Hello, I'm Julia Zemiro and welcome to Home Delivery.
Just up here, thank you, driver.
This series, I'm going to be taking
some extraordinary actors and musicians...
So no basketball then? I did pash a guy over there, though.
..comedians, thinkers...
This is revealing me as being a very sick person
who just needs some serious meditation.
..and politicians back to their childhood selves...
The first time I ever went to jail was in here
and then of course I made a career out of it.
..to find out what made them the people they are today.
Help! Julia Zemiro is radicalising me!
Today's Home Delivery was born in Jakarta to Chinese parents,
grew up here in Singapore,
and somehow made it to Australia via Europe.
Yes, it's the international woman of mystery herself, Lee Lin Chin,
and I have absolutely no idea what to expect today.
Lee Lin. Julia.
What a delight... to meet you here in Singapore!
Your maiden visit, I believe.
It is my maiden visit, what a wonderful way to put it.
Singapore has changed a lot since you lived here...
Oh, frighteningly, yes.
In fact, there are whole neighbourhoods that are gone
and we won't be able to go to your house.
We're lucky to find a school.
Why have you chosen for us to meet at the wet market this morning?
Well, I thought you can't be in Singapore
and just to go to where the tourists go.
In fact, one shouldn't be anywhere
and just go to where the tourists go.
So this is very native,
this is one of the most famous wet markets in Singapore.
It is where you can find more exotic stuff.
♪ Jump in my car
♪ I want to take you home
♪ Mm, jump in my car
♪ It's too far to walk on your own. ♪
Hello and welcome to the first in the new series...
Known for her distinct presentation style and fine couture...
Oh, I like this.
..Lee Lin Chin is one of the most recognisable faces
of the Special Broadcasting Services.
She began her Australian media career at the ABC and moved to SBS in 1992.
As well as reading the weekend news, she presented the series Fashionista
and is a regular on the news and satire series The Feed.
She was nominated for a Gold Logie in 2016.
That is so great!
Ice everywhere. The ice doesn't last long.
(LAUGHS) No.
The locals are obsessed with freshness.
You don't stockpile. You don't buy for the week.
But I love that notion of going out every day and getting something new.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's the trip out, isn't it? It's the ritual.
If you want to make a curry... Mmm.
..then these are the mixtures you put together.
Oh, it smells amazing!
I don't cook but the one thing I know being a chilli addict is...
Good. Dry chillies are only for cooking.
Fresh chilies, you don't cook.
Lee Lin tip. Coming through. Yes. And you never get another one.
(BOTH LAUGH)
Beautiful. Look at that!
The colour! Look at the colour.
Gorgeous. Yes.
I feel like we're doing a cooking show...
(LAUGHS) ..with no cooking.
Now, how would you describe yourself professionally?
Professionally?
Yeah, what are you? What do you do?
Well, I...
..I am, very broadly speaking, in television.
In television. In television.
I like that. That covers a broad range of sins.
What's on your passport, though?
When you fill out a form through the...
I usually write 'newsreader'.
When you were growing up, here in Singapore,
there was your mum, your dad, how many siblings?
Six. Six?!
Seven of us.
And where were you in the seven?
I'm number two.
You're number two? But number one daughter.
And is that true,
that concept of number one children in a Chinese family?
Yeah. The number ones are the prized ones.
So...
And better still, if number one is a boy, that is what they pray for.
So in our case, that is the case.
But no-one has seven children anymore.
Can you describe the place that you used to live in?
It was not far from here, typical Singapore-style terraces.
What did your father do?
When we first were going to school,
my mother did all the organising
and one of her parting words to us as we set off to school is,
"If anyone at school should ask what your father did for a living,
"write down 'merchant'."
So my father was a merchant.
When you say merchant...
..what's that really mean?
Someone who dabbles in all things.
In all things.
So did he have a place of work he went to every day
or did he go to kind of a place to meet friends?
Only in a very, very informal sense.
He did have... a gathering place with his cohorts,
who were also merchants.
Merchants. (LAUGHS)
Um... and what would they merch? Would they...
Anything. Anything.
You'd look for an opportunity...
Kind of like Arthur Daley, bit of an Arthur Daley?
Yes, he was very much an Arthur Daley.
Colourful character.
He was a mild tyrant.
A mild tyrant? Yes.
He took an afternoon nap when he was around, that was his routine,
and even while he was napping,
he seemed to have super hearing.
(CHUCKLES)
When you know you have to be really quiet, tiptoeing around,
that's when you find most to be hysterically laughing about.
And he could hear it, rooms away.
And say something? Oh, and just shout.
Shout.
And threaten. And threaten?
And you'd be quiet? Yes.
