The Asian Age

Little Chef online rage in Myanmar FAUX Chan Chun Sing’s slip-up during interview triggers mockery online Cotton came from animals: S’pore min.

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Yangon, June 1: From boiled catfish soup to spicy fried frog, an eightyear-old in pyjamas and a chef's hat is delighting Myanmar with her culinary prowess in a nation still being told to stay at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Moe Myint May Thu’s mother posted a video online at the end of April showing off her daughter’s skills as the youngster threw together some spicy fried prawns.

With her wide gap-toothed grin, the video has brought stardom to the child along with an online moniker: “Little Chef ”.

She now sells dishes to order — and is counting the dividends.

“I just love cooking,” she said during a break from the kitchen in her family’s Yangon flat. “It’s made us happy cooking together in the lockdown,” she says, adding she wants to translate her childhood passion into a career when she grows up.

She has mastered 15 dishes, including tomato fish paste curry, pork stew and spicy fried frog. Each meal sells for a flat-rate of 10,000 kyat and is delivered by the family at the end of each day.

Singapore, June 1: A Singaporea­n minister has sheepishly admitted to saying that cotton came from animals rather than plants in a slip-up during an interview that triggered bleats of mockery online.

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing made the error in a video interview on Saturday while attempting to explain tiny Singapore’s reliance on foreign trade.

He gave masks — which are widely used in the citystate to fight the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic — as an example, suggesting there were not many components that Singapore could produce itself. “(We) don’t have too many sheeps in Singapore to produce cotton,” he said. Internet users quickly lined up lambast him over the mistake.

“Baba black sheep have you any wool? Simple nursery rhymes to remember ok,” said one Facebook comment. It was not long before Chan cottoned on to the error, and said he had a “good laugh” when he realised what he had done.

“To any one (especially young children) watching the video — cotton definitely doesn’t come from sheep, it comes from cotton plants!” he said in a Facebook post.

“I should catch up on some sleep,” he added — prompting a netizen to respond: “I heard counting sheep helps.”

It was not Chan’s first virus-related gaffe. In February he was criticised over a leaked recording in which he said panic buyers were behaving like “idiots” during a closed-door meeting with members of a commerce chamber.

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