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SINGAPORE: They knew President Tharman Shanmugaratnam was an avid sportsman in his youth and was a Liverpool fan. They also knew he had four children, all grown up now.
But try as they may, this group of neurodivergent people — who were getting the chance to interview him — could not gather any public information about his mother.
So when Durkeswaran Krishnan got to ask a question, the 18-year-old with cerebral palsy wanted the president to tell them about his mum.
Thus they — and now the rest of Singapore — learnt that she has been “a wonderful mother” who was born in Kuala Lumpur before she came here.
“She’s been a homemaker her whole life, bringing up the family. So she didn’t work outside,” said the president, who had grandparents in both Malaysia and Singapore.
“Homemakers are people who were responsible for so much of Singapore because all of us grew up under our parents — some with a single parent, most with two parents. And we owe a lot to them.”
Durkeswaran Krishnan, a student with cerebral palsy, listening intently to President Tharman.
For the first time on Singaporean television, in CNA’s The Assembly, a panel of neurodiverse individuals got to be budding journalists and put well-known personalities in the hot seat.
And there was one more question Durkeswaran had for the president about his mother: What was one life lesson he learnt from her?
The first lesson the president cited: Don’t waste food. “If you have a meal in front of you, finish everything,” he said.
“When I was growing up, I was always eating with my hands. And when you eat with your hands, and you’ve got a little bit of sauce on the plate, … you can wipe the sauce completely off with your fingers and finish it off.
“I still enjoy doing that.”
The president fielded a few questions about his parents.
His mother also taught him to live with “very little pocket money”: enough for the bus fare and one soft drink at recess.
“I appreciate that she brought me up not feeling that I needed to have very much,” he said. “It’s a good way to grow up.”
The personal questions came thick and fast in this episode of The Assembly, broadcast last night. But there was interest too in his presidential role.
One of the questions, asked by Trevor Lee, was what President Tharman would do if he disapproved of his children’s choice of boyfriend or girlfriend.
Trevor Lee (standing) said he wore a batik shirt just for the president.
The 24-year-old with autism was surprised when the president said he and his wife had “never commented” to their children about this. And the couple “haven’t had a problem so far”.
“They can tell for themselves whether we like their friends. But we don’t feel it’s right for us to comment or tell them whether we think, ‘Yes, this is a very good person’ or ‘Maybe you should be looking for someone else,’” he said.
“The main thing is, people who are looking for a partner, eventually to get married, must be looking for someone they respect and love. That’s what matters.”
He and his wife, Ms Jane Ittogi, have been married for 34 years. And the question of whether they have ever fought was on the mind of Josiah Yeap, 23, who has Kabuki syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder.
WATCH: Neurodivergent journalists ask Singapore’s president personal questions, in the Assembly (2:54)
It raised a laugh from the president, who quipped: “Not physically.”
Then he added: “It’s normal for married couples to disagree with each other and have arguments. But we never have arguments that lead to us feeling really bad about each other.
Rainer Khoo, 26, who has Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder, wanted to know whether Ms Ittogi cooks for him. This was when the president shared that she never really did.
“Because early in our married life, I did more of the cooking,” he said. “We don’t really believe in the wife having to cook for the husband or anything like that.”
Rainer Khoo asking the president his question.
It seemed to 25-year-old Emily Yap, who has dyslexia, that he was “good at so many things” and always “so confident” — which is why she wondered if there was any “personal insecurity” that might be a struggle for him.
There was indeed, namely “to be disciplined and to get everything done in time”, he replied, “when I was young as well as through life”.
“I do what I enjoy at each point in time. I’ll probably be more effective if I was more disciplined,” he continued.
“It was a huge weakness when I was young — huge weakness because I found it very hard to pay attention in class, in school. It was just part of my character … even when I was in my 20s.”
WATCH: The full episode — President Tharman faces tough questions from neurodivergent interviewers (24:15)
Conversely, if there was one passion that drove his younger self, it was sport. Asked about one thing about himself he would never change, President Tharman said he would never stop liking sport.
“I might add music, but sports came first,” said the president, who as a youngster was active in hockey, athletics, football and cricket, among other sports. “I grew up playing sports every single day, even on Sundays.”
He remembered an instance where, at about the age of 15, he had an arm injury and was supposed to play hockey that day. Despite the injury, he insisted on going to hockey practice.
“But because I couldn’t use my arms, I decided to play as goalkeeper, where you don’t need to be using your arms so much, and you use your legs as well,” he recounted. “So, I love sports.”
