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When you meet a person for the first time, one of the questions they almost always certainly ask is: “What do you do for a living?’?
That is how much our identities are closely linked to our jobs. Even more so for Rui En, who many people know just as: “Rui En the celebrity”.
Recently, the 43-year-old shared on Instagram that she had just graduated from a three-month course at Tung Ling Bible School.
“If a year ago you had told me I’d be attending bible school I would have straight up laughed in your face. Yet it is the place where He met me in all my brokenness,” Rui En shared in her caption.
When 8days.sg got on a call with Rui En, she jokes that the entire experience feels like “church camp on steroids for three months”.
“It’s not a full day thing, which was why I was willing to commit. It’s just half days on weekdays and your weekends are free. Basically you just go and do modules like school lah,” she says.
Bible school was something she had put off for a really long time even though her church leaders and friends had constantly encouraged her to go for it.
“I always just gave them the polite: ‘Okay, I’ll pray about it’ response but actually I was never seriously contemplating it.”
However, she started realising that her entire identity was based on her celebrity status and how she’s a public figure. After all, being an actress was the only job she’s ever had.
“Over the past few years, it became apparent to me that that shouldn’t be the case. I was like ‘Okay, I think I need to separate my identity and my worth from what I do for a living,” she tells us.
It all led to this question she asked herself: “Who am I if I’m not Rui En the celeb?”
“It was very scary, because I had no idea. I only know myself from the lens of being a celebrity,” she admits.
Rui En then decided to give bible school a chance after her church leader gently brought it up again.
Her decision was a spontaneous one: Rui En only signed up for the course one week after it started.
“It was very terrifying. It was like you’ve worked all your life and you have to face going back to school for the first time,” says the Raffles Junior College and Nanyang Technological University alum.
“I really struggled with sitting down for three hours of lectures, though there were breaks in between. Nowadays our attention spans are so short,” she laughs, adding that she has new-found respect for her pal Dennis Chew, who has been a full-time student at Ngee Ann Poly for the past two-and-a-half years.
Rui En also felt out of place at first. She had joined the class, which has about 100 other students, one week late, and some of her course mates have already made friends with each other.
“So I would sit at the last row, at a corner, because that felt comfortable for me,” she recalls.
She was subsequently assigned into a group with “super welcoming” classmates which helped her open up.
“There was a lot of vulnerability during our cell groups and when I saw them being vulnerable, I was very moved and became more comfortable with being vulnerable myself,” she adds.
As you would have guessed, her course mates were shocked when she first walked into class.
“I’m very used to such a reaction from people,” says Rui En, who has been in showbiz since 1999.
“I’m very used to feeling like an alien ‘cos this is something that I deal with everywhere I go. But I think I felt very loved because most of the ‘shock’ was about ‘I’m so happy that you’re here!’. Everyone was really respectful.”
Now you must be wondering, has Rui En figured out who she is after bible school?
“While I can’t say that three months of school is going to give everybody that answer, I think it definitely helped me. It’s not a complete solution but I did get a lot of answers.”
When asked what she thinks her identity is now, she candidly replies: “A child of God.”
“At least I have more security in knowing that [who I am] does not depend on my career, how much I earn or how many social media likes I get. It’s something that’s independent from all those things,” she adds.
Having graduated from bible school and getting a diploma for it also does not mean that Rui En is going to be a church minister or pastor in the near future.
“I knew this was going to be a question,” she laughs.
“I think for most Singaporeans they sort of think that going to school means getting a different job title. But no, there are no plans for me to change my title. I’m still Rui En, child of God. It’s not going to become pastor Rui En or anything like that (chuckles).“