The glass is really half full

The Straits Times Oct 30, 2009

By Lee Wei Ling

This is the last week of October, well into autumn. As I do my step-aerobic exercises, looking out of my hotel window in Washington DC, I see a lone maple tree.
Half of its leaves have fallen. Of the remaining leaves, only a few are red; the rest are partially brown and partially green. They are wilting before they get a chance to display the splendid red that makes autumn my favourite season in the United States. The sad-looking tree reminds me that the year is drawing to a close.

It has been a dreary year, both for myself and the world-at-large. Yet, in spite of my misfortunes, there are many things that I am grateful for. The five months I spent in hospital earlier in the year gave me a chance to reconnect with old friends, some of whom I had lost touch with for three decades. I made new friends among the nurses and doctors who looked after me. I enjoyed writing my columns for The Straits Times and The Sunday Times, and still do.

After being discharged from the hospital, I was happy to see my patients again, and they were happy to see me. I have resumed travelling with my father Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, something that I used to do in my late teens and in my 20s, until work and my conference schedule put a stop to it.

This time, when my father asked me to accompany him on his trips, I dropped everything and joined him. I am travelling not for fun but to keep him company. As a result, I have had quality time with him.

While I have always known that my father was wise, I was surprised to see the movers and shakers of this world seek his opinion and advice on a multitude of international problems.

Over the past weekend, my father stayed in the home of Henry and Nancy Kissinger in Connecticut. For dinner on Saturday and again for lunch on Sunday, the Kissingers invited people from politics, academia, the media and business to meet my father. On Monday evening, Fed Malek of Thayer Capital organised a gathering at his home in Washington DC for my father to meet more movers and shakers. My father learnt about US perceptions of the world and the views of the Obama administration and Congress.

On Tuesday evening, at a black-tie dinner, my father was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by the US-Asean Business Council. Former US Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton sent taped tributes. President Barack Obama sent a statement that was read out on his behalf by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

Kissinger and George Shultz — both former US secretaries of state and old friends of my father — attended the event. Both paid glowing tributes to my father. I am proud of my father, not for the award per se, but for making Singapore and Asean better places.

And for this event, even I, usually heedless of convention, was appropriately attired. I wore a Chinese jacket that my sister-in-law Ho Ching had bought for me, carried a bag that my friend and colleague, Professor Helen Tjia, had given me, and wore shoes bought by another friend. Together, they had conspired to ensure that I was dressed appropriately for the occasion.

I did not know how similar my thinking process was to my father's until after a private lunch with the Kissingers last weekend. Kissinger and my father were lamenting the state of the world, when my father said: “Henry, we must do what's right.”

My father has always tried to do what is right for Singapore, and for humanity. He will stand by friends who fall out of public favour to show the world: “To hell with you, he is still my friend.” These are the same rules by which I have tried to lead my much humbler life.

According to the psychologist Hans Jurgen Eysenck, sons think more like their mothers and daughters more like their fathers. My father believes in Eysenck's theories and blames himself for his non-conformist daughter.

He is a world-famous statesman, one whom world leaders consult. As Kissinger noted on Tuesday evening: “Over 40 years, when Mr Lee comes to Washington, he gets to see an array of people that almost no foreign leader gets to see... because he does not come as a supplicant.” Today, my father is to meet Obama.

But, after all is said and done, my father will leave it to history to have the final say on his life. In the meantime, he will simply continue to do what is right for Singapore and for the world. I believe that if there were more politicians like him, the world would be a better place.

This article began on a sombre note. I admire the Stoic philosophy, and had decided to take a stoic view of this year. But I have since come to the conclusion that the glass is half full, and that really, I and most Singaporeans are not in such a bad situation.

It is more likely to stay that way if we continued to do what's right — in season as well as out.

Dr Lee is the director of the National Neuroscience Institute.