Kenny Sia

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Kenny Sia

Kenny Sia, photo uploaded by self
Born 27 November 1982
Flag of Malaysia Kuching, Malaysia
Occupation Part-time blogger
Website
kennysia.com

Kenny Sia Tze Foo (simplified Chinese: 谢致富; traditional Chinese: 謝緻富; pinyin: Xiè Zhìfù), born 27 November 1982, is a Malaysian who maintains kennysia.com, a personal blog.

Contents

[edit] Personal life

Kenny Sia was born and raised in Kuching, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. He was educated in a Chinese language school[1], which is evident in his accent when he speaks English [2]. In 1997, he went to study in Perth, Western Australia. He graduated from Beaufort College in 1998 and Curtin University in 2003, with a Bachelor's degree in Physics and an Honours degree in Electronic & Communication Engineering. He worked with Spectra Engineering before returning to Kuching in March 2005.

He is currently working full-time in the IT-management field.

Sia is able to speak and write in English, Malay and Mandarin. He is also able to converse fluently in the Chinese Hokkien dialect. He often uses Manglish in his blog to post on ah beng culture in Malaysia.[3]

He has participated in two mararthons. He challenges himself to the extreme by setting realistic goals and commit himself fully for such events. He also has the motive of losing weight by doing so. He gives similar advice to other girls who want to lose weight. He is also interested in traveling, diving, mountain climbing and other recreational activities.

[edit] Blog

Sia's blog is at kennysia.com. His blog's tagline is "When Routine Isn't Exactly Normal". He started to blog in January of 2005 so as to "chronicle the drastic changes over that tumultous period" of his life.[4]

His blog comprises a myriad of topics: satire and crude humour, day-to-day life, personal experiences, his travels, product reviews and politics. He also blogs about his hometown Kuching, and Perth. Some of his readers consider that his posts are written with a sense of humor. Some of the articles have generated vigorous discussions, as some find the articles controversial, and even potentially offensive. However, Sia generally maintains a hands-off attitude on the comments unless he sees the need to reply or intervene.

He frequently satirises international and local celebrities, his fellow bloggers, and himself, often using photoshopped pictures. However, this has led some readers to criticise Sia for being insensitive. Ironically some companies parodied by Sia have sent him free gifts in appreciation.

He is a spokesperson of many commercial products, and gets money and free gifts for promoting various products ranging from shoes to cellphones.

Sia expressed his disdain towards blog elitism, which is rampant in the Malaysian blogosphere, where popular bloggers tend to dictate blogging "rules" and interfere with other bloggers' blog contents. He admitted that he has a bad relationship with some of the prominent Malaysian bloggers due to elitism. He is a firm believer in freedom of blog expression. He used the term "Bloglitics" to describe the political nature of blog critics.[5] However, he himself once commented that he dislikes some of the blog layouts and he parodied such blogs by creating a fancy blog with crazy frog video.[6] Each blog post has a "Podcast" feature where the audience can choose to listen to his post verbally.

Sia is currently a supporter of Bloggers United campaign to defend the freedom of speech in Malaysian blogsphere.

[edit] Popularity

Sia's blog has won a number of awards, such as PPS Blog of the Year 2005. His blog occupies a fairly high ranking in Technorati.[7] Although Sia is from Malaysia, he is more popular amongst Singaporeans. [8] In 2005, his blog was nominated for the Asian Blog of the Year Award. [9]

He appeared in one The MrBrown Show podcasts as a guest.

Kenny appeared in one of the episode of Deal or No Deal Malaysia, and is featured in one of his blog's posts.

Since his blog has a big readership, many readers "race" to be the first few commenters, which appears to be annoying. Sia once responded by adding auto generated position numbers for each comment.

Kenny Sia is one of three on the judging panel for Malaysian Dreamgirl.

[edit] Controversy

Sia came under heavy criticism for posting a naked picture of Isabella Tan aka SarongPartyGirl. He also received attention in several posts related to religion and politics. He responded by posting less and publishing milder content in the posts that followed.[10]

Sia came under even heavier criticism for posting pictures of a traffic accident with multiple fatalities where the body of at least one of the dying (as he reported) could be seen.[11]. Many requested that the offending picture be removed. Sia never removed the picture(s), choosing instead to defend his position, citing the permission granted from the victims' sole surviving family member as reason.[12]

[edit] Politics

Although Sia claims to be politically neutral, he lends his support to his fellow blogger Jeff Ooi, who is a politician. Sia also interviewed two local politicians during the political campaign of 2008 Malaysian General Election.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kennysia : Chung Hua School Number 1. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  2. ^ Kennysia : Maggi Should Salute Me. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  3. ^ Kennysia : Writing An Ah Beng Blog. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  4. ^ kennysia.com: About Me. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
  5. ^ Kennysia.com : Bloglitics. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  6. ^ Kennysia.com : Blogskin Sins. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  7. ^ Technorati Search: www.kennysia.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
  8. ^ Kenny Sia comes to town. Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
  9. ^ Asia Blog of the Year. Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
  10. ^ Kennysia.com : kennysia.com Turns Two. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  11. ^ Kennysia.com : An Unfortunate Accident. Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
  12. ^ The Tragedy. Retrieved on 2007-12-07.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Sia, Tze Foo Kenny aka Celaka People
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 谢致富 (Chinese)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Blogger
DATE OF BIRTH 27 November 1982
PLACE OF BIRTH Kuching, Malaysia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH