Salute to our Strong Women


In 2021, International Women’s Day on March 8, celebrated the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women across the globe in the theme #ChooseToChallenge.


Grandmother, Mak Cheng Hai [Right]
with her mother, Fong Ai Leen

As women’s achievements were celebrated on the world stage, I take this opportunity to salute the strong women in our family, many of whom are yet unsung but deserve to be recognised and celebrated for their selfless achievements.


Among the many influences that shaped my life were the sacrifices and commitment of several wonderful women, significant among them were my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.


To share all that they have accomplished would fill several volumes so here are just a few that reflect their hearts, as examples for us to emulate.


When we were children, my two older sisters and I – daughters of grandmother’s eldest daughter – had the privilege of knowing our great-grandmother.


Because she wore her hair in a small bun and dressed in somber colours, I thought she was such an old woman. I believe it was probably her hard life which aged her.


In those days it was the norm for young ladies from good families to have a child companion or playmate who would grow up with her as her personal maid. This was how we knew that our great-grandmother, Fong Ai Leen, was from a wealthy family.


With their origins from Taishan county in the Guangdong province, China, senior family members spoke in the Seiyap dialect and referred to elder sisters as Ah Tei.


Great-grandmother’s companion-personal maid was Kok Soi Heong, fondly called Cheong Kiang Tei, a nickname given her because she had quite a long neck and cheong kiang in Cantonese means, long neck.


When great-grandmother married Mak Chor Kun, better known as Mak Puan, she released her companion-maid to marry and have a family of her own.  


Having lived together as family for so long, Cheong Kiang Tei was like a family member to us. We stayed in close touch even after she married, had a family and a few grandchildren.


In that era, opium-smoking was a Government controlled business to earn much-needed revenue for the developing state of Johor and great-grandfather Mak operated a licensed opium business.


While great-grandmother started out with a good marriage, her husband’s habit of indulging in opium, drained the family resources and they ended up being poor. 


When great-grandfather passed away suddenly, it left great-grandmother a penniless widow with their surviving children.


They were Mak Cheng Hai, her eldest who was our grandmother, two sons, Mak Kim Hong and Mak Kim Chew and youngest daughter, Mak Fong Sim.


Already a widow with her own children, great-grandmother had a heart big enough to love yet another child, born to parents who could not look after him.


When great-grandmother adopted this infant as her youngest son, it was during the Japanese invasion in World War Two and the family had to flee into hiding within the jungles to escape the cruel massacre that targeted the Chinese.


As the enemy was seeking out to annihilate the Chinese, the few families who were hiding together in the jungle lived in abject fear, especially at night when marauding soldiers could pounce on unsuspecting victims.


Among the children in this group, great-grandmother’s infant child was the cry-baby who could not be easily pacified. This posed a real risk to the group because his constant crying could lead the soldiers to them and have everyone killed.


One unforgettable night, the group’s look-out warned of approaching soldiers and everyone had to keep silent to avoid being discovered.


Fearing for their lives, everyone hushed-up except for this innocent infant who chose to cry at that very moment.


Because his crying placed everyone at risk of certain death, someone in the group threatened to strangle the infant to silence him.


I can only imagine the anguish any mother would feel when faced with such challenging circumstances.


Great-grandmother must have fought hard to ensure that her beloved child was unharmed not only by threatening soldiers but also from within their own group.


Thankfully, the tense moments passed without incident and this cry-baby infant was spared from being strangled to death. When the war was over, he continued to thrive in the loving care of great-grandmother and grew up to be a fine young man.


He is now retired after a career with the Government service, with a family of his own and many grandchildren.


The saga of strong women in our extended family continues in two sisters of Mak Puan who became the fourth (Ah Niong) and fifth (Ah Nai) wives of Wong Kwong Yam, the patriarch of the Wong family in Johor Baru.


Wealthy and influential towkays like Kwong Yam could have their pick of any number of wives and concubines.


Kwong Yam was the son of Wong’s only brother, Wing Kee, who died young. In the pioneering era, Johor builder and entrepreneur, Wong Ah Fook had his only nephew, Kwong Yam, brought to Malaya to look after his businesses here. 


Educated in a Malay school and conversant in the Malay language, he was known locally as Towkay Ah Yam or Tow Kah Yim, in the Seiyap dialect. 


His first two wives, however, did not produce any male offspring and because it was important to have sons to run the family business, Wong Ah Fook’s wife helped to arrange for Kwong Yam’s next marriage – his third.


