home 11October 5, 2008 thesundaytimes

Hakka clan
can help
S’pore tap
into China
PM Lee calls on clan the association should spend some
of the windfall from the sale of its
association to help Char Yong Gardens condominium
promote Chinese in the Orchard Road vicinity.
“I hope Char Yong will use some
language and culture of these funds to help promote Chi-
nese language and culture, such as
to purchase Chinese books for
Jeremy Au Yong schools, or to sponsor students to
attend Chinese cultural perform-
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ances,” he said.
yesterday called on the Char Yong The clan had indicated it would
Association to help strengthen Sin- put some of the investment pro-
gapore’s business links with China. ceeds from the $100 million it re-
The organisation, one of Singa- ceived from the sale to charitable ST PHOTO: TERENCE TAN
pore’s major Hakka clan associa- work. Madam Krishnavani (foreground) set up the “Golden Gals” dance group for women aged 40 and over to learn Indian cultural dance. The high-spirited senior
tions, had a “valuable asset” in its Mr Lee added that though the was one of seven people honoured yesterday with an Active Agers award for leading an active life in their twilight years.
link to China, he said, speaking in clan is a minority dialect group
Mandarin. here – they number about 198,000,

Life’s an adventure for

“It can establish and maintain a according to the 2000 Census –
guanxi network for business con- they have made many contribu-
tacts and partnerships,” he told a tions to the country.
gathering at the association’s 150th The Prime Minis-
ter, himself a Hakka,
cited some who be-
came politicians,
such as Minister Men-
tor Lee Kuan Yew,
former finance minis-
ters Hon Sui Sen and
Richard Hu, as well as
former defence and
health minister Howe
Yoon Chong. As for
current MPs, he
named Dr Lam Pin
Min, Mrs Josephine
Teo and Mr Lee Yi
ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM
Shyan. After his
PM Lee with leaders and members of the Char speech, PM Lee
Yong Association at the Suntec City Ballroom.
helped cut a birthday
cake the size of a cof-
anniversary gala dinner in the Sun- fee table to mark the anniversary.
tec City Ballroom. Throughout the night, Char
Among the 1,000 guests were as- Yong Association president Lang
sociation members, Chinese com- Chin Ngau was all smiles. He told
munity leaders and some 300 repre- The Sunday Times that the clan
sentatives from Hakka associations will heed the Prime Minister’s calls.
worldwide. “We encourage some of our
members to go back to China to in-
Within the country, Mr Lee said,
vest. We are already doing that and
the association had a role to play in we will now do some more,” he
improving ethnic ties as well as in said.
helping to preserve Chinese cul-
ture. He had a suggestion for how jeremyau@sph.com.sg
gung-ho great-grandmother
Jermyn Chow
Madam R. Krishnavani has sur-
vived a war, worked in more than
10 jobs and taught Tamil in more
than 30 schools.
Born in 1938, the 70-year-old
has five children, nine grandchil-
dren and a great-granddaughter.
It’s a good time to just dote on the
little ones, some might say.
But she still leads an active life,
running a dance class, giving tui-
tion and acting on stage.
To the septuagenarian, age is
just a number. “I don’t want to
just sit at home waiting for death.
I want to continue living my
dreams and being happy,” said
Madam Krishnavani.
It is this gung-ho outlook that
made her one of seven people hon-
oured yesterday for living their
greying years to the fullest.
They received their Active Ag-
ers awards from Minister for Com-
munity Development, Youth and
Sports Vivian Balakrishnan in a
ceremony at Cavenagh Bridge.
The occasion was part of the on-
going Active Ageing festival
which promotes a meaningful life-
style. The festivities are organised
by the Council for Third Age, an
independent body that promotes
active ageing.
Council chairman Gerard Ee
said there were more than 400
nominations this year, twice the
number last year.
“As Singaporeans start living
longer, having longer healthy life
expectancy is of great importance
and active ageing is one of the key
ways to achieve this. I think sen-
iors are beginning to recognise
this themselves,” he said.
Madam Krishnavani is a testa-
ment to this.
She said “life” began for her on-
ly when she was 32 – when she de-
cided to hit the books again, after
a 15-year hiatus to start a family.
Relatives and friends, expect-
ing her to be a homebody, had
scolded her then.
But she stood by her decision
because her husband was jobless
at the time and she saw education
as the way for her to have a more
stable job as a breadwinner.
She had quit school at 17, on
her parents’ insistence, to marry a
37-year-old odd-job labourer.
Madam Krishnavani put the
awkwardness of being the oldest
in her night class behind her to
get her O-level qualifications.
She became the sole breadwin-
ner and took on multiple jobs. She
was a radio announcer and actress
with the then-Singapore Broad-
casting Corporation, a relief teach-
er in schools and a tuition teacher.
The family of seven lived on her
income of $1,400 a month.
In 1980, she was widowed
when her husband died from a
brain aneurysm.
Looking back, she is proud to
have put her children through jun-
ior college.
Now, her daughter and two
sons take turns to house her every
week. Her two other sons migrat-
ed to Canada in 2003. She visits
them once every two years.
The dance enthusiast’s can-do
attitude shone again in 2002,
when she was once again criti-
cised for not staying at home.
She set up the “Golden Gals”
dance group for women aged 40
and over to learn Indian cultural
dance every Sunday at the Thom-
son community centre.
The group of 12 students –
mostly 40-somethings – has per-
formed in Malaysia and Indone-
sia’s Karimun Island.
“Nowadays, so many older
women just stay at home to cook,
clean, watch television or sleep. It
is not healthy and very mind-
numbing,” she said.
The matriarch still has two
more “peaks” to scale. She wants
to learn how to send e-mail and
surf the Internet.
And she wants to pick up a few
tips from her grandchildren on
how to use the 3G mobile phone
she received as a present last year.
“I told them I want to learn
how to send text and pictures to
them and my friends.”

