my 'blossoming' acting career came to a uneventful stop. But as fate would have it, I'd have another chance at regional notoriety.

Some months ago, in 2007, while I was back holidaying in Singapore, I had a gathering with one of my primary school friends. It turned out that she worked with the chinese newspaper and had contacts with Mediacorp who was working on a documentary about Singaporeans living abroad in exotic places, doing exotic things. She passed on my story and the producers liked it.

Just like that, on 3rd January 2008, a bare bones film crew consisting of a director, a cameraman and a hostess; the beautiful Belinda Lee (a former MTV asia VJ, now a Mediacorp actress), arrived at my doorstep.

"The documentary is titled 'Find me a Singaporean'." The director explained. "We have gone to places such as France, China, Africa, Peru and now Buenos Aires, to seek out Singaporeans living in these places, doing special, out of the ordinary things."

"Belinda would follow one week of your life here in Buenos Aires, doing exactly the same things you do. Some interviews of you and your friends would be conducted. Also Belinda would also give the viewers a day by day review of how she personally feels, living in a condition like this. In a nutshell, she'll put herself in your shoes for a week." She concluded.

So from tango lessons with Javier and Andrea, taking spanish lessons, taxi dancing with american tourists, running around the Ministry of Immigration and university to settle my student visa, etc, I had Belinda beside me and a camera in my face, for one whole week.

It was quite an interesting experience. Got a little bit complicated at times; for example, the time when the film crew was chased out of the Ministry of Immigration, or the time when the director had to pay Salon Canning a sum of money to film the milonga, or the time when the camera followed me around the dance floor in Salon Canning when I was taxi dancing with the tourists, like I was some kind of rock star...

...Nothing, however, would beat that particular time, when the director got inspired by the whole special tango ambient, that she decided to film a mini MTV-styled tango dance scene with Belinda and me dancing, in Caminito, La Boca; in order to cap an artistic end to the documentary.

It was all in good fun, in the end Belinda got to take some tango classes, danced a bit in the milongas with me and Gustavo, from Taipei. She had, in her words, 'grown to love tango and would definitely want to continue dancing.'

Hopefully a busy woman like her would continue to dance back in Singapore. A little star quality in a local community always makes things interesting.

As for me, I remembered the times back when I was in junior college, when my television shows aired, I would always get stares, friendly banter and even taunts from schoolmates and strangers. So I'm no stranger to the five minutes of fame; I take all these as a fun and interesting experience, nothing else.

I do have one hope for the documentary though. Which is that the documentary would provide an accurate insight to my life and motivations in Buenos Aires. So that when my mom gets to see it, she would have a better understanding of why and what I am doing in Argentina, henceforth ease her constant worries and doubts.

Singapore Filmcrew