I learnt that it was a Chinese belief that after a family adopted a son, it would enhance their chances for fathering a male offspring of their own.


So after eldest son, Wong Cheong Meng, came into the family, this somehow kicked off the bearing of male offspring including Wong Peng Nam, Wong Peng Tong, Wong Peng Yee, Wong Peng Soon, Wong Peng Long and Wong Peng Kow.


In fact, after Kwong Yam had married his fourth and fifth wives, his third wife eventually produced a son, Wong Peng Tong.


So, with five wives and 17 children, Towkay Ah Yam had a huge family who lived together at Jalan Ah Siang.


51st Birthday celebration for Mrs Mak Kim Hong nee Wan Yoke Mui [3rd from Right],
our grandmother Mak Cheng Hai [Far Right], Kok Soi Heong AKA Cheong Kiang Tei 
[2nd from Right], grandmother's cousin Mak Foong Oi [Far Left], grandmother's
youngest sister, Mak Foong Sim [2nd from Left] and great-grandmother's sister
Fong May Yoong [3rd from Left]. Photo taken in 1977.


My sisters and I are familiar with members of the extended family from the Wong clan because some often visited our grandmother whom they addressed as Piu Koo.


They also often came to watch grandfather while he trained budding badminton players at the Ng family home in Jalan Ngee Heng. 


We would reciprocate by sending grandmother over to their home at Jalan Chantum off Jalan Waterworks (now Jalan Sungai Chat) to chit-chat with her cousin, Mrs Goh nee Wong Sweet Wah fondly called Lin Tai, whom we respectfully addressed as Sam Yee Mah and to the children, she was Sam Yee Poh.


She was the daughter of Kwong Yam by his third wife, and I remember her as a gentle lady with a sense of humour.


Speaking of Yee Poh there was another lady in our family whom we addressed as Yee Poh. Grandmother called her, Siew Moi in the Seiyap dialect while my mother addressed her as, Siew Moi Yee. (Ah Yee is the title to address an Aunt.)


I later learnt that this Yee Poh was not a blood relation but a former maid with the Wong family who became as close as a sister to grandmother.


She was Foochow but could speak Seiyap, which she probably learnt from living with the Wong family, and I used to listen, fascinated by the undulating intonations in this dialect, during conversations between her and grandmother.


Yee Poh was married to a man (I later learnt) who also had a wife and family in China, and they too had a family here.


When Yee Poh delivered a stillbirth, she was devastated. But her sorrow turned to joy when a fellow Foochow friend who delivered a baby girl at about the same time, let her adopt this child whom Yee Poh brought up as her own.


I am familiar with Yee Poh because while I was a pre-schooler, our ma jie had to retire due to advancing age and Yee Poh came to our family as a domestic helper for a while. (A ma jie is from the Chinese sisterhood of domestic helpers.)


While the British were in Johor, Yee Poh also worked with English families and this was how she picked up a smattering of the English language.


After she had retired from work, Yee Poh and grandmother went on holiday abroad with grandmother’s close friend who shared the same surname, Mak Kwai Sim.


They had an exciting and memorable trip, and it was Yee Poh’s ability to speak simple English that helped this trio of Golden Girls to enjoy a more comfortable hotel stay.


70th Birthday Celebration for grandmother, Mak Cheng Hai [3rd from Right] with the
Golden Girls [Left to Right] Mrs Wong Cheong Meng nee Mary Leong Yuet Keng, Fong May Yoong,
Mrs Goh nee Wong Sueet Wah AKA Lin Tai, grandmother, Kok Soi Heong and Siew Moi.


This brings me to our grandmother who lived a long and eventful life and passed on in 2015 at the ripe old age of 103.


To commemorate her 100th birthday in 2015, I published a piece in the New Sunday Times on grandmother dubbed, The Real Champion, because although she was the mother to national and international badminton champions, she was an amazing woman in her own right.


As a tribute to our late grandmother, this piece was also published in my 2017 MPH Non-Fiction Bestseller, My Johor Stories: True Tales, Real People, Rich Heritage.


Grandmother, Mak Cheng Hai
[Seated] with her lovely daughters
[L to R] Sylvia Ng, Lily Ng,
Lucy Ng, Annie Ng and Polly Ng.

Looking back to the school-going years when my cousins, siblings and I stayed with our grandparents, it was grandmother who instilled strong family values in us and trained us to be responsible.


