SINGAPORE: American Tyler Creasman’s LinkedIn profile notes that he speaks fluent Singlish.
Although the 33-year-old left Singapore 15 years ago, his childhood home made such an indelible mark on him that he penned a set of Singlish wedding vows.
On July 20, he posted an Instagram reel of him pledging his love to Mellanie Creasman, whom he calls his “chio bu” (a Hokkien-derived Singlish term used to describe an attractive woman). The short video went viral, garnering more than 1.3 million views.
Speaking to The Sunday Times via a video call from Phoenix, Arizona, where he is based, Creasman, a general manager at a company specialising in home repairs, says: “You learn how to talk to people the way they are talking. That was my life when I was a young kid. You can take the kid off the island, but you can’t take the island off the kid.”
During the 11 years he spent in Singapore starting in 1999, he would code-switch between speaking American English with his parents at home and using Singlish in daily life.
He went to local schools – Qiaonan Primary School and Yumin Primary School – before attending an international school here. In 2011, he left the Republic at age 18 for university in the United States and later served in the US army for several years.
Before he came to Singapore around age six, his family lived in Kunming, China. He still speaks Mandarin.
While in Singapore, his father worked as a coach and mentor for Christian pastors, while his mother was a freelance actress and vocalist. The couple, now in their 60s, have a younger son, aged 29.
The idea to have a set of Singlish vows, among other vows he took, arose from a discussion with his friends from Singapore.
The reel that he crafted features Singlish turns of phrase, a pitch-perfect Singaporean accent and references to Singaporean culture, such as BTO (Build-To-Order) flats, the Baby Bonus and “chope-ing” (reserving) seats with tissue paper packets.
It includes lines such as “You want bubble tea? I buy two. Even if you say ‘no need’, I still buy. If promo is buy five get one, I buy 10, just in case”.
He ends with a Singlish interpretation of the traditional wedding pledge: “I vow to be steady pom pi pi (a Singlish term denoting steadfastness) with you, in shiok (Singlish for intensely satisfying) times and in bad, for better or worser, ooh lui or boh lui (with or without money in Hokkien), in sickness and in health, only mati (to die in Malay) then we part lah.”
The footage was shot in December 2025 at scenic Carmel-by-the-Sea on the Californian coast, where he and Mellanie, a 34-year-old American journalist, had eloped to tie the knot. The couple later held a wedding reception for family and friends in May 2026.
Creasman is not a stranger to online fame. A local YouTube video from when he was a teenager more than 10 years ago showcased his “perfect Singlish”. Titled The Singaporean White Boy, it accrued 1.7 million views.
Some people who left comments on his latest reel recognised him from that video, identifying him as the boy who used to be called “jinfa” (golden hair in Mandarin) in China.
The reactions are enthusiastic, with comments like “He’s more Singaporean than Singapore itself”, and “Ah Boy got married! Congratulations!”
Standing out in a culture that people assume is not his has long had a deep influence on Creasman, who has been identified in some parts of the internet as the ang moh (Caucasian) who speaks Singlish.
“I think if you were a third culture kid, you live with that for life. Anywhere I go, I try and assimilate,” he says. “I’ve become American, but in a lot of ways, I’m still much more Asian.”
While the lifestyle in the vast spaces of the US is “structured around cars”, he likes the Singaporean way of having markets and hawker stalls within walking distance.
He appreciates the strong air-conditioning at his local mall near Phoenix, which he quips is much smaller than VivoCity.
On trips to Singapore, he slips into the lingo like a glove. Once, at a hawker centre, he asked a cleaner sweeping the floor: “Eh uncle, where got toilet?”
His last visit here was in 2023. He had been afraid to visit because it had been 10 years since his last trip. “I thought, what if I go back and I feel like I’m a foreigner?”
Thankfully, he did not. “It was just so familiar and comforting. Even when things have changed, Singapore feels like home,” he says, adding that he would refrain from breaking out into the iconic line, “This is home truly”, from National Day classic Home (1998).
In recent years, Creasman tried to come back to Singapore for the longer term. He applied to National University of Singapore to do another degree and was accepted, but got derailed by other plans.
He is gratified at the reception his Singlish wedding vows received. “It’s so sweet. I’m glad it’s been so well-received. In a way, it was a love letter to my Singaporean friends and it ended up being a love letter back to the island.”
Online commentators have asked if his American bride understood what he was saying.
His reply: “Probably not, but I’m not sure she understands what I’m saying every day.” - The Straits Times/ANN
