Tag: love

A life grounded on destiny and love

Actions defines a man (1928-2022)

By Foong Pek Yee

The teenager survived the perilous journey and landed in Singapore.
First trip out from his village in Ipoh, Perak, Tung Sam Chee – my third maternal uncle – was only armed with the determination to survive.
That was shortly after the end of World War 2 in 1945 and, life was simply harsh and unpredictable.
His parents decided to send him to Singapore after losing  two older sons in the crossfire between the Japanese and communists earlier.
But the end of  World War 2 only saw civilians  caught in the confrontation between the British colonial government and communists in then Malaya.
That was life in a turbulent era.
Last goodbye:  Leaving Ang Mo Kio, Singapore on July 29, 2022 –  his home for about five decades.
The 17-year-old never looked back after landing in Singapore.
Perseverance, hard work and,  encounters with good people saw him settled down in Singapore.
He met and married the love of his life, Wong Wai Kwan, and they were blessed with three children; sons Kum Choon and Kum Cheong and daughter Sow Mun.
By then he already had his company on tooling business.
Life was a bliss for the family until fate dealt a cruel blow.
His wife passed away from kidney failure in 1974.
She was 34.
Third uncle stayed strong for their children – a promise he made to his wife- and to love them no matter what.
In 2005, he  lost his second son, 39-year-old  Kum Cheong, to brain tumour.
Again he remained strong for his children, and had kept a brave front as Kum Cheong battled with the disease.
Seventeen years later, on July 25,  third uncle who was 94, passed away peacefully in Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore, leaving behind Kum Choon, Sow Mun, their spouse and five grandchildren.
And his loved ones found consolation that he finally reunite with his beloved wife and Kum Cheong whom he missed dearly.
They were laid to rest side by side in the columbarium in Kong Meng San Buddhist Temple and Monastery in Bishan, Singapore.
Rest in peace: Prayers at Kong Meng San after the cremation on July 29, 2022
A proud son of Singapore, third uncle was forever patriotic and grateful for the opportunities he got as the nation evolved from a struggling post war island to a major global financial hub.
A  filial son and a  loving and caring  husband and father, he had stayed strong whatever challenges life threw at him.

Of war and love

By Foong Pek Yee
13 Dec, 2021
LOVE  brought them together,  war tore them apart.
A beautiful love story  cut short by the Korean War.
Lee Jung-Seop, born to a wealthy family in North Korea, and Yamamoto Masako met and fell in love when they were studying art in Tokyo in 1939.
They got married in 1945, the year World War II ended, and she took up the Korean name  Lee Nam-Deok.
The couple were blessed with two sons when the Korean War (1950-53) erupted.
Together with  their sons Tae-Hyun and Tae-Seung who were four and two respectively, they survived the 1951 mass exodus from North Korea to  South Korea where they stayed in Busan and Jeju for a year.
In a bid to save their children from hardship in a war torn country, Nam-Deok and her sons boarded a Tokyo-bound repatriation ship in 1952.
The separation was meant to be a temporary one.
The following year, Jung -Seop managed to make it to Tokyo for a weeklong reunion with his wife and sons.
Upon his return to South Korea, Jung -Seop who struggled to make money to bring his family home succumbed to hardship and poor health.
He died alone in a hospital in Seoul in 1956 at the age of 40.
Fast track to 2002, the South Korean government set up the Lee Jung-Seop Art Gallery in Seogwipo in Jeju and the road leading to the museum is named after the renowned artist.
 Legacy: Visitors learned about Lee Jung -Seop  as they stroll along the street named after him.
Jung-Seop’s life and times, written in English,  is displayed prominently at the gallery
I wished I had read about the Lee family before I visited the museum in the Summer of 2018 to better appreciate his art work which says a lot about love for his family and life in a turbulent era.
Happier times:  The two paintings by Lee Jung -Seop.
Next to the gallery is a small house where the Lee family stayed in a rented room measuring 1.5m by 2.4m for about a year in 1951.
Evolving times: The Lee family stayed briefly  in this house about 70 years ago.
According to The Korean Herald in a report on Jun 6, 2016 – It was in Seogwipo  that Jung -Seop created paintings that portrayed children playing with crabs and fish, in cheerful colours, and that his wife later recalled that it was the happiest time for the family.