Making the most of both worlds

SINGAPORE — We just can’t help but really like Singaporean singer-songwriter Ling Kai.

It could be because we’ve been hooked on her song Single One since she performed it as a finalist on Chinese reality singing-songwriting competition Sing My Song earlier this year.

Or perhaps it was the way she excitedly offered to point out, during our interview, where the best roadside buns are in Beijing, where she is now based. It may also have something to do with the way she quite unglamorously tucked her socks into her shoes, and her spandex shorts back under her skirt, when we asked to take photographs of her for the article.

It therefore surprised us a little, when we caught up with her at the recent Singapore Hit Awards, that the lanky and affable singer kept referring to her struggle with self-doubt as one of her biggest challenges as a performer. In fact, Ling Kai tells us, even Tanya Chua, who was a judge on Sing My Song, noticed this about her when they met on the show.

“When we were recording that show, (Tanya) was very sincere and very real. Even when the cameras stopped rolling, she told me, ‘you really have to stop doubting yourself’. And I didn’t tell her anything, so that was quite amazing,” Ling Kai said. “She told me, ‘if you want to sing it like that, then just sing it like you really mean it’. And it sounds really simple, but I realised, wow, there is a whole lot of internal work that you have to do. That really struck me hard.”

This is why, now that it has been several months since the competition, 28-year-old Ling Kai is focusing on writing even more original music, as well as on her own personal growth. She is currently under the tutelage of veteran songwriting duo Lee Wei Song and Lee Si Song — who have also mentored Mandopop superstar Stefanie Sun — and splits her time between Beijing and Singapore.

“I feel, like, in Singapore, it’s a very wonderful, almost unbelievably utopian place to be born in. I am very, very happy to be a Singaporean,” she said. “In Beijing, life is a lot more challenging; there is a lot more unpredictability. But the thing is, after being in China, I feel like the range of life that I can see in Beijing ... is mind-blowing. It’s a very exciting place to be — the arts scene, the music scene in Beijing is thriving. It’s very nice to be in that environment, because there’s osmosis going on, an exchange of ideas and culture.”

She added: “You can hear things, you can read books, you can go online — but it’s absolutely different when you’re actually there, sitting by the roadside, having buns at six in the morning, drinking soy milk with the locals. It’s amazing.”

Still, it doesn’t mean Ling Kai doesn’t take a little bit of home with her every time she goes back to Beijing.

“Must pack your charcoal pills!” the singer quipped. “You can’t just stroll into a pharmacy and buy (things like) Panadol.” Hon Jing Yi