Sunday, October 31, 2010
Been too busy to update with any concert review or whatever, though there have been many. I have a backlog the size of Ohio.
Anyway, just a brief one to say that I'll be going to Paris next month for this:
Click here to find out more.
Actually it's all in french, so it won't be very much help.
Am also holding my breath for one of our young pianists in Beijing during the same time period in the Chopin-Schumann Piano Competition. -_- Please win it, or I will be screwed over trying to catch up with the administrative nightmare.
Omnia mutantur
10:09 PM
Sunday, October 17, 2010
My sister's birthday party is just over, and I feel like a genius, because I managed to transform the room into a party venue with the help of some hastily bought ribbons, balloons and some printouts from my company printer.
The caterer was Rasel, and I picked them because they were pretty good at the Arts Supporters event that we had in August.
APPETIZERMix Fruit Salad In Asian Dressing
CHEF’S SPECIALTYChicken & Mutton Satay
With Onion And Cucumber Wedges Served With Thick Peanuts Gravy
HOT SAVOURYTeriyaki Chicken
Indonesian Buttered Chicken
Fish In Sweet And Sour Sauce
Mutton Rendang
Teo Chew Braised Duck
Curry Vegetables
Pasta Ala Pomodoro
SIDE ENHANCEMENTFish Balls With Chili Sauce
Chicken Nuggets
SWEET DELIGHTSAmerican Walnut Brownie And Tartlets
Mango Pudding
BEVERAGERefreshing Fruit Punch
The cake was from Emicakes. We had an eggless chocolate mousse cake, since my sister is allergic to eggs. This cake is a caricature of her face with the theme of 'Shopaholic'. Which is very apt, if you know the amount of clothes in her wardrobe.
And the birthday girl.
I had to taichi my piano lessons, contact her friends (both from secondary school and from NIE) and prepare the caterers and cake just for this 4 hour party.
As I was telling Wenhui's mom, 我的妹妹的面子可大了！
Omnia mutantur
12:04 AM
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
I've been so busy that I've had no time to update.
THE ARTS AWARDS 2010 IS OVER!!!!!!!
I'm so relieved to have to stop dealing with the security clearance issues at the Istana.
Anyway congratulations to Cultural Medallion winners:
Music - Liang Wern Fook
Literary Arts - Suratman Markasan
Visual Arts - Amanda Heng
And also to the Young Artist Awardees:
Film - Sun Koh
Literary Arts - Toh Hsien Min
Literary Arts - Sonny Liew
Visual Arts - Choy Ka Fai
Visual Arts - Robert Zhao
I was in charge of managing the YAAs, and I have to say they're really very nice, down-to-earth and unassuming people. I really liked talking to Hsien Min, though there were a few sheepish moments for him when he realised that we had all been 'researching' all the YAAs online (including him) when I mentioned some really
archaic letter he wrote back when the Internet was young, circa 1997. "If I'd known it was going to stay up there forever, I'd have never written it!"
I have also managed to wheedle a drawing of a cat from Sonny Liew, the local graphic novel writer. His profession is VERY RARE in Singapore. It's about damn time someone recognised the industry, we need to ramp up our local publications -_- Anyway YAY he will send me the drawing soon. Sparrow is dying to see it. Tons of cat lovers where I work.
As you can see, I had almost nothing to talk about with the Visual Artists. I don't and won't ever get modern art, and they'd be able to see through my pretense in a second because I have no idea what their work is about even after all the interpretation text standing handily nearby.
The ceremony was great, but I was sweating blood before and during the whole thing, waiting for security clearances issues to be verified and then controlling the 2 performance items (NUS Choir, Arts Sphere Chinese Chamber Ensemble) from the rehearsals to the actual run. This is the last time I'm sending a large performance group to the Istana. They're not worth the trouble they come with. Pitchy sopranos -_- I was wincing backstage with Pigeon during the first one minute of their performance.
After the ceremony, there was a dinner reception provided by the Pan-Pacific Hotel. I had to run around bringing the recipients to the Minister, "Minister, may I introduce..." It was a pretty futile task because they were all eating and really, they didn't want to meet the Minister with their mouths full.
The double whammy was when I was carting Toh Hsien Min off to the Minister ("Do I go to him with this?" *gestures to his plate of food*), and the President asked to see him. He looked nervously and half-longingly at his half-eaten dinner plate and went, "Well, now I most certainly HAVE to ditch this."
Okay, okay, we gave them one hour to eat after that, so don't look at me like that.
When I finally got around to eating, I stuffed my face with dessert, much to Sparrow's and Pigeon's consternation ("Whaaaatt, is this your main course? -_-"). Pan Pacific makes heavenly cheesecakes. Well I later moved on to the main courses too, and had a great deal of beef and abalone.
We also celebrated our beloved Wildebeest's birthday in the Istana after the Ceremony was over! It was her birthday yesterday! We got the catering Pan-Pacific hotel staff to provide a cake, and all of us stood around it blocking it from view. Our CEO called her to him, and looked very stern and shook his head, "This is not good. This is really really terrible!"
Wildebeest looked taken aback and dazed, and went, "Why? What happened?"
CEO: Do you know why it's terrible? Because you're still working on your birthday!"
Whereby we stood aside and revealed the cake and started singing the birthday song.
All in all, the ceremony seemed to have gone spectacularly well, considering we had so many hiccups at the start of the day during the dry runs.
More pictures soon... when our official photographer uploads all of it.
Omnia mutantur
11:03 PM
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Hearing this was moving beyond words.
MM Lee’s Moving Eulogy: “The Last Farewell to My Wife”
Eulogy by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at the funeral service of his wife, Mrs Lee Kuan Yew, Mandai Crematorium, October 6, 2010Ancient 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 would gather to sing her praises and wail and mourn at her departure, led by a practised professional mourner.
Mr and Mrs Lee Kuan Yew: Of Love and Devotion
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. 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, when recounting our lives together, I would like to celebrate her life.
In our quiet moments, we would revisit our lives and times together. We had been most fortunate. At critical turning points in our lives, fortune favoured us.
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. But the British colonial office could not get her a place in Cambridge. Through Chief Clerk of Fitzwilliam, I discovered that my Censor at Fitzwilliam, W S Thatcher, was a good friend of the Mistress of Girton, Miss Butler.
He gave me a letter of introduction to the Mistress. She received me and I assured her that Choo would most likely take a “First”, because she was the better student when we both were at Raffles College.
I had come up late by one term to Cambridge, yet passed my first year qualifying examination with a Class 1. She studied Choo’s academic record and decided to admit her in October that same year, 1947.
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. We did not disappoint our tutors. Our Cambridge Firsts gave us a good start in life. 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. Negotiations were deadlocked and they decided to go on strike. It was a battle for public support. I was able to put across the reasonableness of their case through the press and radio. 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 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 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 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, from Jane Austen to JRR 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 left-wing 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. When separation was imminent, 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 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’s and Choo’s professional skills. Each time Malaysian Malay 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. 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.
I assured her that the doctors did not think that was likely because I was active. 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 June 24, 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 July 3, 2008. The doctors expected her to last a few weeks. She lived till October 2, 2 years and 3 months. She remained lucid. They 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 bed-ridden 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 at her 89 years of her life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sadness.
Omnia mutantur
9:53 PM
