CC: How are you able to remember all these tiny details of your daily life of so many years ago?
IL: How could I ever forget all I had experienced as they were so unusual and seared into my memory forever.
CC: How do you keep so healthy and nimble? What advice can you give?
IL: To keep healthy I have exercised all my life since childhood because my father was an exercise fanatic and all of us began young. Our children and grandchildren follow our example. Also, I follow a healthy, well-balanced diet is most important with fish, some meat and lots of vegetables and fruit.
I have enjoyed my life all along, despite problems along the way.
And my faith has kept me strong.
CC: What would you say were the most challenging times of your life?
IL: The most challenging times of my life? That was when my cook warned me in 1977 that my movements were being watched. I had not done anything wrong so was not afraid but it is uncomfortable to know you are being watched or tailed.
CC: Given auntie’s age, you must have undergone many identifies as political masters came and went. Would you like to comment on it?
IL: As a teenager I could not understand the difference between a British Protected Persons (me for being born in Kuala Lumpur) and British Subjects (like my siblings who were born in Singapore).
I had so many changes of citizenship without doing a thing!
During the Occupation I was a subject of Dai Nippon.
Then I became a Malaysian when we joined Malaysia.
Later, at long last, we became really free and became Singaporeans.
But, all this while, we were also considered as Babas and Nyonyas, and the Bibiks were called Ombok Ombok.
The term Peranakan was not common then.
In Jakarta I was called Bok (Ombok?). On top of that, we were also referred to as the King’s Chinese! Do you wonder why I was so terribly confused?
CC: You wrote about your grandfather and granduncle, both of whom were 72nd generation direct descendants of Confucius, and your grandmother and old aunties. Would you like to elaborate a little about them here?
IL: I remember of them so well.
My maternal grandfather, Kung Tian Siong, owned a goldmine in Pontianak at one time and the first cinema in Singapore, the Empire Cinema.
His brother, Kung Tian Cheng, had been the chief clerk of Raffles Library, before becoming the translator to the Penang Chinese Protectorate.
He next became editor of the Republican Advocate in Shanghai. The journal was one of the very few in China to be published in English.
Then he became editor of the Peking Daily News and ended by being the secretary and translator of Yuan Shi Kai, President of the Chinese Republic.
They were both members of the Straits Chinese British Association.
My paternal aunt studied at Methodist Girls’ School, (Bukit Mertajam).
Without her mother’s knowledge she learned to ride a bicycle, then saved her pocket money, bought a bicycle and stored it at a friend’s home.
At the weekends the girls would ride in a large group to faraway places for picnics but sadly one day my Aunt was knocked down by a van and taken to hospital.
Grandmother was informed. When Aunt recovered she was not allowed ever to ride a bike again. She never married and became a nun ending her days in the temple grandmother had built in Bukit Mertajam.
As noted on pp. 183-185, this was when Irene’s best friend Mrs. Ho Rih Hwa’s son, Ho Kwon Ping, a friend of Linda’s, was arrested under ISA and Irene’s movements were watched presumably by the ISD
My paternal aunt studied at Methodist Girls’ School, (Bukit Mertajam). Yes
Without her mother’s knowledge she learned to ride a bicycle, then saved her pocket money, bought a bicycle and stored it at a friend’s home. Yes–bicycle
Attached is the best resolution we have of the family photo on p. 11 with these people in it.
Kung Family, 1899, Singapore. Kung Tian Siong is standing and Siauw Mah Lee seated at extreme right. Kung Tian Cheng is standing and his wife Pang AH Kang seated at extreme left. Mother Mrs. Kung Chow Ching is seated in the center with her daughters Ah Yin (later Marie-Therese Wong) to her right, Ah Chow to her left, and Cheng Neo behind. Source: Irene Lim family collection.