FLY Social Exchange 2015

The phone call was extremely unexpected.

Irene Ang - THE Irene Ang - who is the boss of FLY Entertainment was on the other end of the line and she had a proposition I could not refuse. She invited me to be one of the panellists for her inaugural FLY Social Exchange, which is a platform whereby panelists from different fields will share their perspectives of a variety of topics that matter to us Singaporeans in a light, fun yet meaningful way; as well as to promote positive thinking and conversations among the online communities.

It was an absolute honour, especially when I found out who the rest of the panellists were.

Pat Law, Patricia Mok, Daniel Ang, Tosh Zhang and Haley Woo. All celebrities in their own right and heck, I am not even a celebrity. So you can imagine how awestruck I was to be in such wonderful company.

There were about 60 invited guests and the session at Bar Naked soon kicked off in earnest. With Irene as the moderator, you can be assured of laughter throughout the 1-hour informal sharing and it certainly did not disappoint.

The panel was asked what SG50 meant to us. Patricia offered that although Singapore is now more expensive to stay in but it is still very safe, so she is thankful that Singapore is able to celebrate her independence of 50 years. Haley mentioned it definitely offers a platform for more work while Tosh equates our 50 years to progress.

For me, I shared that SG50 meant the chance to be able to reminisce and expose our kids to the memories of the yesteryears - like the old sand-filled playgrounds. Compared to the newer, plastic ones with rubber mats that the kids know, it was probably more dangerous playing in an older playground, as grazes due to the coarse sand or bruises courtesy of the concrete structures were a common thing. But it was all part of a learning process, and we did eventually learn from our failures then.

Photo courtesy of FLY Entertainment

We were then asked how we can make a difference for the next 50 years. Pat Law believes in walking the talk - instead of just complaining and blaming the government for every single thing, channel the effort to doing something useful for the country instead. Daniel said that food is a big part of our culture as we love to connect over food. As a food blogger, he wants influencers not to be too judgemental in our reviews and to give businesses a chance to improve. After all, he did go back to a restaurant FOUR times just so that he could give them more chances to improve their terrible service.

And since I was in the business of parenting, I shared how I involve my kids in the posting of my blog posts and photos on my social media accounts. Since social media is never going to go away, I believe we should all start educating our kids about the perils of social media at a younger age and not completely ban them. 50 years ago, our parents would have never imagined that we will all be be able to read a book without a physical book so technology in the next 50 years will definitely evolve into something unthinkable. The only thing we can prepare our kids for is to be adaptable and flexible.

There was a short Q&A session after that and with all that done, it was time for selfies! Heh.

Jacelyn Tay, and her husband Brian Wong were present too and I was fortunate enough to converse with him. It turns out that both he and Jacelyn read my blog for ideas on where to bring their 4-year-old son! Wah, so honoured!

All in, it was a thoroughly enjoyable session - full of laughters and wonderful sharing. Thanks Irene, for the invite and here's to the next FLY Social Exchange!