Yong Sun and His Mother (Madam Yew)

It is not every day we can meet up with a good young man and his 80+ mother!!

We were having fried Kampua Mee in Ah Ping's Cafe near the Sibu Civic Centre when Yong Sun came in with his 80+ mother.

Yong Sun is a popular journalist and blogger who is also a good food critic and a travel writer. He has published 6 books in Chinese which are all well received in Sarawak in particular and in the Chinese reading world. He is a talented young man who wears many hats. He is a very filial son.

Like many of the pioneering foochows who came from China Yong Sun's mother is a special lady who can write journals. And according to her she went to 3 years of primary school only while most of her learning was also done outside the school on her own!! That's really amazing. We are waiting for her memoirs to be published in the future.

Another admirable trait of hers is her great willingness to tell and share stories with people who are keen to listen to her. She is the kind of subject any enthnographic research may dream of. Articulate and clear in her thinking she is also a good manager and mother who has brought up great children while following her later husband into the remote ends of Sarawak when they were younger!!

Her mind is most alert and she is willing to write down her thoughts in the exercise books Yong Sun has bought for her.

Mrs. Yong was born into the Yew family and has moved homes many times to accompany her husband. The Yongs had lived in Sebauh and then Bintulu and finally in Pulau Kerto. All her children are intellectually well endowed and several are artists which include the talented Yong Sun.

What a fantastic and good elder!! The Foochow community has surely and certainly benefitted from the contribution of an elder like her.