By Peh Sing Huei

NEARLY a week after uttering the Hokkien word for defecation, Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah is finding it hard to live it down.

"People are still talking about it," she said in mock exasperation on Friday. "They forgot all about the contents of my speech."

Given the prim and proper tradition of Parliament, Ms Lee caused a ripple of incredulous laughter when she criticised the opposition's call to delay the GST hike as a case of ai pang sai ka che jamban (looking for a toilet only when one needs to pass motion).

She felt she had an important point to make.

Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim of the Workers' Party had questioned the need to raise the goods and services tax (GST) rate while public coffers were still flush with funds.

Ms Lee, unconvinced, wanted to argue that it was better to do the needful while the economy was doing well, and not when things take a turn for the worse.

Her pungent Hokkien-Malay analogy was later declared "colourful" by Second Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Even before that, she had drawn riotous laughter when she prefaced her verbal tussle with Ms Lim by saying she did not mean it to be an "Ah Huay versus Ah Lian debate", playing on their Chinese names (Lin Rui Lian for Ms Lim) and (Li Mei Hua for Ms Lee).

"I still had to deliver my last paragraph but I nearly couldn't do it because everyone was still laughing," said Ms Lee, a People's Action Party (PAP) MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC.

One of her constituents, businessman Poh Phien Seah, 60, told The Sunday Times that he just loved the remark: "It's not too crude or rude. It's perfectly all right."

But not everyone took to her remarks kindly. She admitted that some people told her that they were shocked by such language.

As another resident, housewife Tan Chor Hoong, 55, remarked: "It's Parliament. Shouldn't the language be a little more refined?"

Some, said Ms Lee, also wondered if the civil engineer with her coiffed fringe did it just to achieve notoriety.

Even her PAP comrade, Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Education) Masagos Zulkifli, told the House that there might be a more "elegant" way to make the point.

But Ms Lee, 46, and a mother of two, told The Sunday Times that she has no regrets. She readily admits that she is a chu ren (Mandarin for rough person).

"This is who I am and that is the way I talk. When I speak, I like to inject some humour. The phrase came naturally and I didn't expect it to have such an impact," she said.

She also does not think it is inappropriate for Parliament. "It's not necessary to always use statistics and figures to make your point. We should make it more interesting so that people can remember.

"My colleagues said that it's a good thing. I used to be called 'auntie'; now I am younger, I'm Ah Huay," she said with a laugh.

After her maiden Parliament speech last November, The Straits Times tagged her as an "auntie" who bites: She had launched blistering attacks on utilities and transport companies.

Indeed, despite just five months in the House, she has already gained a reputation as a straight-talking first-term MP always fiercely on a lookout for her constituents.

For example, she said last month that since the Thais had cancelled civil service exchanges with Singapore, the money would be better spent on lift upgrading for her residents.

She also offered to adopt a stray mongrel, Blackie, in her ward, after residents petitioned for it not to be put to sleep. She said: "We are waiting to see if any residents want to adopt it. If not, I will. I don't have a dog. It will make my residents happy."

Perhaps a new "grassroots" MP in the making?

Thus far, none of the rookies has taken up the mantle of PAP MPs such as the likes of Mr Ong Ah Heng of Nee Soon Central - better known for their easy connection with working-class Singaporeans than their technocratic mastery of policy issues.

Ms Lee, who arrived here from Malaysia in 1981 with RM20 (about S$9 at today's rates) in her pocket and paid her way through university by giving tuition, has no problems being branded as such.

She said most of the topics she raised in Parliament were first brought up by her residents - who are mostly HDB heartlanders.

"I spend time eating at coffee shops; I can talk to anybody," she said. "I don't mind being called a grassroots MP."

shpeh@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Straits Times on March 4, 2007.