A Remarkable Lady: Our Mum

This article which appeared in China Press (Melaka Edition) on 27 May 2007 was written by my 5th Brother, ST who writes for China Press after his retirement as a teacher last year.

I will attempt to provide a translation of the article for those who do not read Mandarin:

"A good eating, sleeping and living habit is the secret of her longetivity!

This remarkable lady migrated from China when she was a young girl and married our father, Mr. Chua Choon Tiak who was a school clerk in Pontian Pei Chun Primary School. Together, they raised their 10 children and provided them with quality education. He had to work three jobs to support us.

Last November, the children celebrated her 93rd birthday in Pontian.

Inspite of her age, Madam Tan Hua Heang is remarkably healthy. Her secrets? No late nights, less salt and oil in her food. Sleeps and rises early everyday and did her morning exercise by tending to the flowers and sweeping the house compound. Her memory is equally amazing; she could remember the birthdays of every sons and daughters, and the 25 grandsons and grand daughters. She is a walking telephone directory for she can tell us the house telephone numbers of every one of us.

She was also extremely talented. When she was young, her mother taught her the art of transforming fish bones into a phoenix . Even at age 93, she still remembers the procedures and mesmerized us with her skill and dexterity when we requested for a demo.

She does not favour any one of her children and treats every son and daughter, daughter in law, son in law with fairness. She recognises everyone's weaknesses and strong points. She would not make comparision and she does not discriminate.

How does she maintain her memomy so well? Her secret lies in constantly exercising her brain by playing her favourite past times: mahjong and ginrammy. She enjoys this game of mahjong or ginrammy on Sundays with her sons, daughters or even grand children. Her skill in these games is amazing as she usually ends up winner for the night.

She writes beautifully in Mandarin. Most of us could not even write half as good as she does. She loves to read and apart from reading the newspaper everyday, she reads the Mandarin version of "Readers' Digests" and "Family" magazine.

She has a clean habit. She likes her things to be neat and tidy. When the children and grand children visited her and messed up the house, she would painstakingly rearrange everything back to its original position. She is very fussy when comes to putting things back to where they should be.

All her children and grand children and even the in laws respect and love her very much. She earns this love and respect by being kind, by not taking sides, by not prying into their affairs, by being understanding, and most of all, by being a GREAT mother! "