Lobang gives bad boy a good name

One night nearly five years ago, Wang Weiliang was crooning his heart out in a karaoke lounge when a stranger came along and changed his life.

The man asked Wang if he would like to sing at a getai, a live stage performance usually held during the Hungry Ghost month and other Chinese festivals.

Then a 22-year-old used car salesman bored not just with his job but also with life in general, he decided to give it a shot.

He made his debut in October 2009 at a getai in Bedok, singing two Hokkien songs - A Sad Passerby and Xiao Wei - for which he was paid $80.

"There were no rehearsals and I had to sing with a live band. I was so nervous I was rooted to the stage and didn't move an inch," recalls Wang, 27, in Mandarin.

The audience did not know who the newbie was, but applauded warmly.

"I was hooked. I told myself this was what I wanted. You could say my new life started with that $80," he says.

The Secondary 2 dropout and former teen gangster bade adieu to his hitherto chequered past - which included stints as a pasar malam hawker, alarm clock salesman and contractor - to pursue a performing career.

The road was rocky, filled with heartbreak and hard times. Things got so dire at one stage that he had to sing at a gigolo bar to make ends meet.

But a series of serendipitous breaks came his way, the biggest of which was landing a role in filmmaker Jack Neo's Ah Boys To Men, a two-part comedy chronicling the lives of several army recruits. The two films were box office sensations, collectively raking in nearly $14 million.

Even though his was a supporting role, Wang became the break- out star, thanks to his nuanced and naturalistic portrayal of Lobang, the street-smart recruit from a troubled family.

Life has been hectic ever since. He landed the leading role in another Jack Neo two-parter, The Lion Men, and recently completed a star turn in the musical adaptation of Ah Boys To Men at Resorts World Sentosa. In August, he will start shooting From Ah Boys To Frogmen, Neo's new movie about the naval diving unit.

Making the transition from Ah Beng to celebrity is something Wang takes seriously. He turns up for this interview in a sharp dark suit from Suit Select, hair dyed a fashionable ash grey.

But make no mistake, he is proud of his roots.

"I am who I am today because of where I came from and what I went through," he says.

The younger of two children, he is from a broken home. His parents divorced when he was a toddler; he and his brother were raised by their mother, a coffeeshop assistant-turned-office cleaner.

Fearless and rambunctious, the former student of Montfort Primary and Secondary was often thrown out of class for being disruptive.

"I'd collect staples, twist them into sharp masses and leave them on the chairs of classmates," says Wang, who was caned in public on a couple of occasions, once for gambling.

He joined a street gang when he was in his early teens, often stealing and getting involved in street brawls.

He was 14 when he left school - before finishing Secondary 2.

He found work at a car wash, earning $30 a day, enough to buy him a packet of cigarettes and three meals.

Eight months later, a friend roped him in to start a business selling fried ice cream at night markets.

"We could make more than $300 a night. I was happy because I had enough to spend on food, drinks and playing video games in arcades," he says.

A couple of years later, he set up a stall selling sugar cane juice with one of his mother's friends.

Running a little business, however, failed to keep him out of trouble. Brawls were a regular occurrence.

"I'd sometimes go home covered in blood. I personally never started any fight but if I had to be involved in one, I'd not back away," he says.

One melee saw him kicked down a long flight of stairs from a bar in Boat Quay, resulting in an injured back and a dislocated wrist.

"My friend went up to a girl, told her she was pretty and asked for her number. She pointed to her boyfriend, and before we knew it, the two of us were up against five or six of them," he recalls.

Restlessness prompted him to give up his drink stall to become an outdoor salesman, peddling alarm clocks and handphone accessories.

Wagging his right index finger and shaking his head, he dismisses suggestions that it must have been hard work with little returns.

"It was very lucrative and I had to work only four hours a day. Every alarm clock cost $10. If you sold more than 50 a day, your cut was $6 a clock," he says.

Coffeeshops in the HDB heartlands were his hunting ground.

"You just need to have the personal touch. If I approached a group of uncles, I would listen in on what they were talking about and then join the conversation. We learnt how to entertain not just our customers, but ourselves."

