BELINDA YEO - “Today's deejays sound fake “
THE sun may have set on the Sunshine girl as far as her radio days go, but her retirement from Radio Corporation Singapore last year after 40 years in the business has not dulled Belinda Yeo.
Listen to her: 'Today's deejays are fake. They sound fake, they have neither the knowledge nor the passion. They are all into glamour and fame, divas for adulation.
'(Back then) we did everything ourselves. Today you have programme directors, so you don't bother to find out more yourself. I find the current crop of deejays do not enrich my life with any information.'
NO MINCING WORDS
Never one to mince her words, nor waste it, her four decades in broadcasting is now behind her freelance work, training newbies and wannabes in speech and articulation for radio presenting.
Classmates in university remember Belinda Sunshine Yeo clattering into the lecture hall in a short skirt, can-can petticoat, coloured stockings, heeled boots, and ribbons flailing from her hair.
It is the 1960s, of swinging pop and fashion, and independence.
'I was too advanced for my time,' Belinda Sunshine explained the mental picture.
We are in The Attic, her younger brother Bobby's all-import record shop in Novena Square 2.
The moniker 'Sunshine' stuck from her days in St Andrew's where the Pre-U student was a cheerleader for the school's rugby team.
That beam from Singapore's original rock chick would go on to infuse radio waves for 40 years. From RTS to SBC to RCS (Radio Television Singapore, Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Corporation Singapore).
She is reticent to give away her years. When pressed, those red fingernails drew the figures 6 and 0 in the air, 'You know, when you reach (60)...' leaving one to surmise you are cut loose.
Early radio days, she raved all night, stopped by sarabat for breakfast after and was at the turntable in the studio for the 8am news. The names roll off, Shangri-La, Xanadu, Ming Court's Barbarella.
For a rock chick, her lingo is retro, 'the gang', 'our haunt', 'in my heyday', 'the hubby'.
The hubby part is little known.
In private, Belinda Sunshine is a Mrs Lin, married 23 years to one of the music pioneers of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
By choice they have no children.
'You know, I am always on the go.'
She's stayed with the first love of music and radio a solid unbroken 40 years, un-publicly retiring only last year, an institution herself on Caldecott Hill. Like Brian Richmond, another familiar, confident, reassuring voice to rise to and drive by.
The girl is a veritable archive of the last quarter century when it comes to radio news and hit parades and celebrity gossip.
When quizzed on upcoming German rock group Tokio Hotel, she sussed that 'It's not a hotel?'
She admits to be up on MTV only 'to the '90s', her preferred sounds, Megadeth, Metallica, heavy metal, and rock.
Belinda Sunshine is a 'Katong girl' and grew up privileged. Both grandfather and father were bank compradores - Chinese middlemen for Western companies and banks.
'You know in those days a bank compradore was something, my grandmother's feet never touched the road.'
There followed colourful anecdotes about the childhood in a Peranakan household.
'My grandmother would go from the bungalow house into the car, the driver would drive her everywhere and then back home, she never set foot on the street.'
Belinda Sunshine's mother was the daughter-in-law favoured to comb and dress the old lady's chignon (bun). Meanwhile, the old man, grandfather would reach for his gun.
'My aunts were quite flirtatious, and if by dinner time there was no sight of them, my grandfather would get out his gun.'
She was called 'Baby' and said, 'Actually my full name is Baby Belinda Sunshine Yeo.'
On air she is simply Belinda Sunshine, starting as assistant producer on RTS to final gig for RSI (Radio Singapore International).
A not much recalled fact, she kick-started Perfect 10 (with Florence Lian, Suresh Menon, Dahlia Zee, Philip Chew) and 'In a year we killed Zoo Radio' (the station from Batam that all of Singapore was hooked on).
DARLING OF THE AIRWAVES
The darling of the airwaves, as she was dubbed, also earned her chops as announcer for the Prime Minister's (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) rallies in the '70s in the National Theatre.
'I was the backstage announcer and then I would escort Mr Lee onstage.'
Other famous people she met and interviewed - oh hundreds - are of Mr Lee's vintage and likely to ring a bell for only babyboomers. Elizabeth Taylor, Cliff Richard, Eartha Kitt, Roger Moore, Helen Reddy.
Most memorable has to be Ricky Martin, who planted one on her.
'You know I'm quite a chi-cha-por (overly chatty woman). He noticed me, said I was cute, pinched my cheek and kissed me on the mouth!'
She thanks Lady Luck - not for the Ricky Martin kiss - but for a long career with no major glitches. And for the strength to lug a heavy duty tape recorder and spools of tape on daily rounds.
'The only difficulty has been language, like Jackie Chan, who took me aside to the Jubilee Hall toilet to say 'ngor (my) English no so good, can kong kongfu (speak Cantonese)?'!'
Now a part-time duty announcer with MediaCorp, she also grooms the future generation of broadcasters.
If she could, she'd love to man 'a pirate radio station - like Radio Caroline - and play all the banned stuff'.
'I would rock the world.'
We could take a shine to that.
- By : Sylvia Toh Paik Choo, Thu, Apr 10, 2008, The New Paper
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