In her own silent ways of fortitude, Madam Wong Poh Choo is too, an Iron Lady. She sums up her attitude towards life simply, by saying “If you think too much about the future and about life, you will go crazy. I don’t think, I just do.” Ironically, this comes from someone who did not live in the age of Nike and materialistic pleasures. Madam Wong was born in Malaysia, and moved over to Singapore upon marriage at the age of 18, as her husband, who was an electrician was a Singaporean. In Malaysia she lived on a farm, did construction work such as bricklaying and sold buckets of water at 10 sens (RM) to her neighbours. She led an extremely trying and tough life in Malaysia, having to pull out of school at the age of 7, after attending 2 months of schooling, to take care of her sick mum. Hence, she has not received any formal education. On moving to Singapore, she worked at Alexander hospital for approximately 30 years (she cannot remember the exact number) before coming to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. This is her fourth year here. Life in Singapore, for her, was not a marked improvement. She travelled an hour to work and another home every day, as she did not stay near Alexander Hospital and had to scrimp and save, rushing home to prepare lunch for her three young children. Her work as a porter in the hospital required her to be adaptable and flexible, having to work in various areas such as the kitchen, cleaning toilets and mainly patient care. She cleaned bedpans of patients, fed patients and ferried them from room to room in the hospital. Madam Wong tells us with a laugh that she is glad pampers were invented, as she can now just dispose of patient’s pampers, rather than having to clean their waste with her hands. She weathered such intensive work for 34 years and in the true spirit and triumph of the human spirit, this allowed her to see all her three children through a university education, every cent having been fought to the teeth for. Having worked in an environment where illness and sometimes, even eternal parting are seen on a daily basis, Madam Wong displays immense strength and wisdom. She says that in a hospital, she has to maintain a purely professional relationship with her patients, as attachment is not good. She chooses to focus on taking care of her own family, but with no fear in her eyes, tells us that “Everyone ages and leaves someday.” Madam Wong gracefully appreciates her job and even learns to see the value that she brings to it. She emphasizes the importance of older generation workers in hospitals, as they are able to communicate and translate requests of patients made in dialects. Currently, Madam Wong goes marketing on her days off and takes care of her husband, who is ill. However, she has no complains about how she lives now and is fully content with her life. Proudly, she also told us that her children now work as\ a social worker, social therapist and at the Singapore Port Authority. Indeed we see where her children got their selfless nature from, as when we asked Madam Wong the million dollar question: “What would you do if you won a million dollars”, she said that she would donate it to her church, the needy and in particular, the elderly with eye problems. Madam Wong is a beautiful woman inside and out, and she has given us many lessons that we could not have learnt without the wisdom of the pioneer generation. Written by: Lim Su Lyn and Charmaine Chua From: Nanyang Girls' HIgh School