Yeah. Would your mum have the same power over you?
No.
She was wishy-washy in that department.
My mother never worked a day in her life.
But she was looking after you at home.
I mean, there's seven kids to look after.
Not really.
My mother was not the... best equipped.
I am, in a way, a lot like her.
She couldn't cook.
She was quite hopeless with household chores,
couldn't operate a hoover, a vacuum cleaner,
or a... washing machine.
Was that very different to her... to the other women around her?
Was there... Were you... No.
..meant to be very good at those things or was it...
No. No.
We were looked after by two live-in...
Well, you can call them servants
but they lived in.
We got very close to them.
One was the housekeeper and one was the nanny.
So we were really looked after.
It's not as if we were completely neglected
and left to our own devices.
I often describe my family, only half in jest,
as being dysfunctional.
We're not, um... a family
that has... conformed to...
..all the sort of societal expectations.
Would that have been a surprise to your parents?
Were they quite happy for you to be individuals in that way?
I don't think there were any pressures...
Yes. ..from my family.
I don't recall any pressure about having to be married, for the girls,
by your early 20s.
In fact, you know, I'm not really unique in my family -
we're all quite individual.
We are little bundles of character.
Now, we often, in Home Delivery, have an old car.
Singapore doesn't have many old cars anymore, unfortunately.
That's because, if you have a car older than, say, 10 years,
I think you have to put it through hoops.
What car did you have when you were growing up?
One of them, the memorable one, is the Fiat Bambino.
Sunday morning, there'd be a family outing to the market
and they would get out of the car, five of us in the back,
wind up the windows, lock the car and leave us in it.
In 35 degrees heat.
What did you do? Did you just sort of sleep?
No, we played. You played?
We fought. Fought.
We were a lively bunch and I can't say that I'm any the worse for it.
Let's go to your school, St Margaret's.
According to Wikipedia,
it's the oldest existing girls' school in the Far East.
So this is the latest version of St Margaret's secondary school.
It is unrecognisable.
The one I knew was small, almost like a boutique school.
Yeah.
All the headmistresses are here.
She was the one I remember.
What was charming about this school, and I think it formed me,
you know, to a large extent, the school was very Anglophilic
and Mrs Holloway, even in spite of her name, was a very local person.
I actually remember her vividly.
What do you think Mrs Holloway's vision of the school was?
Can you remember how she felt
the school was supposed to influence the young women here?
I didn't feel the heavy hand of...
..shaping young, uh, vulnerable minds.
We never felt that. Mm.
In fact, uh, I was considered...
..slightly out of control.
Uh, yes. Slightly?
Naughty. That's the wor...
I like 'slightly out of control'.
And one of my gang members was an English girl.
She was super naughty.
She was seeing the gardener,
who was the only male on the premises.
Gee!
She had a thing with the gardener.
Did you have a boyfriend here?
I did have a boyfriend for a year or two.
He was a rich boy.
He was picked up by the family chauffeur after school every day
and he would get the chauffeur to swing round to pick me up.
And the whole school would gasp.
(BOTH LAUGH)
Lee Lin's getting in a car!
Getting in a car with a boy.
And a chauffeur. And a chauffeur.
Let's keep looking.
We had a lovely relationship, no hanky panky.
No hanky panky.
It was all very respectful.
We did have a sports field.
I had to play hockey. Hockey.
And netball. And netball.
I hate those two games to this day. (LAUGHS)
Do you remember this at all? Oh, no.
No. Doesn't remember this at all. Didn't exist.
Uh, our tuck shop was a lot smaller, not quite that wide.
(CHILDREN YELL)
Whoo.
Wow. I like the sound of that.
Bit of rebellion?
Is that what passes for rebellion these days? (LAUGHS)
Let's go into a classroom?
Did you sit at the front of the class or at the back of the class?
I think I chose to sit in the back.
Did you?
Because... it's like buses,
to this day, if I get on the bus, always go to the last row.
It's only the squares who sit in front.
At the front. Yes.
The cool people, we're the back row. The back row.
So that came from my school days as well-you always sat in the back.
You could get away with things without your teacher seeing.
So it's strange, isn't it, being in the school
where it's so different to what you remember.
Thomas Wolfe, the great American novelist,
and his famous book is You Can't Go Home Again.
And how true.
I have very, very fond memories of St Margaret's because...
..I think I discovered my love of literature here.
What I really appreciated about all our teachers in this school
was the fact that they weren't professional teachers -
they were mostly ladies of leisure who excelled in certain subjects.
Really? With a passion.
And quite a few of them actually donated their salaries
back to the school because...
They didn't need it. ..they did it as a service.
