A piece of Singapore pop-culture history has made a reappearance online.
We are referring to Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s ‘magic cup’.
For the uninitiated, the blue tea-cup was thrown into the spotlight during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when it was used during then-prime minister Lee’s multi-lingual televised addresses.
It gave rise to the lore that the cup had magical language-changing abilities, as Lee would launch into each of his speeches in a different language after taking a sip of water from the cup.
The memes that followed the moment gave Singaporeans reason to smile amidst a difficult time as the nation and others grappled with the virus.
Curious netizens also dug into where the cup was made — Japan — what it was made of — porcelain — and where to buy it. Last we checked, an inspired version is still available on online store Supermama for $26.
Netizens were also intrigued when Lee did not use the cup again during the following year’s televised update on the Covid-19 situation.
