Paperback: Dr Lee Wei Ling, scion of Singapore’s first family, writes about her life as a daughter, doctor and diehard Singaporean. A Hakka Woman's Singapore Stories (2016) addresses a range of matters affecting Singaporeans in a personal way. It reflects her personality, profession, relationships, passions and perspective of life, Singapore and the world, and her loved ones. The chapters are grouped thematically and are capped by an epilogue of six articles which encapsulate the two events that had a major impact on the writer, and resonated deeply with Singaporeans: the passing of her parents.
"Lee is a natural storyteller. Her knack for ironic humour and a delivery that replicates speech, offers every article an immediacy which an editor would be foolish to blue-pencil and straitjacket within the confines of conventional writing. Her forthright, take-the-bull-by-horns-attitude towards life energises her stories an doffers an intimacy that is personal, yet civil. These three qualities - immediacy, energy and intimacy - drive the telling of her experiences retailed in this book," wrote Yap Koon Hong, editor and journalist with The Straits Times in the About This Book.
"Lee's feisty, funny, open and often unapologetic personality clearly imprints itself in this book. There may be as many who may disagree with her views as there are those who will nod approvingly. This collection is certainly not the definitive autobiography of Lee, limited, as it is, by the content of her published writings in the newspapers. This book is special because it is rare, and readable; and not because it is the last word by Lee about her family and her life, but the first."
About the author: Lee Wei Ling is the only daughter of Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo. Mr Lee was Singapore's first prime minister and Madam Kwa was a managing partner of the law firm Lee & Lee which the couple started. Mr Lee left the firm when he became prime minister and his brother Dennis Lee Kim Yew ran the firm with Madam Kwa. The third prime minister Lee Hsien Loong is the elder brother while her younger brother Lee Hsien Yang is a businessman in the private sector.
Dr Lee topped the science stream for the 1972 A-level exam. She was awarded the President's Scholarship in 1973 and studied medicine at the University of Singapore. She also topped her cohort in medical school, obtaining a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree with honours in 1978. She has worked in the public health sector since then. She was awarded further scholarships by the Ministry of Health to train in paediatric neurology for three years in Boston at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (1981-1984) and for a year at The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto (1992). She headed the National Neuroscience Institute as its director between 2004 and 2014, and is currently senior consultant in paediatric neurology at this institute.
No comments:
Post a Comment