Having lived through the World War Two and successfully brought up 11 children of her own – five daughters and six sons – grandmother had enough experience to nurture a bunch of active grandchildren who lived with her.


Using her loud voice, which rivalled any megaphone, she could summon anyone with a shout that echoed through the double-storey bungalow.


The culprit who caused grandmother to use this tone of voice should justifiably be cowering in fear because she never hesitated to discipline with harsh words (Read: Chinese expletives) and raising her hand or using the cane.


Because of her stereophonic voice, our nickname for grandmother was aptly Stereo!


But grandmother’s bark was worse than her bite. She was a strong person with a kind heart and always wanted the best for the younger generation.


When her nephew from the Mak family was leaving for studies abroad, I distinctly remember her wise words of advice and encouragement to him with a reminder to gain more pride for the Mak family by achieving all that he set out to do. (And he did!)


After grandfather passed on in 1980, grandmother was the family matriarch, loved and honoured with much respect for her wise counsel and sound advice.


Grandmother's 70th Birthday celebration
with her grandchildren in 1992

While the family celebrated her birthday every year, we held a grand celebration to commemorate each birthday that marked her every decade since her 60th year until her 100th birthday.


I have a special bond with grandmother because in her twilight years, she lived with our family for almost 20 years. As she advanced in age, my parents – her eldest daughter and son-in-law – and me, worked as a team to care for her.


Widowed and with all her children married and living away, she often felt lonely and insecure. She confided that as she mellowed with age, she had also lost her courage.


To emphasize the stark contrast to how she was when she was younger, grandmother used a Cantonese phrase, “Low foo tow tah sey,” that described her strength and skills to even ‘wrestle a tiger to its death.’


Grandmother was a fountain of information and she enjoyed talking. And when she talked, I listened.


These chats with her were how I learned a great deal about the people in the extended family and the events that happened, set in a background of a developing Johor after World War Two.


All this information, safely stored in my heart and mind, were put to good use when I shared them in My Johor Stories, a collection of true tales filled with real people and familiar places that readers could readily identify with because it documented a slice of our local history.


As our parents had also advanced in age, the reins for the caring of grandmother were passed to mum’s fourth sister, Aunty Polly and her husband Uncle Steven, who cared for grandmother with the support of Aunty Sylvia and her husband Uncle Mok, for eight years until she passed.


The Ng sister [Right to Left] in 2000,
Lucy, Lily, Annie, Polly and Sylvia

My mother, the eldest sister among her 10 siblings, made sacrifices that most elder sisters of large families probably did in that bygone era.


Her brother was born with epilepsy, a condition that required close attention because an epileptic seizure could be triggered off unprovoked and he would go into convulsions that could lead to choking and death.


To look after him, grandmother relinquished most of her homemaker responsibilities to my mother, then a teenager, who took over the domestic duties at home.


It was just days before her exam when my mother was then allowed to return to school. Aware that she had missed out on her studies for too long, she felt that it was unwise to sit for an exam that would almost certainly turn out poor results.


Knowing that she was much needed at home, my mother decided to drop out of school to shoulder the responsibilities at home so that grandmother could focus her attention on caring for her epileptic son.


While it was a challenging time for everyone, it was a great relieve when her brother grew out of his epilepsy and my mother was finally freed from her responsibilities at home.


Her application to the Johor Baru General Hospital to train as a nurse was accepted and she did well by qualifying as a Midwife in 1953.


Even with her few years of formal school, the British education system was so good that it equipped my mother with sufficient skills not only to read, write and count but also to study and qualify as a Midwife.


On International Women’s Day 2021, this brief sharing about the strong women in great-grandmother, grandmother and my mother, are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg, among the many wonderful women with a selfless attitude in our family.


I trust this will inspire and encourage all of us – both men and women – to strive on in our various roles within the extended family and build upon the bonds that were established among the Mak, Wong and Ng clans, from now into the next generations and beyond.

. . .

Important Note: It is easy to remember March 11, 2011, because on this date, a massive earthquake of 9.0 magnitude triggered off a tsunami that resulted in a nuclear disaster in Fukushima Daiichi, Japan.


Unaware that this was happening in Japan, on this same date exactly 10 years ago, My Johor Stories went live. So March 11 in 2021, marks the 10-year anniversary of My Johor Stories, the blog.


Thank you, all. Your reading keeps me writing. There are still many more stories to tell. 

Happy 10th Anniversary My Johor Stories!

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