Satay sends me her in-depth analysis of Singapore's recent spat with Taiwan, the one where we get called a piece of pi-sai (booger) and got accused of carrying China's balls. Satay is a former child swimming prodigy and national treasure, who has this skill for "farcical first time meetings with public officials".
The Straits Times states that Foreign Minister Mark Chen "accused Singapore of sucking up to China, using a graphic expletive in Taiwanese dialect to make the point."
As part of this site's public service to Singapore, you may wish to know that the expletive he used was "l*mpar". Yes, a Taiwan Foreign Minister used the word "l*mpar" in official foreign matters. Classy, right?
I bet the folk at Ministry of Foreign Affairs, especially former NS men, had to control themselves from responding in kind ("Lim ah, please make sure we use the phrase 'Resorting to intemperate language cannot assuage these concerns', instead of the original Hokkien sentence you composed, ok?").
Never mind, I help to craft the unofficial Singapore response for them, using a "vernacular" too.
"N*bei, this kind of ch**bye l*ncheow thing also can say. Want to make we all t*lan issit?"
Excerpt:
Well, well, if it isn't this, it's something else. Singapore always seems to find new ways to piss people off. But that's not the problem here, it's how we get slammed in response ... and with such colorful language. If there is anything Singaporeans should be insulted by, is Taiwan's complete violation of our hygiene standards.
SO! Taiwan Foreign minister Chen Tan-sun went ape-shit over comments made by Singapore's foreign minister, George Yeo, who recently used a speech to the UN's General Assembly to warn about the risks of China-Taiwan tensions and warned that Taiwan could drag in other countries if it continued to pursue independence.