Dengue risk from donated blood ‘very, very low’
Dhany Osman
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan
has said the risk of contracting
dengue from donated blood is
“very, very low”.
He was answering media inquir-
ies yesterday about a report in the
New England Journal Of Medicine
that said three Singaporeans had
TEARY FAREWELL
contracted the dengue virus after
receiving blood that was tainted.
The blood came from a 52-year-
old donor in July last year.
The report said the three were
later discharged from the National
University Hospital in good health.
“We have been aware of the
possibility of dengue being
transmitted through blood transfu-
sion,” said Mr Khaw, who was at
the opening of Phase 2 of Admiral-
ty Park.
Unlike other viruses like HIV, he
explained, there are no commer-
cially available kits to test for
dengue.
The next best option is for doc-
tors to screen potential donors to
ensure the safety of the blood
collected.
This is the “only practical way to
handle this” until commercial test-
ing kits become available, he said.
On the safety of Singapore’s
blood supply, he said: “Whatever
we do here, all other blood banks
are doing the same thing.”
He added that the concern over
safe supplies was one reason com-
mercial blood banking did not
work out.
“When you’re buying and sell-
ing blood, you tend to attract peo-
ple who are desperate for money,”
he said, explaining that such
donors could falsify their medical
history in order to sell their blood.
“That’s why, all around the
world, there’s been a switch to vol-
untary blood banking. That’s the
only way to protect the safety of a
blood bank,” he said.
Drugs worth
$500,000
seized,
11 arrested
It was a busy Friday for officers
of the Central Narcotics
Bureau (CNB) who seized
drugs worth over $500,000
and arrested 11 people.
The drugs seized included
1.6kg of heroin, 467 Ecstasy
tablets and 5,245 Erimin-5 tab-
lets. About $42,600 in cash,
believed to be drug proceeds,
was also recovered.
Earlier, the CNB received a

JBJ’s sons pay tip-off that a local trafficker

would be receiving two consign-
ments of drugs from an over-
seas syndicate and a local one.

tribute to a
At about 5.20pm, officers
spotted a courier from the over-
seas syndicate meeting a man
at Eunos MRT station. After
they parted, officers arrested

loving father
Jeremy Au Yong
Not J.B. Jeyaretnam the opposition
politician, but JBJ the loving hus-
band, father and grandfather.
In an emotional service at St An-
drew’s Cathedral yesterday, his
sons – Kenneth and Philip – paid
tribute to a side of their father only
they knew.
Their eulogies left many of the
600 friends, family members, oppo-
sition politicians and activists
packed into the church teary-eyed.
Mr Jeyaretnam died of heart fail-
ure last Tuesday. He was 82.
His older son, Kenneth, 49,
spoke first and talked about his fa-
ther’s devotion to the family.
He remembered building a pi-
rate ship out of an old mattress
when he was younger and how his
father gamely played along.
He recalled a letter from his fa-
ther saying he was so excited to
hear that his son had got a
first-class honours degree from
Cambridge University that he
could not sleep.
He also remembered the family
tradition of going to Robinsons to
pick out a Christmas gift, a habit
Mr Jeyaretnam kept up even when
bankrupt.
“He always insisted on accompa-
nying Jared to Robinsons at Christ-
mas time to choose him a present,
a trip I remember taking with him
from my own childhood,” he said,
referring to his 11-year-old son.
“Over the past week, people
have asked me how it felt to have a
father who put politics first and
family second. The answer to this
question is, ‘I don’t know’, because
my father put his family first
always,” he said.
Philip, 44, also spoke on the
lesser-known aspects of his father’s
life, such as how he got into trou-
Family members, including sons Kenneth (left) and Philip (centre), at JBJ’s funeral service at St Andrew’s Cathedral. Kenneth
remembered the family tradition of going to Robinsons to pick out a Christmas gift, a habit JBJ kept even when bankrupt.
ble in school in Muar, how dedicat-
ed he was to his faith and how
devoted he was to his wife.
Mr Jeyaretnam met his British
wife, Ms Margaret Walker, while
studying law in London. She cam-
paigned with him as he tried to win
a parliamentary seat. She died in
1980 of cancer, a year before he
won the Anson by-election and
was elected MP.
“Her memory stayed with him
ST PHOTO: MUGILAN RAJASEGERAN
and kept him going in his darkest
moments,” said the son.
Mr Jeyaretnam’s body was later
cremated in Mandai. He is survived
by his two sons and four grandchil-
dren.
the man. Other officers trailed
the courier to Lorong 37 Gey-
lang.
At about 6.30pm, the traf-
ficker was spotted arriving
with two men in a car. The traf-
ficker met the courier, who
handed over a black plastic
bag. Officers arrested them.
The two other men in the
car were later arrested at a near-
by coffee shop.
Another team of CNB offic-
ers raided a Geylang Bahru flat
and arrested the trafficker’s girl-
friend. She led them to a Jalan
Novena Barat apartment
where 33 cartons of duty-
unpaid cigarettes were found.
The CNB was also told that
the leader of the local syndi-
cate was waiting to meet the
trafficker, not knowing that he
had been arrested.
CNB officers located him in
the vicinity of Pine Lane at
about 7.45pm and arrested
him.
They later raided his Bedok
Reservoir View apartment and
arrested four people who were
involved in the packing and
distribution of drugs.