Fried Rice Paradise — a local song, musical, and TV series; or in a Singlish term, “rojak”.
1. History of Fried Rice Paradise
Fried Rice Paradise is an original song composed by local Singaporean artist, Dick Lee, in 1973. However, before he released the song, Dick Lee went through several difficulties in life. His life story is best explained through a local feature film titled “Wonder Boy”, which is an autobiographical film of Dick Lee in his teenage years. In the film, he was only 16-year-old.
I am personally a fan of the movie, and have kept a copy of the DVD to date. For the purpose of this assignment, I have recorded several scenes of the film from my DVD and uploaded to this website for research purposes.
The film was set in the 1970s, and the main story arc was on how 16-year-old Dick Lee (played by Benjamin Kheng) was musically gifted. However, 1970s was also the time when Singapore was just developing, so the government had implemented several rules into the society, such as to disapprove the association of men with long hair, and to reject rock music. As a result, even though Dick Lee had the capability to compose several original music, they were all rejected by his peers, family and the public. In his own words, Dick Lee said the following:
On a side note, a reason to why 1970s was the time when long hairstyles for men were rejected, was because in the discotheques, men who had long hairstyles and revelled to rock music at that time were more likely to be suspected as drug abusers, as supported by the following The Straits Times archived article in 1973:
Dick Lee’s promising music career seemed to be going downhill until Vernon Cornelius, a Rediffussion DJ at that time, decided to give Dick Lee a chance. Vernon allowed Dick to compose and play fresh songs at the opening and closing segment of a talent competition organised by Rediffusion in 1973. One of the songs that Dick Lee composed was “Fried Rice Paradise”. An employee from WEA Records music label company heard the song and recorded it.
While Dick Lee mentioned that the song got banned immediately by local radio station RTS at that time because of the liberal use of Singlish in it, it was however aired defiantly by Rediffusion and supported heavily by the listeners. The fans kept “Fried Rice Paradise” and Dick Lee’s career alive. In his own words, Dick Lee said the following:
2. 1991 Fried Rice Paradise Musical
From mere lyrics of the song, Fried Rice Paradise was written into a musical and first staged in 1991.
In the library named “Library Outpost” at the Hive in Nanyang Technological University, I managed to borrow a recorded copy of that iconic musical staged in Victoria Theatre from 4–20 April 1991.
In the 1991 Fried Rice Paradise musical play, Dick Lee introduced a character named Bee Lean, middle-aged, who has a noodle stall. As Bee Lean approaches the age of retirement, she needs to decide which of her two daughters will be a better fit to take over the ownership of her stall. This musical was written as more of a ensemble piece.
3. 2010 Fried Rice Paradise Musical
Later in 2010, Dick Lee together with the People’s Association (PA) brought back the musical play, but with a remade version of the script. In this version, the musical presents a younger Bee Lean who struggles to survive in a rapidly changing Singapore. In order to create the sense of togetherness in a community and neighbourhood, as part of the themes important to PA, Jalan Calamansi was introduced in the musical as an old street where Bee Lean’s noodle stall (shophouse) was located at. The synopsis of the 2010 musical is as follows:
I managed to find someone on Carousell who was giving away multiple copies of the audio CD and programme booklet from the 2010 Fried Rice Paradise musical. Apparently, she had collected them after the musical at the reception. Some of the CDs were still unopened and neatly packed in plastic. The programme booklet also helped me to understand a lot better on the history of Fried Rice Paradise, as it has a personal message from Dick Lee written in it. I have also scanned a copy of the programme booklet onto Google Drive for archival purposes. In addition, I have kept two sets of the CD and programme booklet for myself, while the remaining sets have been given out to the class. It seemed like they were well received by our classmates as they were all “sold out”.
4. Live TV Performance of Fried Rice Paradise song
Separately, Dick Lee also made several live TV appearances. He sang Fried Rice Paradise for shows like President Star Charity 2007 and National Day Concert 2019.
5. 2019 Fried Rice Paradise Drama Series on Channel 5
The live TV performance in 2019 was expected, because it was part of a marketing stint to promote Fried Rice Paradise drama series that aired from July 2019.
Therefore, Fried Rice Paradise has turned from a mere song that was initially banned by local radio, to musical plays staged in theatre with the support of People’s Association, and finally to a Channel 5 primetime television drama series produced by MM2 Entertainment and Dick Lee himself.
The TV drama series adapts more from the 2010 musical play, rather than from the 1991 musical play. In the series, Bee Lean seeks to honour her late mother’s memory with her famous Fried Rice with Eight Spices. However, Bee Lean also encounters more setbacks in the process of turning her humble noodle-shop into Fried Rice Paradise the restaurant. Meanwhile, there is also a dark mystery to how Bee Lean’s mother actually passed away.
Mediacorp has also uploaded all 13 episodes onto YouTube as an alternative viewing platform. Therefore, the Fried Rice Paradise drama series was aired on Channel 5, and is now available for catch-up on YouTube and Toggle as well.
With the dark mystery revolving around Bee Lean’s mother death, the theme of the drama series is therefore not as joyous as the musical plays and the original song. The theme is darker, which explains the darker version of the remade Fried Rice Paradise song now available on toggle as well.
6. Conclusion
Overall, one take away from this research that allowed me to better understand the local TV culture is on the censorship of Singlish. While Fried Rice Paradise was a song initially banned by local radio stations for its liberal usage of Singlish, the song was later unbanned and remade into musical plays, performed on national TV, and adapted into a national TV primetime drama series, thanks to the support of the public and the government. Perhaps this shows how despite the fact that the government pushes for Speak Good English movement, Singlish is still very much pragmatic in Singapore. It fosters a sense of togetherness for Singaporeans as a whole, and might even come in handy as an ideal way of communication to Singaporeans in times of national crisis. For example, during the SARS crisis, Phua Chu Kang sang the SARS song in Singlish so as to ensure every Singaporean clearly understood the seriousness of the disease (Lazar, 2009).
All in all, I feel that bringing back Fried Rice Paradise onto national TV as a drama series is a wise choice to once again foster the sense of togetherness in the Singapore community.
7. References
- DVD of WonderBoy film — Personal Collection
- Scenes of WonderBoy film — Personal Collection
- DVDs and Screenshot for 1991 Fried Rice Paradise musical play in Victoria Theatre — Borrowed from Library Outpost at the Hive in NTU
- 2010 Fried Rice Paradise Musical Programme Booklet and Audio CDs — Given free from an individual on Carousell (User ID: starry007)
- Pereira, G. (1973, Oct 23). Discos tighten up entry rules after warning by Minister. The Straits Times. Retrieved from National Library Board.
- Loretta Marie, Perera & Audrey. (2010, Aug). Vernon Cornelius: Singing through the Sixties. Retrieved from National Library Board.
- (2014, July 29). The younger Dick Lee picture [photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.mens-folio.com/14772/in-conversation-singaporean-cultural-icon-dick-lee/
- Tsavorite06. (2007, Oct 6). President Star Charity 2007 — Dick Lee — Fried Rice Paradise [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUYfjwfKPuQ
- Michael Tay. (2019, Aug 11). Fried Rice Paradise — Dick Lee [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzhX4Rbc-z8
- Lazar, M. M. (2009). Language ideologies and state imperatives: the strategic use of Singlish in public media discourse In S. Johnson & T. M. Milani (Eds.), Language Ideologies and Media Discourse: Texts, Practices, Politics (pp. 121–138). A&C Black.
