Background:

Choong Yong grew up in Toa Payoh and Bishan. His father, a fish-monger at a Toa Payoh wet market, was the sole breadwinner, while his mother helped out at the stall. The hard work of his parents brought the family from the humble beginnings of a 1-room rented flat in Kim Keat Ave to another 2-room rented flat in Toa Payoh. Eventually they saved enough to purchase a 4-room flat in Bishan. Choong Yong now lives in Sengkang with his wife and two wonderful boys.

During his years as a student, his passion for the Chinese language and culture enabled him to build up strong bilingual skills. Upon graduation from NUS, he worked as an IT Analyst at a multi-national corporation, Andersen Consulting (now known as Accenture), for 2 years before joining a local start-up, Aretae Pte Ltd for the next 5 years.

In 2004, when Choong Yong’s first child was born, he felt that he should no longer work the infamously long hours that is a norm in IT firms, and decided to start his own IT venture, ARCWorks, so as to be able to take a more active role in the growing-up process of his child.

A WP rally in Yishun in 2006 was the first one that Choong Yong attended. That was when he was politically enlightened. He compared his observation at the rallies with the reports in the mainstream media and discovered that the truth is not always what the media makes it out to be.

Choong Yong joined the Workers’ Party as a member after the GE 2006, and was elected as a Youth Wing Executive Committee member in 2006, and subsequently as the Youth Wing Vice President in 2007. Choong Yong was also elected into the Workers’ Party Central Executive Committee (CEC) in 2008, and currently holds the post of Webmaster.

Philosophy:
Just as there is no sense in an auditing company auditing itself, Choong Yong does not believe that there is such a thing as a “self-checking government”. Choong Yong feels that, for a better Singapore, there needs to be a strong opposition presence in Parliament. He believes that more transparency needs to be in place, so that decisions made by the government can be checked. The current plea by the government for us to simply trust their judgment will not hold water with an increasingly educated population.

Choong Yong also believes that while renewable energy may be relatively expensive now, Singapore should find feasible ways to tap on renewable energy sources, so as not to fall prey to high oil prices. Choong Yong maintains a personal blog (www.choongyong.com).