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Lee Wei Ling remembers a trip to Geylang.

angie

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shOUTloud

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Reference to the last sentence "It's a choice that she has made and a choice that 35%of our women are making."

Sorry MM Lee, you are wrong here. The choice is no longer with the women with Singaporean men looking overseas for spouses. I have so many friends + relatives with non Singaporean wives. Korean, Vietnam, China, Indonesian ... you name it. Waiting for an East European to pop up.
 

Nice-Gook

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Why is that when taxi drivers sons & daughters become successful whereas those born with a silver spoon in their mouth fail?--This seems to be the dilemma that follows the offsprings of the super rich and super powerful.Is it somesort of karma at play?--Perhaps so.But their parents bears some responsibility too.I was once told by a wizened old man that nothing thrives directly under a sun-though the sun itself is the source of energy.Then there is the sad story of a UK based Indian billionaire.The pa disapproved his only heir and son marrying out of his caste.The boy and girl in love ran .But the pa with his powerful political influence chased them to everywhere they ran.Only to find both committing suicide.





 

angie

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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr class="msghead"><td class="msgbfr1" width="1%">
</td><td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr class="msghead"> <td class="msgF" align="right" nowrap="nowrap" width="1%">From: </td><td class="msgFname" nowrap="nowrap" width="68%">Sikodolauka <nobr></nobr> </td><td class="msgDate" align="right" nowrap="nowrap" width="30%">10:19 pm </td></tr> <tr class="msghead"><td class="msgT" align="right" height="20" nowrap="nowrap" width="1%">To: </td><td class="msgTname" nowrap="nowrap" width="68%">mEDIaCoCK iS hOpELEsS bEyOND rEdEmPTiOn! (angietwo) <nobr></nobr> unread</td> <td class="msgNum" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"> (5 of 5) </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4" class="msgleft" width="1%"> </td><td class="wintiny" align="right" nowrap="nowrap">20881.5 in reply to 20881.4 </td></tr><tr><td height="8">
</td></tr> <tr><td class="msgtxt">What a disgusting familee.
No class even with all those billions.


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angie

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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr class="msghead"><td class="msgbfr1" width="1%">
</td><td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr class="msghead"> <td class="msgF" align="right" nowrap="nowrap" width="1%">From: </td><td class="msgFname" nowrap="nowrap" width="68%">kojakbt22 <nobr>
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</nobr> </td><td class="msgDate" align="right" nowrap="nowrap" width="30%">4:27 am </td></tr> <tr class="msghead"><td class="msgT" align="right" height="20" nowrap="nowrap" width="1%">To: </td><td class="msgTname" nowrap="nowrap" width="68%">ALL <nobr></nobr></td> <td class="msgNum" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"> (1 of 2) </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4" class="msgleft" width="1%"> </td><td class="wintiny" align="right" nowrap="nowrap">20903.1 </td></tr><tr><td height="8">
</td></tr> <tr><td class="msgtxt"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td>Sweet memories of Wuhan trip
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</td></tr> <tr><td>Back in 1980, the most populous city in central China looked like any 1960s Malaysian town </td></tr><tr><td><!-- Author -->
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Wuhan is now known as the 'thoroughfare of nine provinces' and the political, economic, financial, cultural, educational and transportation centre of central China. But when the writer took a walk in the city with Mr Devan Nair and Dr Albert Winsemius in 1980, they were greeted with curious looks by the residents. -- PHOTO: AP
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In November 1980, my father made his second official visit to the People's Republic of China. My mother and I accompanied him, as we had on his first visit in 1976, when Mao Zedong was still alive. Included in the 1980 delegation were, among others, then Second Deputy Prime Minister S. Rajaratnam, Finance Minister Hon Sui Sen, NTUC secretary-general Devan Nair and Singapore's economic adviser Albert Winsemius. They have all died since. We planned to sail down the Three Gorges of the Yangtze during the 1980 trip. And my father requested that we stop in Wuhan after that, as he remembered listening to the 'Wuhan Songsters' in his youth. The Wuhan Songsters was organised by Chen Renbing, a native of Hubei who had grown up in Wuhan. In the 1930s, the song and dance troupe travelled to South-east Asia, including Singapore, to conduct anti-Japanese performances for overseas Chinese and to raise funds for China's war against Japan.

