Workers' Party chief Pritam Singh receives scroll with inspiring message in Chinese calligraphy from Poly student
SINGAPORE: Pritam Singh recently received a special gift from a young resident of Eunos, the ward in Aljunied GRC he has been representing in Parliament since 2011.
The gift from polytechnic student Rui Yang was a scroll with Chinese calligraphy, containing a saying that the Workers’ Party secretary-general appeared to like very much indeed.
The scroll contains the characters 爱拼才会赢, or "Ai Pia Cia E Ya,” which means “you have to fight to win,” or “only by daring to fight can you win”.
The phrase is from the chorus of a classic 1987 Taiwanese Hokkien pop song of the same name sung by Ye Chi-tien. It famously contains the line, “thirty per cent is fate, seventy per cent is hard work.”
“Needless to say, I approve the message! #ifkyk Ai Pia FTW!” Mr Singh wrote.
Mr Yang had stopped by the WP’s Walk-to-Bond event last week to give Mr Singh the gift.
The WP chief shared a little bit more about why the scroll means a lot, saying that he could not imagine that Mr Yang had been rejected from his Chinese calligraphy CCA when he was in secondary school a few years ago. After that happened, the young man has been joining some Chinese calligraphy and painting competitions and continues to hone his craft to this day.
“Looking at the piece up close, there is something incredibly beautiful about a language and script that is not native to you. To me, it is a reminder that we live in a diverse world with different peoples and communities hosting their own experiences and seeing the world with a unique nuance and emphasis. Very hard not to feel humbled and moved when there is so much to appreciate about other races, religions and cultures,” wrote Mr Singh, encouraging Mr Yang to keep on keeping on, and wishing him the best in his studies.
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Like Mr Singh, commenters on the post also approved of the message.
One wrote, “Mr Pritam Singh… is getting even stronger and more comfortable with the residents and the supporters. ‘Only by striving/fighting hard can one win.’ This is a very strong message for the WP… I really appreciate it for his unwavering support for us residents.”
“Pritam, you are excellent! Glad you appreciate Chinese calligraphy,” added another.
"Beautiful calligraphy and using the original form, which is more difficult to write, yet he wrote it so beautifully. Jiayou 加油!” chimed in a third. /TISG