Two teachers, in particular, I remember very, very...
..clearly.
One was a Mrs Chin, as it happens. Oh.
She was a taciturn woman.
She gave the impression that she really couldn't tolerate the girls,
the classroom, very much.
I think I was the only girl in the class
who actually heard every word she said,
wanted to be like her, hero-worshipped,
admired her knowledge.
And in her sort of very undemonstrative way, she liked me.
I think I was her favourite.
I just sensed it. Yep.
The other teacher was a young Indian woman, also dressed in a sari,
whom I thought... had a melancholy about her.
She said, "You must read
"at least 40 pages of something worthwhile and serious
"every single day of your life."
And did you? I try to stick by it, to this day.
Her words ring in my ear...
..on a daily basis, you know? Mm.
I'm just so conscious of it, all the time.
How important was education, uh... to your parents, for the kids?
They were... quietly proud of the fact
that they had produced a brood that had some brain... power.
I think they kind of noticed that we weren't a bunch of dumbos.
What did you want to do when you left here? Did you have a notion?
I did have some vague idea that I wanted to be a reporter.
A news reporter. Where did you get that from?
What are you watching or seeing that tells you that's a job?
I can't remember what it was.
I think it was more the romance of it.
One day, I happened to be leafing through the papers
and there was big, you know, full-page ad
by the local public broadcaster
and I had to sit through a series of tests -
microphone, camera, cultural knowledge, mostly pop culture.
I didn't sort of freeze or anything.
I'm...
..I've been described as being a bit unflappable
and I think that was evident in the very early days.
So why do you leave Singapore? What takes you away?
One of my brothers had... gone to live in London.
He rang one day and said, "Dylan is coming to town."
Bob Dylan? "I'm about to go..."
Yes, the one and only.
"I'm about to go out buy tickets - shall I get you one?"
I said, "Yes, get me a ticket. I'll be there next week."
I didn't have a cent,
I put the phone down, I went around...
I spent the next couple of days just... begging.
And when I landed, I had only £100 in my pocket.
Had my brother not been there,
sharing a bedsit with a fellow Singaporean...
And I stayed with them,
so there were three of us in this one room.
You met a butterfly collector there?
Yes, I did. Almost immediately.
I can't think of a more romantic, interesting job
than a butterfly collector. Indeed, I will go as far...
It wasn't a job. It was a passion.
I went camping with him, you know?
I love it.
Spot butterflies with him.
There's one, there's an unusual one.
So how did you end up then in Australia?
Well, he was doing... photography
and he met a man, while he was pursuing butterflies,
who was from Melbourne.
And this guy said to him,
"You must come out to the Southern Hemisphere -
"the light is different".
So we did - we came as tourists.
And then I got to know somebody who told me about the ABC.
I rang somebody and was asked to go in and see him.
He was a man called Roland Redshaw
and we just sat there and chatted for hours,
mainly about Ernest Hemingway.
What a great job interview.
A couple of weeks later, I had a phone call from him,
asking me whether I'm interested in going to Darwin
and filling in over Christmas.
And you went to Darwin.
So there you are. First job.
Well, I'm very excited
that one of the places you've chosen to go to next,
uh, looks quite extraordinary.
Shall we go to Haw Par? Haw Par Villa?
Haw Par Villa. Yes. Haw Par Villa.
OK, let's go.
We walked down this road after school
to get to... Oh, this tunnel wasn't here.
This tunnel wasn't here - move it!
..to the main road to get a bus home after school.
It was quite a long walk.
Watch our step.
Ooh.
It's perfect weather for it (CHUCKLES)
Wow. Where are you taking me, Lee Lin?
Well, this is what awaits us all.
What is the purpose of Haw Par Villa?
It is to illustrate to mere mortals what awaits us.
(CHUCKLES) Right.
So is this hell? No.
No detail is spared, you know,
all the grisly details are going to be on display,
especially if you haven't lived a virtuous life.
I've lived a pretty virtuous life, I'll have you kno... Oh!
Right. Well, speak for yourself.
(BOTH LAUGH)
Now, those poor souls, the three... Yes?
..are only at the beginning of their journey.
Right.
And as children, you would come here?
Our families would bring their... So families...
..would come here for a day's outing.
Oh, my God!
So this is the filthy blood pond, everyone.
We were taken here as children, but I'm not scarred by the experience.
Oh.
But I did come back at least once as a grown-up and that frightened...
This frightened me more.
Now, I love that the crime is,
'Ungratefulness. Disrespect to others. Escape from prison.'
This is for drug addicts and traffickers.
And what would happen to you is you'd get your heart cut out
and you'd be tied to red-hot copper and be grilled.
