Singapore PM Lee family feud explodes into open, gets more heated

PETALING JAYA: A public spat between the late Lee Kuan Yew’s children has shattered the usually serene political landscape in Singapore, with two siblings accusing their brother Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of abusing his powers.

Kuan Yew’s daughter Dr Lee Wei Ling and son Lee Hsien Yang accused their big brother Hsien Loong of, well, acting like “Big Brother”, with Hsien Yang going so far as to say he was fleeing the country.

“We are concerned that the system has few checks and balances to prevent the abuse of government.

“We feel big brother omnipresent. We fear the use of the organs of state against us and Hsien Yang’s wife, Suet Fern,” the two said in a six-page statement that was also posted on Facebook early yesterday morning.

Hsien Yang’s son, Li Shengwu, said the situation had become so bad that the family planned to relocate overseas.

“In the last few years, my immediate family has become increasingly worried about the lack of checks on abuse of power.

“The situation is now such that my parents have made plans to relocate to another country, a painful decision that they have not made lightly,” he said on Facebook.

Wei Ling and Hsien Yang also accused their brother of trying to establish a political dynasty and wanting to “milk” their father’s legacy.

They said Hsien Loong and his wife Ho Ching – the CEO of state investor Temasek Holdings – harboured political ambitions for their son Li Hongyi, who works at government agency GovTech Singapore.

The heart of the matter seems to be the siblings’ unhappiness that Hsien Loong was not following their father’s wishes in demolishing the family home at 38 Oxley Road.

Before he passed away in March 2015, Kuan Yew had already expressed his desire that the house he moved into and lived in since 1945 be demolished because he did not want it becoming a “political shrine”.

That desire was part of his last will and testament, but the current prime minister has declined to follow through.

His siblings have attributed this refusal to Hsien Loong’s political ambition.

“Indeed, Hsien Loong and Ho Ching expressed plans to move with their family into the house as soon as possible after Kuan Yew’s passing,” said Wei Ling and Hsien Yang.

“This move would have strengthened Hsien Loong’s inherited mandate for himself and his family.

“Moreover, even if Hsien Loong did not live at 38 Oxley Road, the preservation of the house would enhance his political capital,” they said.

Hsien Loong, who is travelling overseas with his family, said he was disappointed and saddened by his siblings for “publicising private family matters”.

“I am deeply saddened by the unfortunate allegations that they have made.

“Ho Ching and I deny these allegations, especially the absurd claim that I have political ambitions for my son.

“Since my father’s passing in March 2015, as the eldest son I have tried my best to resolve the issues among us within the family, out of respect for our parents.

“My siblings’ statement has hurt our father’s legacy,” Hsien Loong said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Singaporeans seem divided on the matter.

On Hsien Yang’s Facebook page, he was greeted by more criticism than praise, with some accusing him of being the one who had tainted his father’s legacy.

“A family feud that is aired so openly is a sad thing to see,” said Dolpzy Do.

On Hsien Loong’s Facebook, it was generally the opposite.

Pointing out that Kuan Yew had passed away over two years ago, Jacq Low said, “His last will should have been settled by now.”

While such a public spat is rare in Singapore, it is not unprecedented. Last year, as the island-republic commemorated the first anniversary of Kuan Yew’s death, Wei Ling went public with similar concerns.

In a family feud that played out on Facebook, she said the elaborate events were not what her father would have wanted, and that he would have cringed at such “hero worship”.

Wei Ling, a neurosurgeon, also accused Hsien Loong of abusing his power and using the anniversary to try and establish a political dynasty.

Hsien Loong replied via Facebook, saying he was “deeply saddened” by the accusations, describing them as “completely untrue”.

Source: The Star

PM Lee’s family feud becomes more heated

 

PETALING JAYA: The public spat between Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (pic) and his siblings became more heated Thursday, with the younger brother accusing the older of not being truthful.

The two younger children of Singapore’s founder and longest-serving premier Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang, took to Facebook to air their grievances.

Hsien Yang accused his brother of not being truthful over the issue of their father’s wish to have the family home demolished.

Before he passed away in March, 2015, Lee Kuan Yew had expressed his desire that the house at 38 Oxley Road be demolished because he did not want it becoming a “political shrine.”

He had made that part of his last will and testament.

In a Facebook post, Hsien Yang compared what he said were Hsien Loong’s statements in public and those in private.

Hsien Yang said that despite the prime minister saying in public that the decision to demolish the house did not need to be taken immediately, a “secret committee” of ministers was set up to explore and make recommendations.

When Lee Kuan Yew’s will was recognised as final and legally binding, Hsien Loong did not mount a legal challenge.

However, he privately wrote to the above committee to say that there was no evidence their father knew that the demolition clause “had been reinstated into the last will,” the younger brother alleged.

Hsien Yang also claimed that the prime minister even swore this under oath in a statutory declaration.

Finally, while saying in public that he hoped the government would respect their father’s wish to have the house demolished, Hsien Loong told the committee in private that Lee Kuan Yew would have “accepted any decision to preserve it.”

“The will is final and binding. We have no confidence in Lee Hsien Loong or his secret committee,” Hsien Yang said in his Facebook post.

The tiff between Lee Kuan Yew’s children, simmering since their father’s death, had its lid blown open on Wednesday when the two younger siblings posted an explosive six-page statement saying that they had lost confidence in their elder brother.

Wei Ling and Hsien Yang also accused Hsien Loong of using the state machinery against them.

“We fear the use of the organs of state against us and Hsien Yang’s wife, Suet Fern,” they said. Hsien Yang, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, said it had got so bad that he and his family intended to move out of the country.

Wei Ling and Hsien Yang also accused their older sibling of trying to establish a political dynasty and wanting to “milk” their father’s legacy.

They said Hsien Loong and his wife Ho Ching – the chief executive officer of state investor Temasek Holdings – harboured political ambitions for their son Li Hongyi.

In an immediate response on Wednesday, Hsien Loong said he was “deeply saddened by the unfortunate allegations that they have made.”