Nowadays, he does not do any serious sport but does exercise, he said. Does he play golf, however, as other heads of state do, asked Michael Ooi, 19, who has autism.
Michael Ooi had a hole in one before, he proudly told President Tharman.
“I used to play golf some years ago but very rarely,” replied the president.
As the interview turned to his presidency, Prithviraj Kumar Basu, who has mild autism, questioned what would happen if he were to disagree with the prime minister. “Will that be considered high treason?” asked the 26-year-old.
In response, the president noted that he and the prime minister have different roles.
“There are some things that the prime minister and the government want to do that require the president to also agree — not everything but some things,” he said.
“If the president doesn’t agree, it’s not a big fight, but the matter has to be reconsidered. Sometimes it has to be reconsidered by the whole of the parliament, or sometimes the government will reconsider it.
“You may have a different judgement on what the right thing to do is, but it doesn’t mean you have to be against each other. And I think it’s important that, as much as possible, the president and the prime minister don’t feel they’re opposing each other or on opposing sides.”
Prithviraj Kumar Basu was also the one who welcomed President Tharman to The Assembly, a show where “anything can happen”, he said.
In the first place, what exactly does Singapore’s president do, 44-year-old Jaspreet Kaur, who has Down’s syndrome, wanted to know.
For one thing, his is not a political role, said the president.
“So I’m not a minister. … I meet people who are doing things on the ground to help others. I meet groups of people who are trying to improve themselves,” he continued, citing people with disability as an example.
“And I must say that one of the things I’ve learnt as a president, now that I’m spending more time with people with disability, is you can be astounded and very impressed by the abilities that people with disability have.”
It is something that was reinforced for him as his time on The Assembly came to a close.
Time for a group selfie at the end of the session.
“The main thing, I suppose, that runs through all the questions and all the answers is, actually, we’re not very different from each other,” he told his interviewers.
“All of you have obviously got abilities — from the way you asked your questions, from the research you’ve done. And we just have to appreciate what each of us is bringing.”
Watch the full interview with President Tharman here. Catch the next episode of The Assembly, featuring singer Kit Chan, next Wednesday at 9pm.
Source: CNA/dp
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FAST
SINGAPORE: They knew President Tharman Shanmugaratnam was an avid sportsman in his youth and was a Liverpool fan. They also knew he had four children, all grown up now.
But try as they may, this group of neurodivergent people — who were getting the chance to interview him — could not gather any public information about his mother.
So when Durkeswaran Krishnan got to ask a question, the 18-year-old with cerebral palsy wanted the president to tell them about his mum.
Thus they — and now the rest of Singapore — learnt that she has been “a wonderful mother” who was born in Kuala Lumpur before she came here.
“She’s been a homemaker her whole life, bringing up the family. So she didn’t work outside,” said the president, who had grandparents in both Malaysia and Singapore.
“Homemakers are people who were responsible for so much of Singapore because all of us grew up under our parents — some with a single parent, most with two parents. And we owe a lot to them.”
Durkeswaran Krishnan, a student with cerebral palsy, listening intently to President Tharman.
For the first time on Singaporean television, in CNA’s The Assembly, a panel of neurodiverse individuals got to be budding journalists and put well-known personalities in the hot seat.
And there was one more question Durkeswaran had for the president about his mother: What was one life lesson he learnt from her?
The first lesson the president cited: Don’t waste food. “If you have a meal in front of you, finish everything,” he said.
“When I was growing up, I was always eating with my hands. And when you eat with your hands, and you’ve got a little bit of sauce on the plate, … you can wipe the sauce completely off with your fingers and finish it off.
“I still enjoy doing that.”
The president fielded a few questions about his parents.
His mother also taught him to live with “very little pocket money”: enough for the bus fare and one soft drink at recess.
“I appreciate that she brought me up not feeling that I needed to have very much,” he said. “It’s a good way to grow up.”
The personal questions came thick and fast in this episode of The Assembly, broadcast last night. But there was interest too in his presidential role.
FAMILY MATTERS
One of the questions, asked by Trevor Lee, was what President Tharman would do if he disapproved of his children’s choice of boyfriend or girlfriend.
Trevor Lee (standing) said he wore a batik shirt just for the president.
The 24-year-old with autism was surprised when the president said he and his wife had “never commented” to their children about this. And the couple “haven’t had a problem so far”.