Before Japan conquered Singapore in February 1942, my father had heard the famous Wuhan Songsters on the radio. This piqued his interest in Wuhan and he requested that after we had sailed past the Three Gorges, we fly from Dang- yang Airport to Wuhan. The day after we arrived, we visited the Wuhan iron and steel company and then Wuhan University. Wuhan University is one of China's key universities, coming directly under the supervision of the central government's ministry of education. It is regarded as one of the best and most selective universities in the country, and its history dates back to 1893, making it one of China's oldest institutions of higher learning.

We received a rousing welcome when we arrived, typical of the receptions we had received at almost every one of our stops. Masses of students chanted 'huan ying, huan ying, re lia huan ying!', which means 'welcome, welcome, a very warm welcome!', and clapped their hands. We toured the library, and I stopped to look at some medical textbooks. They were written in English and published in 1950. Wuhan University's medical education was at that time 30 years behind that in the rest of the world. That evening, we were hosted to a banquet by the People's Government of Hubei province. There were many toasts of maotai, an extremely potent alcoholic drink created by fermenting sorghum and then distilling the alcohol. I made a pretence of drinking it, by lifting the cup to my lips, but I did not even touch the maotai. The Chinese officials took every opportunity to do a 'kan pei' which literally means 'dry (or completely finish) your cup'.

The next day, we visited a Zen temple after which we were scheduled to depart by plane to Hangzhou. But we were told the plane would have been unable to land in Hangzhou because of fog, so we had a half-day free in Wuhan. Devan wrote a poem for his friend Winsemius, entitled The Yangtze's Voyage Through History. A framed copy of the poem hung in Winsemius' study in his home in The Netherlands till his dying day.

Streaming through the centuries,
The long river flowed.
Sheer heights of rock
Upon the noble river bowed.
Laden with legends
Of gods, demons and warrior kings,
And of battles fought long ago:
The storied hills cradle the graves
Of a thousand heroes and ten thousand knaves.
The deep-throated memoried gorges echoed
A whole nation's bygone joys and woes.

And dreaming on the deck sat Winsemius
Seeing in vision the long river
Flowing endlessly into the future.


Later in the day, Devan, Winsemius and I went for a walk in the city. It looked like any small town in peninsular Malaysia in the 1960s. Soon, we were followed by an ever-growing crowd, consisting mainly of children but also some adults. We felt like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. This was probably the first time the residents of Wuhan had seen an Indian or a Caucasian. But I suspect the young Chinese woman too aroused as much curiosity as did the Caucasian or Indian. I looked Chinese, but neither my attire nor my behaviour resembled that of a PRC Chinese. In 1980, most people in China still wore Mao jackets. This trio of brown, yellow and white, each of whom qualified as a curiosity, but when combined, must have struck the Residents of Wuhan as quite extraordinary.

We came to a gambling stall where for a few coins you could try your luck. Devan had some coins on him and he handed them to the man behind the stall. He won a prize, a big ball of sticky caramel stuck on a stick. By now, the crowd that had gathered around us was many layers deep, a significant proportion of them adults. Devan wisely handed the candy to one of the children and we quickly headed back to the guest house. I have never been back to Wuhan since. According to information I gleaned from the Internet, it is now the most populous city in central China. Known as the 'thoroughfare of nine provinces', it is the political, economic, financial, cultural, educational and transportation centre of central China. I have no doubt Wuhan University's medical school today uses up-to-date English textbooks. And I have no doubt also that if Devan, Winsemius and I were to go for a walk in Wuhan today, no one would bat an eyelid.
The long river does indeed flow endlessly into the future.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute. In her next column, she will describe her 1980 trip sailing down the Three Gorges of the Yangtze.



[email protected]


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soIsee

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She mentioned she is 'set in her way' and can never live or adapt to another.

The truth is sometimes when one sits at such a high level where no other mortals dare to approach, let alone offend her, she had gotten so used and love being at such position, that she no longer want to be mere mortals.

Without wanting to come down from that position in her life, she will have to pay her price accorded to the choice she made.
 
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