SINGAPORE — Someone recently thought that House Speaker Tan Chun-Jin was Health Minister Ong Ye Kung, Mr Tan wrote in a Sunday (Jan 15) Facebook post.
The Speaker wrote that a guest asked him, “You are Mr Ong Ye Kung right?” Mr Tan took that as a joke and answered, ”errrr. No. I’m Mr Chan Chun Sing.”
“Ok. Kidding. Told him who I was. This is a first! I’m normally mistaken for Chan Chun Sing and apparently vice versa. First time identified as Ong Ye Kung,” Mr Tan continued in his post, followed by a grinning emoji.
As for being mistaken for Mr Ong, maybe a certain TikTok about Muay Thai is behind it.
@ongyekung When your good friend jios you for Muay Thai, you do Muay Thai. #HealthierSG
“When your good friend jios you for Muay Thai, you do Muay Thai. #HealthierSG,” Mr Ong wrote in a TikTok last November.
In it, the two men can be seen in a fight that ended in a draw and afterwards ribbing each other, saying that “luckily” their opponent was “not so strong.”
And in the end, they pushed for keeping healthy and fit, with Mr Ong saying, “There’s a sport for everyone.”
Commenters on Mr Tan’s Jan 15 post took part in the fun.
In 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, one netizen responded to a tweet from Mr Tan, attributing to him some remarks that had been made by Mr Chan. The Speaker uncharacteristically clapped back and put the netizen in his place, which earned him praise from netizens.
The exchange was screen capped by one netizen, who wrote, “Tan Chuan Jin is officially the coolest Singaporean on Twitter tonight.”
In a 2016 interview on Mediacorp’s Channel 8, Mr Chan revealed that he had been RJC batchmates with Messrs Tan, Ong and Tong.
Mr Chan is the Education Minister. The three men are all the fourth generation (4G) leaders of the ruling People’s Action Party. They are also the same age, having been born in 1969, and attended Raffles Junior College (RJC) simultaneously, along with Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong.
Mr Chan talked about how smart the Speaker and the Health Minister had been when they were in school together, although Mr Chan was the one who ended up as the President’s Scholar in 1988, Mothership pointed out. /TISG
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