Local actress-singer Celest Chong 張玉華 has returned to Singapore after spending 13 years in Canada and she’s getting ready for her first concert here since entering showbiz decades ago.
She chats with AsiaOne about coming home, how the seeds she sowed before leaving have now grown and her dog making a new best friend here. We also test her on how much she remembers about Singapore.
She chats with AsiaOne about coming home, how the seeds she sowed before leaving have now grown and her dog making a new best friend here. We also test her on how much she remembers about Singapore.
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00:00 Can you remember and recite the Singapore Pledge?
00:03 Hello everybody, I'm Celeste Chong and I am here at Asia 1.
00:16 Well, joyous, you know, like listening to my mother laugh and how much she loves my dog.
00:28 It's pretty incredible watching her and my dog becoming bestest friends and buddies.
00:34 And my puppy being truly happy that she has found my mom, her newest bestie and family.
00:43 And they have jelled so much that it warms my heart every time seeing my mother call him.
00:50 And, you know, she fussing over him. It's just been really, truly beautiful.
00:54 What is your biggest fear?
00:58 I have moved to so many different countries that in the beginning, I think the fear was always to start from zero again.
01:09 You have to work your way around, you know, you have to, you get to know new people,
01:13 you get to know the production there, how things function, how things click.
01:19 Moving to Canada was also a brand new experience because the whole entire scene is different,
01:26 how self tapes were being done.
01:28 And during that time when COVID hit, it also changed the way casting was made.
01:34 Instead of going into a room where you have your executive producer, your director, your casting directors,
01:41 now you have to do self tapes. So you have to become self tape savvy.
01:46 Self taping and auditioning, I find becoming an actor in that way is weird because they give you a script,
01:53 they give you a character breakdown, but really it's up to you to create that character.
01:59 It's been so much fun. I've gotten so good at auditions that, yeah,
02:04 that I landed really, really great roles in very big productions.
02:09 So that was a real good experience for me.
02:15 How has the pandemic changed your life?
02:19 Truthfully, I've only been back for the month of November until now.
02:25 So now it's March, so it's only been about four months, I think.
02:30 When I came back, actually, I really wasn't expecting anything.
02:34 Like I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what I was going to do.
02:40 I just knew I had to come home and it was time.
02:44 And so far, I'm actually pretty blown away.
02:48 It's like all the seeds I'd sown for so many years before leaving have grown tremendously.
02:57 I mean, people are still listening to my songs.
03:00 I've got about 38,000 people a month listening to me on Spotify now, which I didn't think was still going on.
03:10 My one particular song has like 50 million people just listening to it on one China site.
03:17 So it's incredible how everything you sowed, somehow other grows into seeds and flowered while I was away.
03:28 So, yeah, it's a very interesting career.
03:31 I feel you grow things, you make things happen, and they keep people company for years and years and years.
03:38 And you still get new audiences.
03:40 I kind of believe in just life, you know, and this unpredictability.
03:56 Like you never know who you're going to meet that is going to create something or create something else or work with you in a different way.
04:04 The only thing predictable about it is change and to embrace the changes and to meet the people that I've met.
04:12 I met Michael Goh because I was doing an interview, a radio show, and given the opportunity to do my own concert here.
04:21 My first concert in Singapore, finally.
04:23 The last single concert I did was in Taiwan.
04:27 So it was, I think, 15 years ago, but I find that a lot of Singaporean people want to hear me sing live this time.
04:37 I think they're really welcoming.
04:39 It seems like my music has gone through many journeys with many different peoples and in many different ways.
04:47 You know, like it has kept them company through some of their hardest times.
04:51 I brought them some really warm memories and I feel a lot of Singaporeans prefer the first album.
04:59 So I was just seeping through all my songs and good grief, do I have like too many songs?
05:06 And to actually just only choose 15, I decided, you know what, fans, you guys decide.
05:12 Give me your votes, cast me your votes.
05:13 Whoever gets the most votes on the most songs, I will perform the songs live for you.
05:18 So that's so far what's been going on.
05:21 I would love to.
05:28 I think ultimately it's, like I said, it's a beautiful thing to create a character.
05:36 Whatever they give you, it is up to you how you act.
05:42 The character, how you say the lines, where you put nuances, where you put a part of yourself,
05:49 your decision of what this character is into the role that makes this character memorable or likeable.
05:57 Every single role is like your own baby.
06:00 It's like, oh, OK, great, now I'm cuddling this baby.
06:03 So does this baby like to be cuddled this way, you know, or some other way?
06:09 I don't know. So it kind of depends on what you do with it.
06:12 It really is ultimately a baby that's given to you.
06:16 And then how do you want to dress this baby?
06:19 You know, are you going to allow this baby to cry all the time?
06:22 How are you going to, you know, take care of this baby?
06:24 How are you going to teach this baby to become your own?
06:28 [Music]
06:41 Uh, no.
06:47 I remember, but I refuse to recite it.
06:53 School.
06:54 [Music]
07:00 ERP, electronic pricing system, electronic, ERP, electronic rated pricing.
07:10 Oh, well, yeah, I was going to get that for the second one, electronic road pricing.
07:15 Ta-da, OK.
07:17 [Music]
07:22 There is one kampong left in the Singapore mainland?
07:25 I didn't even know that. I thought they were all gone.
07:29 Kampong Glam? It's not considered a kampong.
07:34 Yeah, I know, but yeah, it's not a kampong.
07:37 [Music]
07:42 After being in the industry for 30 years, I finally have my own concert in Singapore.
07:48 To come on down, you know, because this is such a rare opportunity. It's three decades in the making.
07:53 So I would really, really love to see everybody because it's a small little concert,
07:59 which means that we will have a lot of time to actually be closer together.
08:05 We would have time to talk to each other. We would have time to photograph.
08:09 It's going to be a really close, intimate event.
08:13 And I so look forward to it because this is the first time we're actually having an intimate event.
08:19 So, of course, the whole entire music direction, the whole entire feeling of it all, the musicians.
08:27 We won't have a big drum set. It will be percussions.
08:30 It might go more acristic, but it will definitely be powerful.
08:35 And that is one thing I'm working very hard toward.
08:38 So please come down and let's relive everything that we've heard and that we've grown up with
08:46 and relive all the good times that we've had and move forward and charge towards the future.
08:53 [Music]
09:01 [Music]