“Ho Ching and I deny these allegations, especially the absurd claim that I have political ambitions for my son,” he said, adding that he was disappointed in his siblings for publicising private family matters.

However, in a Facebook post on Thursday, his sister Wei Ling said she and her brother would not have issued a public statement if the dispute over their late father's house was “merely a family affair”.

Source: The Star/ANN

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Singaporeans from ''Third World to First', emotional farewell to Lee Kuan Yew

 ‘From third world to first’: Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy in charts

Andreas Paleit and Jennifer Hughes - Hong Kong

Lee Kuan Yew, who has died aged 91, presided over a turnround in the economic fortunes of his nation, taking it from a colonial backwater to its status as one of the richest places on the planet — a journey ‘from third world to first’, as Lee titled his memoir.

From ease of doing business to concentration of millionaires, 21st-century Singapore consistently ranks among the world’s most economically developed nations.

But Lee’s legacy goes beyond wealth-creators. Since he came to power just about every aspect of Singapore has been transformed, and along with it the fortunes of ordinary Singaporeans. The population has, of course, grown.

Singaporeans have become much better educated and crime has dropped, partly as a result of Lee’s authoritarian influence.

An enormous public housing programme in the 1960s and 1970s has allowed more than 80 per cent of citizens to live in government-subsidised apartments. But an ageing population raises challenges for the years ahead.

The Financial Times Limited 2015. You may share using our article tools.

Emotional farewell for Singaporeans

 Thousands wait in long queue for hours to pay last respects to Lee Kuan Yew

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans wept on the streets and queued in their thousands to pay tribute to founding lea­der Lee Kuan Yew as his flag-draped coffin was taken on a gun carriage to parliament for public viewing.

After a two-day private wake for the family, the coffin was taken in a slow motorcade from the Istana government complex, Lee’s workplace for decades as prime minister and cabinet adviser, to the legislature yesterday. It will lie in state there until Sunday.

The 91-year-old patriarch died on Mon­day after half a century in government, during which Singapore was transformed from a poor British colonial outpost into one of the world’s richest societies.

The government led by his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, apparently taken by surprise at the heavy early turnout, announced that Parliament House would stay open for 24 hours a day until Saturday night “due to overwhelming res­­ponse from the public”.

Lee will be cremated on Sunday after a state funeral expected to be attended by several Asia-Pacific leaders even though he was just an MP when he died.

Applause and shouts of “We love you!” and “Lee Kuan Yew!” broke out as the dark brown wooden coffin, draped in the red-and-white Singapore flag, emerged from the Istana housed in a tempered glass case on a gun carriage pulled by an open-topped military truck.

Earlier, in scenes that evoked Singapore’s colonial past, the carriage stopped in front of the main Istana building, where British administrators once worked, as a bag­­piper from Singapore’s Gurkha Contingent – the city-state’s special guard force – played Auld Lang Syne.

After the motorcade emerged from the palace, many in the crowd waiting behind barricades along the route were in tears as they raised cameras and mobile phones to record the historic event.

Some threw flowers on the path of the carriage, while office workers watched from high-rise buildings.

President Tony Tan and his wife Mary were the first to pay their respects in the parliament’s foyer.

By mid-afternoon Singaporeans were waiting for up to eight hours in queues that snaked around the central business district, many using umbrellas against the 33°C heat.

In true Singaporean fashion the crowds were orderly, with free drinking water and portable toilets set up for mourners.

Police helped direct traffic flow and priority queues were created for the elderly, pregnant women and the disabled.

People from all walks of life turned up to honour the authoritarian former leader popularly known by his initials “LKY”.

“These are amazing scenes. I have not seen anything like this in my lifetime,” said bank executive Zhang Wei Jie, 36.

“LKY is the founder of our country. It is a no-brainer that we have to pay respect. We have taken some time off from work, my supervisor is also here somewhere in the crowd.”

R. Tamilselvi, 77, brought two of her granddaughters, each clutching flowers.

“Lee Kuan Yew has done so much for us,” she said. “We used to live in squatter (colonies) in Sembawang, my husband was a bus driver. Now my three sons have good jobs and nice houses. The children all go to school. What will we be without Lee Kuan Yew?” — AFP

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No one could accuse LKY of being weak

When he suddenly fathered a reluctant new nation, the iron was forged in him.

LEE Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, has died at the age of 91.

He was born Harry Lee Kuan Yew on Sept 16, 1923 in Singapore. When he left England after graduating with a law degree from Cambridge University, he also left his English name behind.

In 1954, Lee formed the People’s Action Party (PAP). In 1959, at the age of 35, he won the national elections of Singapore, then still part of the British Empire, and became Prime Minister for the first time. After a brief merger with Malaysia, in 1965 the Republic of Singapore was born. Lee was PM until 1990 when he voluntarily stepped down, at age 67, to make way for a younger man.

It is a cliché, but it has to be said: the passing of Lee Kuan Yew is the passing of an era for Singapore and Singaporeans. A Singapore without LKY will take some adjusting to.

Older citizens will probably remember him with more affection and gratitude. Younger Singaporeans may attend the academic institutions and win scholarships that bear his name, but they will likely feel no particular affection or disdain, but rather, a vague admiration for the legendary leader whom they have been told was the architect of modern Singapore.

“I have been accused of many things in my life, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind,” he once said. Perhaps he will be best remembered through his own words.

In 1980, he said, “Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him.” For him, it was in August 1965, when he suddenly fathered a reluctant new nation, that the iron was forged - from the fire in his belly to make Singapore succeed.

From that “moment of anguish”, he would “spend the rest of my life getting Singapore not just to work but to prosper and flourish.” Over the years, he would use that same steel to fight all forms of obstacles and undesirable dogma, prejudices and even personal habits.

He would go on to confront and battle challenges that included corruption, unemployment, poverty, communism, political opposition, smoking and at the end, his own deteriorating health.

His self-belief and devotion to the Singapore cause was intense and absolute: “This is your life and mine. I’ve spent a whole lifetime building this (country) and as long as I’m in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”

He will be remembered for his ferocious fight against corruption. He believed vehemently, “The moment key leaders are less than incorruptible, less than stern in demanding high standards, from that moment, the structure of administrative integrity will weaken, and eventually crumble. Singapore can survive only if ministers and senior officers are incorruptible and efficient.”

