Stefanie Sun once told to 'shut up' while singing in the shower

Songstress Stefanie Sun being able to have her numerous singing awards today is possibly thanks to a neighbour who once told her to "shut up" when she was little, reported Shin Min Daily.

Sun revealed this when she was at Orchard Central's 10 Square on Monday night to give a talk as a member of the Musicians Guild of Singapore to around 100 aspiring singers and attendees.

During the talk, the 37-year-old said that she gave her "first concert" when she was 10 years old and the location was in her bathroom.

During the two-hour shower, she sang continuously until a neighbour shouted at her to "shut up".

In school, even those who sat around her would request to change seats as she would sing non-stop. She admitted that her singing annoyed many people.

The mother-of-one said that she was fascinated by music and would record shows on television and sing along with it while copying down the lyrics, reported Shin Min.

She told the audience: "When someone tells you to shut up, you can give up or you can tell yourself to work harder."

Flashing a photo of herself, Sun said that this was how she looked like when she first started out in 2000. She said she was was skinny, dark-skinned, flat and oily while pointing to her chest and face.

But, she was happy that beauty comes in many forms.

Sun said beauty to her was being "confident, straightforward, polite and honest". Because of this, she was able to pursue for love of singing without worrying about being "not good enough".

Sun revealed often being asked: "How do we produce another Stefanie Sun?". The singer has also asked herself this question many times, thinking back about how she achieved success.

She mused: "Is it because I only scored 230 in my PSLE and thought of going into a non-academic direction?"

However, she said that even if she had been a success model, in today's environment it might not work as the world has changed so much.

In 2000, her best-selling album in Taiwan sold 350,000 copies, and the most popular album sold 1 million copies. Today, she said, she's lucky if she could sell 80,000 albums.

Everybody goes online to do so many activities these days. In the past, we only went online to check e-mails, these days you use the Internet for everything.

"My competition is no long just A-mei or Jolin", said Sun, "it can be everyone."

wjeanne@sph.com.sg