“They can tell for themselves whether we like their friends. But we don’t feel it’s right for us to comment or tell them whether we think, ‘Yes, this is a very good person’ or ‘Maybe you should be looking for someone else,’” he said.
“The main thing is, people who are looking for a partner, eventually to get married, must be looking for someone they respect and love. That’s what matters.”
He and his wife, Ms Jane Ittogi, have been married for 34 years. And the question of whether they have ever fought was on the mind of Josiah Yeap, 23, who has Kabuki syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder.
WATCH: Neurodivergent journalists ask Singapore’s president personal questions, in the Assembly (2:54)
It raised a laugh from the president, who quipped: “Not physically.”
Then he added: “It’s normal for married couples to disagree with each other and have arguments. But we never have arguments that lead to us feeling really bad about each other.
Rainer Khoo, 26, who has Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder, wanted to know whether Ms Ittogi cooks for him. This was when the president shared that she never really did.
“Because early in our married life, I did more of the cooking,” he said. “We don’t really believe in the wife having to cook for the husband or anything like that.”
Rainer Khoo asking the president his question.
It seemed to 25-year-old Emily Yap, who has dyslexia, that he was “good at so many things” and always “so confident” — which is why she wondered if there was any “personal insecurity” that might be a struggle for him.
There was indeed, namely “to be disciplined and to get everything done in time”, he replied, “when I was young as well as through life”.
“I do what I enjoy at each point in time. I’ll probably be more effective if I was more disciplined,” he continued.
“It was a huge weakness when I was young — huge weakness because I found it very hard to pay attention in class, in school. It was just part of my character … even when I was in my 20s.”
WATCH: The full episode — President Tharman faces tough questions from neurodivergent interviewers (24:15)
TALKING SPORT, THE PRESIDENCY AND DISABILITY
Conversely, if there was one passion that drove his younger self, it was sport. Asked about one thing about himself he would never change, President Tharman said he would never stop liking sport.
“I might add music, but sports came first,” said the president, who as a youngster was active in hockey, athletics, football and cricket, among other sports. “I grew up playing sports every single day, even on Sundays.”
He remembered an instance where, at about the age of 15, he had an arm injury and was supposed to play hockey that day. Despite the injury, he insisted on going to hockey practice.
“But because I couldn’t use my arms, I decided to play as goalkeeper, where you don’t need to be using your arms so much, and you use your legs as well,” he recounted. “So, I love sports.”
Nowadays, he does not do any serious sport but does exercise, he said. Does he play golf, however, as other heads of state do, asked Michael Ooi, 19, who has autism.
Michael Ooi had a hole in one before, he proudly told President Tharman.
“I used to play golf some years ago but very rarely,” replied the president.
As the interview turned to his presidency, Prithviraj Kumar Basu, who has mild autism, questioned what would happen if he were to disagree with the prime minister. “Will that be considered high treason?” asked the 26-year-old.
In response, the president noted that he and the prime minister have different roles.
“There are some things that the prime minister and the government want to do that require the president to also agree — not everything but some things,” he said.
“If the president doesn’t agree, it’s not a big fight, but the matter has to be reconsidered. Sometimes it has to be reconsidered by the whole of the parliament, or sometimes the government will reconsider it.
“You may have a different judgement on what the right thing to do is, but it doesn’t mean you have to be against each other. And I think it’s important that, as much as possible, the president and the prime minister don’t feel they’re opposing each other or on opposing sides.”
Prithviraj Kumar Basu was also the one who welcomed President Tharman to The Assembly, a show where “anything can happen”, he said.
In the first place, what exactly does Singapore’s president do, 44-year-old Jaspreet Kaur, who has Down’s syndrome, wanted to know.
For one thing, his is not a political role, said the president.
“So I’m not a minister. … I meet people who are doing things on the ground to help others. I meet groups of people who are trying to improve themselves,” he continued, citing people with disability as an example.
“And I must say that one of the things I’ve learnt as a president, now that I’m spending more time with people with disability, is you can be astounded and very impressed by the abilities that people with disability have.”
It is something that was reinforced for him as his time on The Assembly came to a close.
Time for a group selfie at the end of the session.
“The main thing, I suppose, that runs through all the questions and all the answers is, actually, we’re not very different from each other,” he told his interviewers.
“All of you have obviously got abilities — from the way you asked your questions, from the research you’ve done. And we just have to appreciate what each of us is bringing.”
Watch the full interview with President Tharman here. Catch the next episode of The Assembly, featuring singer Kit Chan, next Wednesday at 9pm.
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Source: CNA/dp
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