He will be remembered for standing up for meritocracy. A key reason for Singapore’s separation in 1965 was Lee’s belief in multiracial meritocracy. He was utterly convinced that, “If you want Singapore to succeed…you must have a system that enables the best man and the most suitable to go into the job that needs them…”

Every time a Singaporean takes a ride in a bus along a tree-lined avenue, plays with her children in a park near their flat, or enjoys a picnic in Botanic Gardens, she might just think of Lee. He launched Tree Planting Day and “set out to transform Singapore into a tropical garden city.” He was completely certain that, “Greening raised the morale of people and gave them pride in their surroundings.”

Lee’s beliefs and ideas went on to mould not just the development of a small new country with no natural resources to speak of, but also, some would argue, the personal lives of its citizens. Under his leadership, his government implemented policies and ran campaigns to compel and urge Singaporeans to save water, to keep Singapore clean, to have two children, and later, to have three if they could afford it, and to speak Mandarin, among many other exhortations.

In response to critics who accused his government of interfering in the private lives and personal behaviours of the city-state’s inhabitants, he had this to say, “It has made Singapore a more pleasant place to live in. If this is a ‘nanny state’, I am proud to have fostered one.”

He will be remembered for the power of his convictions. “I have never been over concerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader.” No-one could accuse Lee Kuan Yew of being a weak leader.

Of his own accord, he relinquished the position of Prime Minister in 1990, but stayed on in government as Senior Minister and then Minister Mentor in the governments of both his successors, Goh Chok Tong and his own son, Lee Hsien Loong, the current Prime Minister. He retired from Cabinet in 2011 but remained a Member of Parliament.

For those who remember Lee Kuan Yew in his prime, no matter to which side of the political divide they belong, they will recall a perspicacious politician whose intellect found admirers far beyond the little red dot, a powerful orator whose words conquered crowds and carried generations of Singaporeans with him, and perhaps, most of all, a pragmatic visionary who, against all odds, made the improbable nation a reality.

Lee was known for his admiration, gratitude and devotion to his wife, the late Kwa Geok Choo. He is survived by his two sons, one daughter and seven grandchildren.


By Peggy Kek

Singaporean analyst Peggy Kek is a former director with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.





Quotable quotes from Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew commenting on death: 'There is an end to everything and I want mine to come as quickly and painlessly as possible, not with me incapacitated, half in coma in bed and with a tube going into my nostrils and down to my stomach.' – AFP pic, March 23, 2015

Here are some notable quotes from Singapore's founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who died Monday at the age of 91.

On Japan defeating Britain to occupy Singapore in 1942:

"The dark ages had descended on us. It was brutal, cruel.

"Looking back, it was the biggest single political education of my life because, for three and a half years, I saw the meaning of power and how power and politics and government went together, and I also understood how people trapped in a power situation responded because they had to live.

"One day the British were there, immovable, complete masters; next day, the Japanese, whom we derided, mocked as short, stunted people with short-sighted squint eyes."

After World War II when the British were trying to reestablish control:

"... the old mechanisms had gone and the old habits of obedience and respect (for the British) had also gone because people had seen them run away (from the Japanese) ... they packed up. We were supposed, the local population was supposed to panic when the bombs fell, but we found they panicked more than we did. So it was no longer the old relationship."

As a law student in Britain:

"Here in Singapore, you didn't come across the white man so much. He was in a superior position.

"But there you are (in Britain) in a superior position meeting white men and white women in an inferior position, socially, I mean. They have to serve you and so on in the shops. I saw no reason why they should be governing me; they're not superior. I decided when I got back, I was going to put an end to this."

On opinion polls:

"I have never been overconcerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. A leader who is, is a weak leader. If you are concerned with whether your rating will go up or down, then you are not a leader. You are just catching the wind ... you will go where the wind is blowing. That's not what I am in this for."

On his iron-fisted governing style:

"Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try."

On his political opponents:

"If you are a troublemaker... it's our job to politically destroy you... Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac."

On democracy:

"You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools."

On justice:

"We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins."

On his policy of matching male and female university graduates to produce smart babies:

"If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society... So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem."

On criticism over the high pay of cabinet ministers and senior civil servants:

"The cure for all this talk is a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... and your asset values will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers."

On religion:

"I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God. So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God – nor deny that there could be one."

On his wife of 63 years, Kwa Geok Choo, who died in October 2010:

"Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life... I should find solace in her 89 years of a life well-lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief."

On death:

"There is an end to everything and I want mine to come as quickly and painlessly as possible, not with me incapacitated, half in coma in bed and with a tube going into my nostrils and down to my stomach."

On rising up from his grave if something goes wrong in Singapore:

"Even from my sickbed, even if you are going to lower me to the grave and I feel that something is going wrong, I will get up."

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Malaysia sacrifices talent to keep one race on top, said Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore

SINGAPORE - Straits Times Press, the book publishing unit of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), announced in  Jul 29, 2013 the launch of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's new book

Malaysia is prepared to lose its talent through its race-based policies in order to maintain the dominance of one race, said Lee Kuan Yew in his new book which was launched August 6, 2013 in Singapore.

And although Malaysia has acknowledged the fact that they are losing these talents and is making an attempt to lure Malaysians back from overseas, such efforts may be too little too late, he said.

"This is putting the country at a disadvantage. It is voluntarily shrinking the talent pool needed to build the kind of society that makes use of talent from all races.

"They are prepared to lose that talent in order to maintain the dominance of one race," he said in the 400-page book called "One Man's View of the World" (pic).

It features conversations between Lee and his long-time admirer, Helmut Schmidt, former leader of West Germany. They discussed world affairs when Schmidt visited Singapore last year.

In the book, Lee pointed out that Malaysia is losing ground and  giving other countries a head start in the external competition.

About 400,000 of some one million Malaysians overseas are in Singapore, according to the World Bank.

