MY MOTHER is 100, and blessed with good health and a very clear mind.
She follows local and world news closely, and was saddened by the death of her greatest idol, Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
Elections were an exciting time for her, as she rooted for Mr Lee and his party.
Whenever she hears criticism of Mr Lee and the PAP government, she will always say Singaporeans should be grateful for the kind of government Mr Lee established, as she has lived under various types of government from the time she was born in 1914 in China: the turbulent end of the Qing dynasty, nationalist and communist regimes, the Japanese Occupation, British rule and as part of Malaysia. When MP Vivian Balakrishnan met my mother during his campaign in the last election, my mother wrote a note and asked Dr Balakrishnan to give it to Mr Lee.
In her self-taught Chinese writing (she was never schooled), she had written the Chinese proverb, qian ren zhong shu, hou ren cheng liang, which means, "the forefathers plant the trees, the future generations enjoy the coolness of the shade".
Not long after, she received a thank-you note signed personally by Mr Lee himself. Her admiration for him doubled.
After watching the tributes to him these past few days, my mother said: "He planted the trees so we may enjoy the shade."
David Sim Cheok Leng
She follows local and world news closely, and was saddened by the death of her greatest idol, Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
Elections were an exciting time for her, as she rooted for Mr Lee and his party.
Whenever she hears criticism of Mr Lee and the PAP government, she will always say Singaporeans should be grateful for the kind of government Mr Lee established, as she has lived under various types of government from the time she was born in 1914 in China: the turbulent end of the Qing dynasty, nationalist and communist regimes, the Japanese Occupation, British rule and as part of Malaysia. When MP Vivian Balakrishnan met my mother during his campaign in the last election, my mother wrote a note and asked Dr Balakrishnan to give it to Mr Lee.
In her self-taught Chinese writing (she was never schooled), she had written the Chinese proverb, qian ren zhong shu, hou ren cheng liang, which means, "the forefathers plant the trees, the future generations enjoy the coolness of the shade".
Not long after, she received a thank-you note signed personally by Mr Lee himself. Her admiration for him doubled.
After watching the tributes to him these past few days, my mother said: "He planted the trees so we may enjoy the shade."
David Sim Cheok Leng
