'Thank you' song gets thanks from Mr Lee

SINGAPORE - Republic Polytechnic student Dominic Chin received a pleasant surprise last Thursday night when he checked his e-mail.

The 18-year-old, who made a six-minute music video tribute titled You First Believed for Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, had received a letter of thanks from Mr Lee himself.

In the letter, the 90-year-old former prime minister wrote: "Thank you very much for writing the song which I enjoyed very much.

"The credit for building up Singapore cannot be attributed to me alone. It took the determined effort of successive generations of dedicated Cabinet Ministers, public servants and the support of Singaporeans to build up what we enjoy today.

"I hope that the younger generations of Singapore will continue to work hard and make Singapore even more vibrant and successful going forward."

Dominic's six-minute clip, which was uploaded onto YouTube on Feb 15, features old footage of Mr Lee making speeches (and even tearing up) and snippets of young adults thanking him for making Singapore into what it is today.

He had made the video to show appreciation to and honour Mr Lee for making Singapore what it is today.

Dominic, who wrote the lyrics and sang the song, is also featured performing with his friend Joash Foo, 17, who composed the music. It has attracted more than 121,000 views.

Dominic and six friends started working on the video last November.

INSPIRED

He spent three days penning the lyrics and initially had difficulty coming up with the words.

In a previous interview with The New Paper, he had said: "I pretended I was writing a letter to Mr Lee, but I got stuck. So I thought of how Mr Lee had this fantastic vision for Singapore and made it a reality.

"I thought of the good things he did for the country, and was inspired by them."

On receiving Mr Lee's reply, an elated Dominic said: "I am really happy that Mr Lee saw the video himself and I was extremely excited that he said he enjoyed the video very much. "

He added: "I didn't expect Mr Lee to send me a letter. I believed that he might have seen the video, but I didn't think I would get a response from him...

"I think it is cool that Mr Lee gave credit to other people for building up Singapore as well."

Student Kenneth Tan, 18, said: "I think it's nice that Mr Lee took the effort to connect with the younger generation by penning a reply to Dominic... I think it's quite amazing for him to receive a letter from Mr Lee.

"I hope the younger generation will do Mr Lee proud in the future by contributing significantly to Singapore as well."

jocelee@sph.com.sg

Get The New Paper for more stories.