When announcing the five-year plan for Malaysia, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said in Parliament in 2011, the government would set up a talent corporation to lure some 700,000 Malaysians working abroad back to the country.

But in his book, Lee said the demographic changes in Malaysia will lead to a further entrenchment of Malay privileges.

He noted that in the last 10 years, since the enactment of the New Economic Policy, the proportion of Malaysian Chinese and Indians of the total population has fallen dramatically.

"The Chinese made up 35.6 percent of the population in 1970. They were down to 24.6 percent at the last census in 2010. Over that same period, the Indian numbers fell from 10.8 percent to 7.3 percent," he said.

He added, "40 percent of our migrants are from Malaysia.

"Those with the means to do so leave for countries farther afield. In the early days, Taiwan was a popular destination among the Chinese-educated.

"In recent years, Malaysian Chinese and Indians have been settling in Europe, America and Australia. Some have done very well for themselves, such as Penny Wong, Australia’s current finance minister.

"Among those who have chosen to remain in Malaysia, some lack the means to leave and others are making a good living through business despite the discriminatory policies. Many in this latter class partner with Malays who have connections."

World Bank data for 2012 showed that the island republic has raced ahead of its neighbour, with gross domestic product per capita of US$51,709 compared with Malaysia’s US$10,381.

Najib had said Malaysia is set to become a high income developed nation as early as 2018, two years earlier than the targeted 2020.

Lee said in his book the separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965 marked "the end of a different vision in Malaysia on the race issue".

He added, "Much of what has been achieved in Singapore could have been replicated throughout Malaysia. Both countries would have been better off."

Sources: The Malaysian Insider

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Lee Kuan Yew On Getting the Best out of Life

“The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. If you’re not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.”

MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your knowledge about ageing and what ageing societies can do. You know more about this subject than I do. A lot of it is out in the media, Internet and books. So I thought the best way would be to take a personal standpoint and tell you how I approach this question of ageing.

If I cast my mind back, I can see turning points in my physical and mental health. You know, when you’re young, I didn’t bother, assumed good health was God-given and would always be there.

When I was about 57 that was – I was about 34, we were competing in elections, and I was really fond of drinking beer and smoking. And after the election campaign, in Victoria Memorial Hall – we had won the election, the City Council election – I couldn’t thank the voters because I had lost my voice. I’d been smoking furiously. I’d take a packet of 10 to deceive myself, but I’d run through the packet just sitting on the stage, watching the crowd, getting the feeling, the mood before I speak.

In other words, there were three speeches a night. Three speeches a night, 30 cigarettes, a lot of beer after that, and the voice was gone. I remember I had a case in Kuching, Sarawak . So I took the flight and Ifelt awful. I had to make up my mind whether I was going to be an effective campaigner and a lawyer, in which case I cannot destroy my voice, and I can’t go on. So I stopped smoking. It was a tremendous deprivation because I was addicted to it. And I used to wake up dreaming…the nightmare was I resumed smoking.

But I made a choice and said, if I continue this, I will not be able to do my job. I didn’t know anything about cancer of the throat, or oesophagus or the lungs, etc. But it turned out it had many other deleterious effects. Strangely enough after that, I became very allergic, hyper-allergic to smoking, so much so that I would plead with my Cabinet ministers not to smoke in the Cabinet room. You want to smoke, please go out, because I am allergic.

Then one day I was at the home of my colleague, Mr Rajaratnam, meeting foreign correspondents including some from the London Times and they took a picture of me and I had a big belly like that (puts his hands in front of his belly), a beer belly. I felt no, no, this will not do. So I started playing more golf, hit hundreds of balls on the practice tee. But this didn’t go down. There was only one way it could go down: consume less, burn up more.

Another turning point came when -this was 1976, after the general election – I was feeling tired. I was breathing deeply at the Istana, on the lawns.

My daughter, who at that time just graduating as a doctor, said: ‘What are you trying to do?’ I said: ‘I feel an effort to breathe in more oxygen.’ She said: ‘Don’t play golf. Run. Aerobics..’ So she gave me a book , quite a famous book and, then, very current in America on how you score aerobic points swimming, running, whatever it is, cycling.

I looked at it sceptically. I wasn’t very keen on running. I was keen on golf. So I said, ‘Let’s try’. So in-between golf shots while playing on my own, sometimes nine holes at the Istana, I would try and walk fast between shots. Then I began to run between shots. And I felt better. After a while, I said: ‘Okay, after my golf, I run.’ And after a few years, I said: ‘Golf takes so long. The running takes 15 minutes. Let’s cut out the golf and let’s run.’

I think the most important thing in ageing is you got to understand yourself. And the knowledge now is all there. When I was growing up, the knowledge wasn’t there. I had to get the knowledge from friends, from doctors.

But perhaps the most important bit of knowledge that the doctor gave me was one day, when I said: ‘Look, I’m feeling slower and sluggish.’ So he gave me a medical encyclopaedia and he turned the pages to ageing. I read it up and it was illuminating. A lot of it was difficult jargon but I just skimmed through to get the gist of it.

As you grow, you reach 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and then, thereafter, you are on a gradual slope down physically. Mentally, you carry on and on and on until I don’t know what age, but mathematicians will tell you that they know their best output is when they’re in their 20s and 30s when your mental energy is powerful and you haven’t lost many neurons. That’s what they tell me.

So, as you acquire more knowledge, you then craft a programme for yourself to maximise what you have. It’s just common sense. I never planned to live till 85 or 84.! I just didn’t think about it. I said: ‘Well, my mother died when she was 74, she had a stroke.. My father died when he was 94.’

But I saw him, and he lived a long life, well, maybe it was his DNA. But more than that, he swam every day and he kept himself busy.. He was working for the Shell company. He was in charge, he was a superintendent of an oil depot.

When he retired, he started becoming a salesman. So people used to tell me: ‘Your father is selling watches at BP de Silva.’ My father was then living with me. But it kept him busy. He had that routine: He meets people, he sells watches, he buys and sells all kinds of semi-precious stones, he circulates coins. And he keeps going. But at 87, 88, he fell, going down the steps from his room to the dining room, broke his arm, three months incapacitated.

