education system”, which would be free education for them then. So they packed their bags and Tze Yin sold his very successful dental clinic business. T ey set sail for a totally new life in Melbourne. T e years passed and her two boys thrived in the Australian educational environment. T ey went on to the USA to graduate from the prestigious Harvard Business School and build incredibly successful careers for themselves on Wall Street. Today, one of her sons runs his own hedge fund, and both are as successful as any mother could wish for their kids to be. But here’s the thing that makes them special. Dr Liow Tze Yin, her husband, then made the decision to return to Malaysia to care for their ageing mother, who at 93 years of age is still going strong. “It was tough uprooting once
more, but you gotta do what you gotta do,” said Foong Kwan with a smile shrugging her shoulders. I think it is simply magnifi cent that as a mother, she sacrifi ced for her sons, and as a wife, she sacrifi ces now for her mother-in-law. So back home in Malaysia, she passes her time playing golf and playing bridge. It is not a bad life at all! Of the group, I have to confess I always thought Foong Kwan would be the one to champion all the causes of the world. At University, she herself remembers coming out and marching for academic freedom. She enjoyed a seven year stint as the Deputy Executive Director of a Global Secretariat promoting the use of Information Technology for Development. “We took over the Secretariat from
the World Bank to promote the use of a whole range of technology for improving lives. Our special message was to use a multi-stakeholder approach that would include the Government, private sector and civil society. Recently, I was interested to read that Facebook is looking into this model to off er their services to help the migrants in Europe.” Foong Kwan is being humble
because she describes her time in Australia as being just a schoolteacher, but like a leopard never changing its spots, she continued to be active in
42 FENGSHUIWORLD | NOVEMBER 2015
community issues. She took on the Vice Chancellor’s Board when they tried to reverse a bad decision against migrant students. T ese days, she lives a less complicated life chasing a “silly white ball”, playing bridge and trying to coax her orchids to fl ower. She has yet to discover the secret of making them bloom. I can tell her how. Just invite a holy object into the garden such as a Buddha image or Kuan Yin, or Mother Mary and dedicate all the blooms to them. T ere’s something spiritual about getting flowers to bloom!
attended another lunch at the invitation of Datin Halimah, where I was made to feel so welcome by the lunch organizer Datuk Atikah Adom who had gathered together an impressive group of professional and business Malay ladies to meet up with Tan Sri Rafi dah Aziz, whom I had also wanted to meet up with again. Tan Sri RAFIDAH
I
AZIZ is a household name in Malaysia and is something of a political heroine of my generation. She has been in politics all her life, having served four Prime Ministers as a very senior Minister of Trade and Industry. In that capacity, she has led and represented the country in countless international trade negotiations, rubbed shoulders with so many world leaders and spoken on many global platforms. Still she remains the same - very happy, down-to-earth and extremely likeable when you meet her face to face, simply because she is so direct, so full of good humour and shares spontaneous personal anecdotes like she is your oldest friend. Like us, she graduated from MU - University Malaya.
I used to know her as a tutor when I was at University, and in later
years when her late husband Tan Sri Basir, who was on the Board of our Central Bank, became a member of the Harvard Business School Alumni Club in Malaysia, I also got to know him very well. I have always held such high esteem for Tan Sri Rafi dah that for years she was my icon who symbolized the epiphany of success. In recent months, Rafi dah has emerged as a courageous voice posting
some very sensible views on the situation in Malaysia. She is calling for clear focus to be placed on the Economy, advocating that attention be put to manage Malaysia’s economic woes in the face of global economic downturns. She is famous for her rhetoric, chooses her words carefully and crafts her opinions skillfully. She is a great Malaysian asset and her wealth of experience is invaluable, so her views should be taken seriously.
www.fswmag.com
These are just five friends who
went to College with me. The reunion lunch was very successful in that we enjoyed catching up so much that we are planning another one in the new year. My readers may find this hard to believe, but at our age, each of us continues to lead very full lives. Our paths take us to different destinations and we each follow different pathways. Nevertheless, our aspirations stay fundamentally the same, and they are strong enough to keep our bonds surprisingly strong.
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