Otto Fong

Otto Fong Yong Chin (born 1968) is a Singaporean comic artist, playwright and teacher.

Fong was born in Johor Bahru in 1968.^[1] His father was trade unionist and politician Fong Swee Suan and his mother is former trade unionist Chen Poh Cheng. He has a brother and a sister.^[2] He studied at The Chinese High School and later Hwa Chong Junior College.^[3] He studied engineering at the Oklahoma State University in the United States and took up a two-year diploma course in film directing at the Beijing Film Academy in 1994.^[4]

Fong wrote several plays, including We Are Family, Cetacea, Another Tribe,^[4] and HERStory.^[5]

Fong returned to Singapore after studying in Beijing in 1997 and worked as a video editor and graphics artist for a year. His first comic book, Buddy Buddy, was published by the China Friendship Publishing Company in 1998. In 1999, he became a science teacher at Raffles Institution. He wrote a musical, Mr. Beng, which was staged at the Singapore Arts Festival in 1999. His second comic book, Sir Fong, was published in 2005.^[6] The book was positively reviewed by Prudencio Miel of The Straits Times.^[7] The second installment in the Sir Fong series, Sir Fong 2: Fur-o-cious, was published in 2007, and was again positively reviewed by Miel.^[8] He left Raffles Institution at the end of 2007.^[9]

Fong has also created the TV series Totally Totto.^[3] The third installment in the series, Sir Fong's Adventures In Science, was published in 2008.^[10] The sixth installment in the series, Sir Fong's Adventures In Science Book 6: Synthetic Biology, was published in 2017.^[11]

Fong currently teaches in Anglo Singapore International School Sukhumvit 64 Thailand.^[3]

In 2022, Fong made his acting debut, starring as Uncle Alex in Getaway (Gay Web Series), Singapore first Boys Love web series. ^[12]

Fong is openly gay and lives with his partner.^[3] He came out as gay in a 2,000 word-blog entry, and was asked by the government to take down the entry as the blog was also read by students.^[13][14] In a speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong used Fong's case to state that "Singapore should strive to maintain a balance, to uphold a stable society with traditional heterosexual family values, but with space for homosexuals to live their lives and to contribute to society."^[15]