Thereafter, he couldn’t go back to swimming. Then he became wheelchair-bound. Then it became a problem because my house was constructed that way. So my brother – who’s a doctor and had a flat (one-level) house – took him in. And he lived on till 94. But towards the end, he had gradual loss of mental powers.

So my calculations, I’m somewhere between 74 and 94. And I’ve reached the halfway point now. But have I? Well, 1996 when I was 73, I was cycling and I felt tightening on the neck. Oh, I must retire today. So I stopped. Next day, I returned to the bicycle. After five minutes it became worse. So I said, no, no, this is something serious, it’s got to do with the blood vessels. Rung up my doctor, who said, ‘Come tomorrow’. Went tomorrow, he checked me, and said: ‘Come back tomorrow for an angiogram.’

I said: ‘What’s that ?’ He said: ‘We’ll pump something in and we’ll see whether the coronary arteries are cleared or blocked.’ I was going to go home. But an MP who was a cardiologist happened to be around, so he came in and said: ‘What are you doing here?’ I said: ‘I’ve got this.’ He said: ‘Don’t go home. You stay here tonight. I’ve sent patients home and they never came back. Just stay here. They’ll put you on the monitor. They’ll watch your heart. And if anything, an emergency arises, they will take you straight to the theatre. You go home. You’ve got no such monitor. You may never come back.’

So I stayed there. Pumped in the dye, yes it was blocked, the left circumflex, not the critical, lead one. So that’s lucky for me. Two weeks later, I was walking around, I felt it’s coming back. Yes it has come back, it had occluded. So this time they said: ‘We’ll put in a stent.’

I’m one of the first few in Singapore to have the stent, so it was a brand new operation. Fortunately, the man who invented the stent was out here selling his stent. He was from San Jose, La Jolla something or the other. So my doctor got hold of him and he supervised the operation. He said put the stent in. My doctor did the operation, he just watched it all and then that’s that. That was before all this problem about lining the stent to make sure that it doesn’t occlude and create a disturbance.

So at each stage, I learnt something more about myself and I stored that. I said: ‘Oh, this is now a danger point.’ So all right, cut out fats, change diet, went to see a specialist in Boston , Massachusetts General Hospital . He said: ‘Take statins.’ I said: ‘What’s that?’ He said: ‘(They) help to reduce your cholesterol.’ My doctors were concerned. They said: ‘You don’t need it. Your cholesterol levels are okay.’ Two years later, more medical evidence came out. So the doctors said: ‘Take statins.’

Had there been no angioplasty, had I not known that something was up and I cycled on, I might have gone at 74 like my mother. So I missed that decline. So next deadline: my father’s fall at 87.

I’m very careful now because sometimes when I turn around too fast, I feel as if I’m going to get off balance. So my daughter, a neurologist, she took me to the NNI, there’s this nerve conduction test, put electrodes here and there.

The transmission of the messages between the feet and the brain has slowed down. So all the exercise, everything, effort put in, I’m fit, I swim, I cycle. But I can’t prevent this losing of conductivity of the nerves and this transmission. So just go slow.

So when I climb up the steps, I have no problem. When I go down the steps, I need to be sure that I’ve got something I can hang on to, just in case. So it’s a constant process of adjustment. But I think the most important single lesson I learnt in life was that if you isolate yourself, you’re done for. The human being is a social animal – he needs stimuli, he needs to meet people, to catch up with the world.

I don’t much like travel but I travel very frequently despite the jetlag, because I get to meet people of great interest to me, who will help me in my work as chairman of our GIC. So I know, I’m on several boards of banks, international advisory boards of banks, of oil companies and so on. And I meet them and I get to understand what’s happening in the world, what has changed since I was here one month ago, one year ago. I go to India , I go to China .

And that stimuli brings me to the world of today. I’m not living in the world, when I was active, more active 20, 30 years ago. So I tell my wife. She woke up late today. I said: ‘Never mind, you come along by 12 o’clock. I go first.’

If you sit back – because part of the ending part of the encyclopaedia which I read was very depressing – as you get old, you withdraw from everything and then all you will have is your bedroom and the photographs and the furniture that you know, and that’s your world. So if you’ve got to go to hospital, the doctor advises you to bring some photographs so that you’ll know you’re not lost in a different world, that this is like your bedroom.

I’m determined that I will not, as long as I can, to be reduced, to have my horizons closed on me like that. It is the stimuli, it is the constant interaction with people across the world that keeps me aware and alive to what’s going on and what we can do to adjust to this different world.

In other words, you must have an interest in life. If you believe that at 55, you’re retiring, you’re going to read books, play golf and drink wine, then I think you’re done for. So statistically they will show you that all the people who retire and lead sedentary lives, the pensioners die off very quickly.

So we now have a social problem with medical sciences, new procedures, new drugs, many more people are going to live long lives.. If the mindset is that when I reach retirement age 62, I’m old, I can’t work anymore, I don’t have to work, I just sit back, now is the time I’ll enjoy life, I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. After one month, or after two months, even if you go travelling with nothing to do, with no purpose in life, you will just degrade, you’ll go to seed.

The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. If you’re not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.

So when I read that people believe, Singaporeans say: ‘Oh, 62 I’m retiring.’ I say to them: ‘You really want to die quickly?’ If you want to see sunrise tomorrow or sunset, you must have a reason, you must have the stimuli to keep going..’

Have a purpose driven life and finish well, my friends.

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Get married and have babies, LKY to Singaporeans! 
Lee Kuan Yew: The last farewell to my wife; A pioneer in ...

Get married and have babies, LKY to Singaporeans!

Migrants are a temporary solution, in the long term, mindsets must change, former PM says

Singaporeans need to marry and have children if they do not want the country to fold up, Mr Lee Kuan Yew warned on Saturday night.

In his annual National Day dinner speech to residents of Tanjong Pagar GRC and Tiong Bahru, Mr Lee kept his message on population simple: The country's citizens are not reproducing enough, and migrants are needed as a temporary solution.