I don't think the Haw Par brothers, who built this,
are out to frighten people.
I think they saw themselves as bringing to life,
figuratively speaking,
some of the mythologies about the Chinese culture and Chinese belief
about the various planes of existence.
Well, there are ten planes of existence here
in these Ten Courts of Hell.
Are you spiritual at all?
I am not. I...
You know, I'm spiritual, maybe in a non-religious...
Strictly non-religious way.
Do you believe in evil?
I believe in evil but not as a divine thing.
What Shakespeare called the 'insubstantial pageant'.
He's implying that none of this is real,
uh, insubstantial as in 'without substance'.
Interestingly, the Haw Par brothers, or their family,
they are the makers of Tiger Balm.
You know Tiger Balm? The cure-all?
Lived on Tiger Balm in my... in my university days!
That's when I discovered it. You could put it anywhere.
Well, that's made by them.
Well, I tell you what, I'm freaked out by being here.
I think we should go get a drink.
I've been lusting for one.
Have you? Great. Yeah.
Whether one drank or not, this is where you're going to end up.
Correct. Right. So, doesn't make any difference.
Doesn't make any difference. Let's drink. Let us drink.
This is the moment of truth, Miss Z.
I'm only here for the beer.
She's only here for the beer.
And you've got a particular way of drinking beer, don't you, Lee Lin?
I do.
You like to have it with a lot of... Ice.
Because?
Because it is how we do it in the tropics.
Cheers. Cheers.
And welcome to the exotic East.
We can't let this day go by without asking about fashion,
asking about flamboyance.
Where did it come from?
I think my mother. True?
If my... If we lived above here, as children, and my mother wanted to...
Guests were coming and she wanted to pop down
to get some cordial for the guests,
she would dress up.
She would never step across the threshold to the outside world
without... personal presentation.
Are you passionate about... No.
..fashion things? I'm not.
I make a distinction between fashion
and just being interested in dressing up.
Uh, I have to admit, at the beginning of today,
I really didn't know what to expect from... you and from our day
and it's been delightful.
We've gone beyond expectations.
Is that what you're...
Well, it's more that I really didn't know anything about you
and we've worked together on the same station for...
I don't know anything about me!
You don't know anything about you?! No.
Do we, you know, you want to ask the large questions.
Yes, I love to ask that large question.
Uh, we are unknowable.
No, I think I know quite a lot of the things that I do and why I do them,
I don't know everything but I know... I'm very clear on a few things.
Well, you are in a better position than I am...
(LAUGHS)
..in this... struggle through life.
They say that our minds...
..and our brain,
two quite separate things but all housed up there,
are the two most mysterious things in the entire universe.
Get your head around that!
How have you found today?
I realise that my story is quite interesting.
It has got interesting aspects
but it lacks...
You know, if you want to think of it as a story
with beginning, middle, drama, highs and lows,
it lacks that dramatic.
Oh, I think getting a ticket to Bob Dylan and just jumping on a plane
and asking... begging for money all around to get there,
that's a pretty big high.
It's a pretty big high.
But you know what, that illustrates to me,
and my whole life has been a series of impulsive actions.
Not a planner. Not a planner.
Are there any other breeds of butterfly you've yet to chase down,
that you haven't? Uh, no, I haven't.
I... I...
You know, look, I...
..cultivated an interest in butterflies for love.
Good. That's a good answer.
We went camping. I'm not a camper, but I did it for love.
You did. Yes.
Hardly slept because any moment now...
I've seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know.
..any moment now there will be axe-wielding...
That is the last thing I think about when I go camping!
What would you say to the 12-year-old you,
if she were to walk up to you now?
To thy own self be true.
That's what Hamlet spends the entire play struggling,
to keep himself sane.
One mustn't do anything which is against your grain,
you know, which doesn't feel natural to you.
You know, I'm the last person
to... know what sort of impression I'm giving.
I never look at myself, I've never seen anything I've done...
Really?! Yeah.
You've never watched anything you've done?
No.
I am made in such a way that looking at my work
will just make me feel that I'm far from doing anything perfectly.
I wish I could see you as an international spy.
Would you ever want to do that? Hey! It's so funny you say that!
I have always had a fantasy about being a spy.
No! To be in the espionage business.
You would be amazing.
I am fascinated.
It's a deadly serious business 'cause you could die.
Yeah. I mean, death is always lurking.
Mm.
You're not really... Are... Are you a spy?
You're not a spy?
Never done it.
We will never know.
Lee Lin, it has been an absolute delight
to have come all the way to Singapore and to get to spend the day with you.
Thank you so much. It's been amazing.
Captions by Ericsson Access Service
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation