She was then eleven years old...

Jul 6, 2011 12:21 PM

Was Ah Meng a forgotten gay icon?

from Jasper Chen by Jasper Chen

I think I have seen her quite a few times when I was small (having not visited the Zoo in years), and her life story almost sounded like the typical life story of an international gay icon.

Ah Meng (circa 18 June 1960 – 8 February 2008) (Chinese: ??) was a female Sumatran Orangutan and a tourism icon of Singapore. She was smuggled from Indonesia and kept illegally as a domestic pet before being recovered by a veterinarian in 1971. She was then eleven years old and was given a home at the Singapore Zoo.

Ah Meng was the head of her small clan, which lives in a large enclosure with about twenty other orangutans. She had five children and became a grandmother in 1990.

[...]

Ah Meng was the poster girl of the Singapore Zoo. Pictures of her have been used in Singapore's tourism advertisements worldwide. She has also been featured in over 30 travel films and more than 300 articles. Some of the foreign dignitaries and celebrities that visited Ah Meng included Prince Philip and Michael Jackson.

Retrieved from Wikipedia

Yep. Sounds like it.

If you don't really get why, compare it with Madonna's life story. The difference is huge, but similiar in ways of life process. Crisis > Opportunity > First Chances > Fame.

Quite amazing that 4000 people turned up for his memorial service, but her net worth in Singapore tourism cannot be compared with the amount of loss Singapore suffers without her.