'How do I boil water?' Elvin Ng's (mis)adventures in US leave him lost and confused

It was just a brief moment but local actor Elvin Ng embarrassed himself in the US.

Elvin, who is now in New York for a four-week film course, has been posting updates about his life over there on his Instagram page.

In a video on Tuesday (July 5), Elvin, 41, shared his plan for the day: Shopping for necessities. He needed "everything [his] room doesn't have", including things like rags, bedsheets and pillows.

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While he was picking out kettles, however, the actor encountered a minor setback.

Raising a stovetop kettle in his hand, Elvin said in his video: "Let me tell you guys a joke. I was looking at this kettle and I was thinking, 'How do I boil water?'"

But Elvin had an excuse.

He was looking for the port where he could plug the power cable in, the celebrity explained. Without it, how would he boil water in that kettle?

"And then I asked someone to help me — they told me that this [kettle] is meant to be placed on a stove," Elvin said.

"Not having done housework is kind of…" The actor trailed off in Mandarin, sucking air through his teeth and grimacing at his own momentary silliness.

But his misadventures didn't stop there.

In another video, the actor filmed his journey on the subway and found himself lost.

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Commenting that the train had "a lot of stops" and "a lot of changes", he summarily said that it "wasn't easy" to take the subway and that it was confusing.

A few moments later in the video, Elvin can be seen walking on the train station's platform. Talking to the camera, he said: "I just got out of the train, I think I went in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go."

However, he eventually managed to find his way to his destination. "I think getting lost on the subway is part of this whole trip — a natural rite of passage," Elvin said.

And that's not all — he also admitted to watching a Broadway musical in New York for the first time.

In a post on Monday, the actor shared that he "caught his first Broadway musical in New York" that day.

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Elvin had watched The Book of Mormon and really enjoyed it, saying that he was "laughing out loud and truly enjoying the performance".

Speaking to AsiaOne in a prior interview, Elvin said he hoped that this trip would let him be "a better and more enriched version of [himself] as an actor and person".

"I've always wanted the chance to be able to experience something like this and to go for a prolonged period of time to immerse myself in a learning and enriching life experience," the actor said.

READ ALSO: Elvin Ng jets off to New York, hopes to 'upgrade' his acting

khooyihang@asiaone.com