(Above, left): Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo, 1946
(Above, right): Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo, 2006
It is no secret that I greatly admire Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore.
His achievements are many, but there are two personal aspects of him that I admire the most. The first is his integrity. He managed to wipe out corruption in this city-state and that is no mean feat. He himself is squeaky clean. You have to believe that whatever he did, rightly or wrongly as history would judge him, was only for the good of the country.
The second aspect that I admire about him is his devotion to his family, especially his wife. I have read his memoir and have had the privilege of sharing the table with the couple once for lunch when they visited my place of work.
Mr Lee himself has paid tribute to his wife publicly many times.
Recently, their daughter, a neurosurgeon in Singapore, who is 50+ and still single, wrote an article in the Straits Times, entitled "Why I choose to remain single". Her piece was touching. In it, she describes her parents' loving relationship and what it means to be partners in life.
For those who are unable to read the link, an excerpt of the article is reproduced below.
Dr Lee Wei Ling wrote:
"My father said of my mother two weeks ago: 'My wife was...not a traditional wife. She was educated, a professional woman... We had Ah Mahs, reliable, professional, dependable. (My wife) came back every lunchtime to have lunch with the children.'
Actually, my mother was a traditional wife and mother. She was not traditional only in one respect: She was also a professional woman and, for many years, the family's main breadwinner.
One of my mother's proudest possessions is a gold pendant that my father commissioned for her. He had a calligrapher engrave on the pendant the following characters: 'xian qi liang mu' and 'nei xian wai de'.
The first four characters mean virtuous wife and caring mother. The second four mean wise in looking after the family, virtuous in behaviour towards the outside world.
My mother lived her life around my father and, while we were young, around her children. I remember my mother protesting gently once about something my father had asked her to do.
'It is a partnership, dear,' my father urged.
'But it is not an equal partnership,' my mother replied.
The partnership may not have been exactly equal at particular points in time. But over the years, especially after my mother's health deteriorated after she suffered a stroke, my father was the one who took care of her. She clearly indicated she preferred my father's care to that of the doctors', in itself a revelation of the quality of his care.
He remembers her complicated regime of medications. Because she cannot see on the left side of her visual field, he sits on her left during meals. He prompts her to eat the food on the left side of her plate and picks up whatever food her left hand drops on the table.
I have always admired my father for his dedication to Singapore, his determination to do what is right, his courage in standing up to foreigners who try to tell us how to run our country.
But my father was also the eldest son in a typical Peranakan family. He cannot even crack a soft-boiled egg - such things not being expected of men, especially eldest sons, in Peranakan families.
But when my mother's health deteriorated, he readily adjusted his lifestyle to accommodate her, took care of her medications and lived his life around her. I knew how much effort it took him to do all this, and I was surprised that he was able to make the effort."
What a heartwarming story.
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