In 2008
Excerpt from PM Lee’s National Day Rally Speech in 2008 (http://bit.ly/2b06dpo)
在非经济领域里，外国人也让我们如虎添翼。 一个很明显的例子就是体育事业。我们的奥运会运动员25名，其中一半是新公民。为什么需要他们？你做一个简单的计算 — 中国13亿人，新加坡400万人。300多倍。他们每拿三百面奖牌，我们只有机会拿到一面。不用说中国，就是跟马来西亚比，他们2500万人左右，印尼两亿多人，也是我们的几十倍。 所以，如果我们要为新加坡争光的话，要有成绩的话，不只是体育界，而是许许多多的领域，我们都不能只靠土生土长的新加坡人。 我们应该网罗全世界的人才，为新加坡打拼。你看游泳小将陶李非常出色，女乒乓队今晚参加决赛，将为我们赢得四十多年来的第一面奖牌。
Paraphrased Translation:
“In non-economic areas, foreigners make us even more powerful. An obvious example is sports. Our Olympic athletes 25, half of them new citizens. Why do we need them? You do a simple calculation – China’s 1.3 billion people, 4 million people in Singapore. 300 times. They each take three hundred medals, we only have the opportunity to get on the side. Needless to say, China is bigger than Malaysia which has about 25 million people, and Indonesia with more than 200 million.
So, in many areas if we want to win honor for Singapore, not just in sports, we cannot rely on native Singaporeans only. Singapore should work very hard to recruit talent worldwide.
We now have a very good swimming teenager Tao Li, and a female table tennis team to participate in the finals tonight (2008 Summer Olympics). We will win the first medals in the Games after four decades.”
In 2016
Met Joseph Isaac Schooling and his parents, before the Parliamentary motion. Usually people ask me for selfies, but today I felt so proud to ask Joseph for one! 🙂 – LHL
Joseph Schooling Wins. Everyone Goes Nuts. from Ding Xiang Tan on Vimeo.