But in the long run, mindsets must change, and the trend of declining birth rates needs to be reversed.

"If we go on like that, this place will fold up because there will be no original citizens left to form the majority," he said.

|And we cannot have new citizens, new PRs to settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms,” he said, noting that Chinese reproduction rate is now at 1.08, Indians at 1.09 and Malays at 1.64.

“So my message is a simple one. The answer is very difficult but the problems, if we don’t find the answers, are enormous,” he added.

Lee acknowledged the pivotal role that work permit holders have played in building Singapore’s infrastructure, and the contribution of permanent residents, without which he said the country’s population would be older, smaller and would lose vitality.

Further, he noted that in the long term, Singapore’s “educated men and women must decide whether to replace themselves in the next generation”. Currently, 31 per cent of women and 41 per cent of men are choosing not to do so, he noted.

“But we’ve got to persuade people to understand that getting married is important, having children is important,” he said. “Do we want to replace ourselves or do we want to shrink and get older and be replaced by migrants and work permit holders? That’s the simple question.”

MSF to tackle problem: Chan Chun Sing

Responding to Lee’s call for solutions to Singapore’s citizen population crunch, current acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Chan Chun Sing, who will be taking on the newly-established Ministry of Social and Family development (MSF), said the latter will pursue efforts to encourage younger Singaporeans get married and start families earlier.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the same event, Chan acknowledged that the issues are “challenges that cut across different ministries”, and said there are two aspects to the population situation — material and economic, which the government will work on, reported Channel NewsAsia.

“But like what Mr Lee said, the most important aspect has to do with the less tangible... (what) we value as a society — the institution of the family,” he said as quoted by the media outlet. “How do we see the institution, and the family... these are things we really need to work on as a society because it concerns our common future.”

- The Straits Times/Asia News Network

Asia from an Asian perspective

Singapore’s Channel News Asia plans to penetrate the US and European pay TV markets, but faces challenges posed by surging social media.

SINGAPORE television, which helped Lee Kuan Yew defeat his left-wing foes and stay in power for 50 years, plans to go worldwide 24 hours a day from next year.

The global push by the state-owned Channel News Asia (CNA) to extend its reach from Asia to cover the United States and Europe is an ambitious project, given the adverse cable news market.

Last week, America’s CNN (Cable News Network), despite its vast resources and experience, reported a ratings drop of up to 50% in the first quarter.

All three global networks suffered declines, having lost audiences to the new digital media.

The declines are not deterring CNA, whose predecessor had played a historic role in the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) elimination of the powerful left-wing Barisan Sosialis in the 60s.

Despite its near-monopoly, circulation of Singapore’s main Straits Times broadsheet has stagnated.

“For us to be a true global player in the news channel space we need to broadcast 24 hours, every hour on the hour, with live news,” said a CNA spokesman.

“This will eventually allow us to penetrate the US and European pay TV markets, so that people there can get Asian news with Asian perspectives whenever they want.”

Having their state TV moving into the world arena has raised a little sense of pride among some Singaporeans.

Informed citizens, however, are questioning its chances of success considering that it is considered to be a government mouthpiece. And taxpayers are worried about footing the bill for potential losses.

A small-time businessman commented: “I wish it well, but if powerful global networks like CNN are losing out, what chance has the state-owned Singapore TV to succeed?”

Not everyone agrees. A polytechnic lecturer said Singapore has become an economic international player and a provider of jobs for professionals.

So TV has a small part, but, he added, if it is thinking of taking on the big players in providing global news, “I would say forget it”.

The vast majority of Americans and Europeans don’t really care for Singapore’s idea of “Asian coverage of Asian news”.

The biggest handicap is its ties to the government.

Most people I talked to doubted if many Westerners would be well disposed to news from a government news channel (BBC is different because of its long history of objective reporting).

Even among Singaporeans, one in every two believes that the Singapore media is biased, according to a survey last year.

On average, in a normal day, however, newspapers and television are the top sources of news here, with the Internet coming in a close third.

But in last year’s election, some 48% turned to Yahoo! for quick news, with CNA in second place at 23.8%. Newspapers, however, were the people’s main source of news.

Television was launched in 1963, the year Singapore joined Malaysia, and when it left two years later, the telecast of Lee Kuan Yew weeping caught the imagination of the world.

At the launch, only 2,400 Singaporean homes had TV sets, but tens of thousands of people, young and old, would sit on wooden benches in community centres to watch the magic box.

As a 23-year old then, I joined enthusiastic friends to meet outside a department store TV display window and watched celluloid scenes of the PAP developing Jurong or building public flats at a rate of one unit every 45 minutes.

It was a powerful message for a poor squatter country.

Eventually the leftwing hold among the vast Chinese-educated was broken. To the viewers, moving pictures could not lie.

The hard-working Barisan Sosialis representatives resorted to knocking on doors to get to the people, but they could not match the power of moving pictures.

Since then, the government has kept 100% ownership of television. Despite much talk of going public, TV news remain in official hands. About half of Singaporeans polled last year felt that “there is too much government control of newspapers and television”, according to an analysis by the Institute of Policy Studies.

With 3.37 million Internet users out of a 5.18 million population, the expectation is that while mainstream newspapers and TV remain on top of the pole for news, erosion among young readers is likely to continue.

This is because CNA is widely perceived as the voice of the government. An advisory committee said in 2009 that this factor could hamper its credibility as a news conduit.

The circulation of the Straits Times has been dismal over the decades despite a big population jump.
Not exactly good news for the ruling PAP.

An authoritative source once told me that for the PAP to remain in power, it must have control over three things – security forces, finance and the media.

The first two remain more or less in place, but control of the third – the media – is being challenged by the day by the surging social media where every citizen can be both a reporter and a reader.

INSIGHT DOWN SOUTH By SEAH CHIANG NEE

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Lee Kuan Yew: The last farewell to my wife; A pioneer in her own right

This eulogy by Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was delivered at the funeral service of his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, at a private ceremony at Mandai Crematorium on Wednesday. 