Besides polishing his gift of the gab and persuasive powers, the gig helped him develop a good grasp of the human psyche.

"I knew exactly what sort of reception I would get when I approached people. I knew instinctively if I would be able to close a deal. Some people would not even look at you, no matter what you did or said."

National service soon followed.

"I was a horrible recruit. I was so geng they didn't know where to place me," he says, using the Hokkien phrase for malingerer.

After NS, he took on two jobs - as a renovation contractor and used car salesman.

"I made a decent living. I could earn between $1,000 and $1,500 for every car I sold, and I could easily sell six or more a month." But he was besieged by restlessness.

"I had no direction. I wanted to do something meaningful, something which could not only feed me but sustain my interest, but I didn't know how to find it," he says.

He was surprised when he finally found that life-changing sense of belonging on the getai stage. "The irony was, I was never interested in getai before. I thought it was where uncles and aunties sang."

Trying to gain a foothold in the business was much harder than he imagined.

"There are 10 singers for every getai show, eight of whom are female. To be one of the two males, you have to be very good. It's really hard to compete against veterans in the business. I sometimes struggled to make even $1,000 a month," says Wang, who had by then given up his wild ways and friends.

On the recommendation of a friend, he found a regular gig performing at a gigolo bar in Orchard Road, where male hosts from countries such as South Korea, China and Thailand entertained paying female guests.

He performed six nights a week.

Patrons who liked the performers would buy garlands - each with a monetary value - to show their appreciation

"The most I got was a couple of thousand dollars a night. But there was a Thai singer who was so popular that the women would fight over him. He once got $60,000 in a night," he recalls. "Sixty thousand dollars," he repeats, shaking his head.

With a sigh, he adds: "The sad thing is, in a place like that, no one will listen to you sing. The patrons are more interested in the hosts."

Although he received his fair share of indecent proposals, he says, he never accepted them.

"I guess my male ego can't take it," he says with a sigh.

The money he earned helped to sustain him because he was making no headway as a getai singer.

"No one would hire me. It got so bad that some kind sponsors took pity on me and told getai organisers they would pay extra to have me included in the line-up of performers," he says.

Fortunately, getai veteran Wang Lei took him under his wing.

"I owe him a lot. He told me to forget singing, and said he would teach me how to be a good getai host instead," he says.

Wang was a diligent understudy.

"My mother thought I was mad because I would spend hours talking to the computer. I'd watch Taiwanese variety shows hosted by Jacky Wu online, and pick up tricks of the trade."

His quick wit and gift of the gab served him well. After a few shows, his "master" told him he was good enough to strike out on his own.

"A few months later, getai organisers were calling me of their own accord, something which never happened to me when I was a singer," he says. "I started charging $250 a show. This went to $400, to $600. Now, I can charge $1,500 for a three-hour hosting gig."

Wang Lei proved to be his change agent in more ways than one. The veteran took his protege to audition for Ah Boys To Men.

"I auditioned for several roles but I felt closest to Lobang," says Wang, who was offered the role by Jack Neo not long after.

What happened next is now history.

The two movies made him a runaway star; he has 15,000 followers on Facebook, and another 26,000 on Twitter.

Starring in the musical adaptation of the movies took his career to new heights although he and co-star Tosh Zhang desperately tried to wriggle out of that initially.

"Musical? How can musical? I told Tosh that it would be damn embarrassing because we would be working with all these theatre- trained people. We didn't want to do it," he recalls.

He salutes director Beatrice Chia-Richmond for changing his mind.

"She's a woman with very mysterious powers. She can motivate actors, and when she says, 'Come on boys, let's do a good show', you just feel you have to go all out for her.

"I'm glad I did it. I would have lost out on a lot if I didn't," he says of the musical, which extended its run after good reviews.

He is in a good place now, he says.

"I know my mother is very proud of me. I was a bad boy but now I've become someone who brings joy not only to her but also a lot of other people when I perform.

"I can't ask for more."

kimhoh@sph.com.sg

This article was published on May 18 in The Straits Times.

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