The quip is definitely more surreal than the mee-siam-mai-hum gaffe. While lecturing citizens about what not to say online, Lee Hsien Loong had to finish off with: "My recent post about a barn owl which flew into the Istana garnered 500,000 views within a day!" You would think that with the battalions of minions at his beck and call, someone would bother to inform the boss man that a daylight visitation from the nocturnal owl is an ominous harbinger of bad tidings and doom.
The hooting sound of an owl sounds like “digging” in the Chinese language (搰: hu). It is considered major bad luck if an owl visits a house wherein lives a gravely ill or wounded person. When it makes the hu sounds, it's as good as telling the family to dig a grave-hole as preparation for a burial.
Thousands with access to an uncompromised Google search bar went to town researching the myths & culture of the barn owl from around the world, and the results were mostly dark and dismal. In the Middle East, folks actually believe that the owl represents the souls of people who have died un-avenged. Some compiled a compendium of owlish humour. Some will doubtless construe it as instance of cyber bullying. Like an Auschwitz survivor picking on Adolf Hitler. You get the drift. But even the most bitter of betrayed baby-boomers will be mollified when the subject of derision writes like this:
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http://singaporedesk.blogspot.sg/2013/11/not-good-omen.html