Kwa Geok Choo
1920-2010

ANCIENT peoples developed and ritualised mourning practices to express the shared grief of family and friends, and together show not fear or distaste for death, but respect for the dead one; and to give comfort to the living who will miss the deceased.

I recall the ritual mourning when my maternal grandmother died some 75 years ago. For five nights the family gathered to sing her praises and wail and mourn at her departure, led by a practised professional mourner.
Such rituals are no longer observed. My family’s sorrow is to be expressed in personal tributes to the matriarch of our family.

In October 2003 when she had her first stroke, we had a strong intimation of our mortality.

Lee Kuan Yew bidding farewell to his ‘tower of strength’. –AFP

 

My wife and I have been together since 1947 for more than three quarters of our lives. My grief at her passing cannot be expressed in words. But today (Wednesday), when recounting our lives together, I would like to celebrate her life.

As a young man with an interrupted education at Raffles College, and no steady job or profession, her parents did not look upon me as a desirable son-in-law. But she had faith in me.

We had committed ourselves to each other. I decided to leave for England in September 1946 to read law, leaving her to return to Raffles College to try to win one of the two Queen’s Scholarships awarded yearly. We knew that only one Singaporean would be awarded. I had the resources, and sailed for England, and hoped that she would join me after winning the Queen’s Scholarship. If she did not win it, she would have to wait for me for three years. In June the next year, 1947, she did win it.

We have kept each other company ever since. We married privately in December 1947 at Stratford-upon-Avon. At Cambridge, we both put in our best efforts. She took a first in two years in Law Tripos II. I took a double first, and a starred first for the finals, but in three years.

Returning to Singapore, we both were taken on as legal assistants in Laycock & Ong, a thriving law firm in Malacca Street. Then we married officially a second time that September 1950 to please our parents and friends. She practised conveyancing and draftsmanship, I did litigation.

In February 1952, our first son, Hsien Loong, was born. She took maternity leave for a year.
That February, I was asked by John Laycock, the Senior Partner, to take up the case of the Postal and Telecommunications Uniformed Staff Union, the postmen’s union.

They were negotiating with the government for better terms and conditions of service. After a fortnight, they won concessions from the government. Choo, who was at home on maternity leave, pencilled through my draft statements, making them simple and clear.

Over the years, she influenced my writing style. Now I write in short sentences, in the active voice. We gradually influenced each other’s ways and habits as we adjusted to and accommodated each other.

We knew that we could not stay starry-eyed lovers all our lives; that life was an on-going challenge with new problems to resolve and manage.

We had two more children, Wei Ling in 1955 and Hsien Yang in 1957. She brought them up to be well-behaved, polite, considerate and never to throw their weight around as the prime minister’s children.
As a lawyer, she earned enough to free me from worries about the future of our children.

She saw the price I paid for not having mastered Mandarin when I was young. We decided to send all three children to Chinese kindergarten and schools. She made sure they learned English and Malay well at home. Her nurturing has equipped them for life in a multi-lingual region.

We never argued over the upbringing of our children, nor over financial matters. Our earnings and assets were jointly held. We were each other’s confidant.

She had simple pleasures. We would walk around the Istana gardens in the evening, and I would hit golf balls to relax. Later, when we had grandchildren, she would take them to feed the fish and the swans in the Istana ponds. Then we would swim.

She was interested in her surroundings, for instance, that many bird varieties were pushed out by mynahs and crows eating up the insects and vegetation. She discovered the curator of the gardens had cleared wild grasses and swing fogged for mosquitoes, killing off insects they fed on. She stopped this and the bird varieties returned. She surrounded the swimming pool with free flowering scented flowers and derived great pleasure smelling them as she swam.

She knew each flower by its popular and botanical names. She had an enormous capacity for words.
She had majored in English literature at Raffles College and was a voracious reader, reading everything from Jane Austen to J.R.R. Tolkien, from Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian Wars to Virgil’s Aeneid, to The Oxford Companion to Food, and Seafood of Southeast Asia, to Roadside Trees of Malaya, and Birds of Singapore.

She helped me draft the Constitution of the PAP. For the inaugural meeting at Victoria Memorial Hall on 4 November 1954, she gathered the wives of the founder members to sew rosettes for those who were going on stage.

In my first election for Tanjong Pagar, our home in Oxley Road became the HQ to assign cars provided by my supporters to ferry voters to the polling booth.

She warned me that I could not trust my new found associates, the leftwing trade unionists led by Lim Chin Siong. She was furious that he never sent their high school student helpers to canvass for me in Tanjong Pagar, yet demanded the use of cars provided by my supporters to ferry my Tanjong Pagar voters.

She had an uncanny ability to read the character of a person. She would sometimes warn me to be careful of certain persons; often, she turned out to be right.

When we were about to join Malaysia, she told me that we would not succeed because the Umno Malay leaders had such different lifestyles and because their politics were communally-based, on race and religion.
I replied that we had to make it work as there was no better choice. But she was right. We were asked to leave Malaysia before two years had passed.

When separation was imminent (in 1965), Eddie Barker, as Law Minister, drew up the draft legislation for the separation. But he did not include an undertaking by the Federation Government to guarantee the observance of the two water agreements between the PUB (Public Utilities Board) and the Johor state government. I asked Choo to include this. She drafted the undertaking as part of the constitutional amendment of the Federation of Malaysia Constitution itself.

She was precise and meticulous in her choice of words. The amendment statute was annexed to the Separation Agreement, which we then registered with the United Nations. The then Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley said that if other federations were to separate, he hoped they would do it as professionally as Singapore and Malaysia.

It was a compliment to Eddie and Choo’s professional skills. Each time Malaysian leaders threatened to cut off our water supply, I was reassured that this clear and solemn international undertaking by the Malaysian government in its Constitution will get us a ruling by the UNSC (United Nations Security Council).

After her first stroke, she lost her left field of vision. This slowed down her reading. She learned to cope, reading with the help of a ruler. She swam every evening and kept fit. She continued to travel with me, and stayed active despite the stroke. She stayed in touch with her family and old friends.

She listened to her collection of CDs, mostly classical, plus some golden oldies. She jocularly divided her life into “before stroke” and “after stroke”, like BC and AD.

She was friendly and considerate to all associated with her. She would banter with her WSOs (woman security officers) and correct their English grammar and pronunciation in a friendly and cheerful way. Her former WSOs visited her when she was at NNI (National Neuroscience Institute). I thank them all.

Her second stroke on 12 May 2008 was more disabling. I encouraged and cheered her on, helped by a magnificent team of doctors, surgeons, therapists and nurses.

Her nurses, WSOs and maids all grew fond of her because she was warm and considerate. When she coughed, she would take her small pillow to cover her mouth because she worried for them and did not want to infect them. Her mind remained clear but her voice became weaker. When I kissed her on her cheek, she told me not to come too close to her in case I caught her pneumonia. When given some peaches in hospital, she asked the maid to take one home for my lunch. I was at the centre of her life.

On 24 June 2008, a CT scan revealed another bleed again on the right side of her brain. There was not much more that medicine or surgery could do except to keep her comfortable. I brought her home on 3 July 2008. The doctors expected her to last a few weeks. She lived till 2nd October, 2 years and 3 months.

She remained lucid. That gave time for me and my children to come to terms with the inevitable. In the final few months, her faculties declined. She could not speak but her cognition remained. She looked forward to have me talk to her every evening.

Her last wish she shared with me was to enjoin our children to have our ashes placed together, as we were in life.

The last two years of her life were the most difficult. She was bedridden after small successive strokes; she could not speak but she was still cognisant. Every night she would wait for me to sit by her to tell her of my day’s activities and to read her favourite poems. Then she would sleep.

I have precious memories of our 63 years together. Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life. She devoted herself to me and our children.

She was always there when I needed her. She has lived a life full of warmth and meaning.
I should find solace in her 89 years of a life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief.

October 4, 2010

A pioneer in her own right

LKY’s late wife, however, chose to remain on the sidelines in public, content to play a supporting role.

IN life, Kwa Geok Choo was a quiet, dignified cheongsam-clad presence by her husband Lee Kuan Yew’s side. In death, she leaves behind a void that not only her husband, but also the entire island nation, will feel.

Kwa, known to the world as the wife of Singapore’s first Prime Minister Kuan Yew, died on Saturday evening at her Oxley Road home. She was 89.

Life-long lovers: A Sept 9, 2004 file picture of Lee and Kwa during the wedding ceremony of Brunei’s Crown Prince Al-Muthadee Billah Bolkiah and Sarah Salleh in Bandar Seri Begawan.— AFP

 

Her husband of 63 years was in hospital with a chest infection.

Elder son Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 58, cut short an official visit to Belgium where he was to attend the Asia-Europe Meeting summit.

The wake will be held today and tomorrow at Sri Temasek, the official residence of the Prime Minister located within the Istana grounds. Kwa had spent many hours watching her children, and later her grandchildren, play at Sri Temasek, while their father went about his business or exercised.

Visitors may pay their respects there from 10am to 5pm on those days. A private funeral will take place on Wednesday at the Mandai Crematorium.

In a moving tribute, President S.R. Nathan said: “To know Mrs Lee’s greatness, one has to listen to what has not been said of her until now. Mrs Lee was great in many ways – as a legal luminary, as a mother of an illustrious family, and more than that, for her stoic presence next to Mr Lee Kuan Yew during times of turbulence and tension in the many years of his political struggle.

“There was not a single important event or development that she was not an intimate witness of. Indeed, she lived a life that had its fair share of pain and uncertainty, which was not evident in public.”

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou also conveyed their condolences to the Lee family.

Kwa had been ill for some time. A stroke in 2003 had left her frail, with weakened peripheral vision, but she remained bravely active, accompanying Lee on numerous official functions here and overseas.

On one trip to China, she gamely donned a long-sleeved swimsuit with long pants, and swam in the hotel pool, never mind zig-zagging across the lane. Her gait was uncertain and she needed a supporting arm, but she continued in good cheer, her sharp wit intact.

In 2005, on a visit to Temasek House in Kuala Lumpur, Lee pointed out a photograph on the wall and described the picture to her: “This is a picture of you doing the joget.” Her swift retort: “Put it in the furnace.”

She suffered another two strokes in 2008 which left her unable to walk or speak. Nurses cared for her at the Lees’ Oxley Road home.

In the last two years, Lee had spent many hours by her bedside, reading from her well-thumbed copies of English poetry and novels and telling her about his day.

In an upcoming book to be published by The Straits Times in January, Lee reveals that in her last days, “I’m the one she recognises the most. When she hears my voice, she knows it’s me.”

Theirs was a life-long love story.

Kwa, a brilliant student who came out tops in her Senior Cambridge year, and who went on to build a successful law practice at Lee & Lee, was the intellectual equal of Lee, but she saw herself first and foremost as a wife and mother, in keeping with her upbringing in a conservative Straits-Chinese home.

In public, she was a traditional Asian wife who metaphorically walked two steps behind her husband, as she once quipped.

In private, she was a devoted mother, a caring, gentle woman, and a quick-witted conversationalist who loved literature, classical music and botany. She was a “tower of strength” to her husband and family, emotionally and intellectually.

She believed in the same causes as Lee did – independence from colonial rule in the early years, and later, a multiracial, meritocratic Singa­pore.

She saw Lee through the nation’s toughest moments in 51 years in office, 31 as Prime Minister, girding him for battle the way only a wife can. She helped him through the anguish of separation. She shared with him her instinctive grasp of character among the people they met. She helped him draft and polish his speeches, memoirs and even legal documents.

She engaged him in heated debate on policy matters like the rights of women and was wont to chide him if she thought him too demanding of others.

An intensely private woman who shunned the limelight, Kwa trod softly through Singapore’s history. She was a pioneer in her own right, but she chose to remain on the sidelines in public, content to play a supporting role.

But her imprint on Singapore was no less significant for being so gentle. Her quiet dignity and self-discipline, her selflessness and modesty, were unique. The nation will not see the likes of Kwa again. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network