Mr Koh Ah Boh

“I am one hundred plus years old.” 

“Now cannot work…the eyes can’t see. Old already, old people don't work.”

“I used to catch fish…eat fish”

Mr Koh Ah Boh, aged 108, was born in Guangdong, China. He arrived in Singapore in his early 20s as a fisherman who also made attap roofs in his village. When Mr Koh was 34, he agreed to an arranged marriage to a girl years his junior. The marriage was intended to protect his late wife, then 13, from becoming a “comfort woman” during the Japanese Occupation. The couple lived and raised their children on a kelong around Changi South. They were a hardworking family—Mrs Koh would sell all the fish that Mr Koh caught himself while the children tended to their fish farm. 

In the 1980s, when the family had to be relocated to Tampines due to developments in Changi, Mr Koh became a landscaper-gardener, toiling long hours under the scorching sun. He even planted some of the trees that now line our expressways. Family is most important to Mr Koh. He never resented the hard physical labour, because he was focused on providing for and raising his children well. His children admire his strong work ethic, which he continued to display as a karang guni man, right up to his 90s. He preferred to work, as it gave him something to do even though he was comfortably cared for. In his younger days, he was known for creating and inventing things.

Mr Koh looks forward to family gatherings—he loves seeing everyone. With his memory still lucid, he is able to match names to faces easily, keeping tabs on his grandchildren’s attendance at family gatherings. At home, he still wins at mental sums. Mr Koh has a weakness for century egg porridge and Old Chang Kee’s curry puffs, which he eats daily. He regularly consumes bird’s nest, which explains why, as his daughter puts it, his face is still so “well preserved”.

The family attributes Mr Koh’s longevity to genes and an active lifestyle. His son jokes, “My father has no illnesses, which makes him even healthier than me!” Their father is apparently the fittest in the family because he never misses his twice daily exercises! Mr Koh’s favourite activity is using the pebbled reflexology path and lifting logs at the fitness corner. He was often seen pushing his wheelchair as part of his exercise routine.

(Mr Koh has since passed on)

Mdm Chum Ai Haw

“I forgot my childhood.” 

“Happy…got people come…I happy...”

Madam Chum Ai Haw was born in 1915, in the month of November on the sixth day of the Chinese lunar calendar. When she was 20, she left her birthplace in the Hainan province of China for an arranged marriage to a man 16 years her senior. She joined her husband and built a life with him in Singapore. Madam Chum described her husband as a shy man who started his early career as a hawker at a stall they used to owned on Bain Street and later retired as a bar waiter with Cathay Organization.

Despite owning a food stall, food was scarce in the Chum household. Madam Chum and her husband would have porridge every day, with coconut and salt for added seasoning and texture. This, however, did not stop Madam Chum from developing a passion for cooking and eventually passing down heirloom Hainan recipes to her current Indonesian helper and caregiver, whom she treats like her own daughter and best friend. According to her helper, Madam Chum is a jovial, kind and caring person who does not bear grudges.

Madam Chum claims never to have worked a single day in her life. Yet, her children remembers her dedication to nurturing and taking care of all of them- five sons and three daughters, including also, fourteen grandchildren. Madam Chum had plenty of advice for her children, and the values she continually stressed were “Don’t gamble, don’t be too playful (and) don’t spend too much”.

In 1989, a year after her husband had passed away, Madam Chum - then aged 60 - went on a short trip to her village in China. Most of her kin had already migrated to Singapore but she continued to maintain strong ties with those who chose to remain and often bought gifts for them. Her husband had also built a house in her village for their family members. The last time she visited China was in 2010, at 80 years of age.

Three years ago, when she became a centenarian, Madam Chum started developing pains in her leg which eventually made it difficult for her to move without a walker. She insists on continuing her daily routines—making her way downstairs to savour her favourite bee hoon noodles and fried chicken wings. At 102, Madam Chum has no history of chronic illness, but is no longer as mobile as she used to be. Although she spends most of her time in her bed, she maintains a positive disposition, playing mahjong with her helper from time to time, and reminiscing over pictures of her travels to China. Madam Chum is 104 years old. 

Mdm Seah Sor Yuan

“I am one hundred…plus…one!” 

“Live for so long…very painful”

“I used to be fat, my jade bracelet is here [points to forearm], now left the bones, my bracelet can go all the way up!”

Madam Seah Sor Yuan was born in 1916, in Jinmen, an island considered a part of the Fujian Province of China. She married there, but left for Singapore to join her husband and his family who had a provision shop along Beach Road (near Golden Mile Complex). As newly-weds, they spent time managing the family business.

By the time she turned 25, Madam Seah had given birth to two young children, a daughter and a newborn son. On February 15 1941, the young wife became a single mother when her husband, then 29 was captured and killed by the Japanese, never to come home. She would spend the next months grieving while still hoping for his miraculous return, before accepting the fate of his execution. To overcome her grief, she busied herself by managing a thriving provision business. She had to shuttle to and from different shops located between Beach Rd and Tanjong Rhu.

The “running here and there”, according to her son, Mr Tan, must have been the ‘secret’ to her longevity. The other ‘secret’ is her carefree personality. She is also fiercely independent, without being intimidating. She also exercises regularly and has even developed her own ‘style’ of keeping fit! Madam Seah demonstrated her exercise stance, moving her hips from side to side and swaying her arms back and forth. Her family watched on and recorded a video of her doing so. Madam Seah did not lose focus of the television screen in front of her. “She has poor vision and hearing”, her daughter-in-law explains, “but sometimes she surprises us when she responds to what we are saying or points out something someone was wearing!”

Madam Seah also remains meticulous even at the age of 101. Her bedsheet is crisp, with the edges ironed flat and held down with metal clips. Her wardrobe contains clothes that she sewed herself—all hung neatly, arranged according to occasion and colour. It is her attention to the little things that endears her to her loved ones. She is also generous to her loved ones, placing her needs before theirs. When her son got married, she gave him her brand-new furniture, insisting that she preferred her older furniture. She wanted to bless them with the best, as a sign of good fortune, without making it look like charity. From a family of two children, Madam Seah has been blessed with five granddaughters, two grandsons and eight great-grandchildren. She remembers all of their names, and even their birthdates.

Madam Seah is also not one to forget what it means to have loved and lost. On February 15 every year, since her husband’s disappearance, Madam Seah makes a mark on her calendar and buys flowers to commemorate her husband’s life. When the base of The Cenotaph was extended to commemorate the lives lost in World War II (1939- 1945), Madam Seah would join fellow clan members from the Kim Mui Hoey Kuan (clan association) to offer prayers to their loved ones at the memorial’s steps. It was an annual ritual for her—getting flowers and heading to The Cenotaph. It was easier to get flowers before Valentine’s Day became highly commercialized in Singapore. “Now it’s harder,” her daughter-in-law sighs matter-of-factly. “People don’t focus on the dead for Valentine’s, but the living.”

(Madam Seah has since passed on)

Mr Oon Thow

“People can't believe my actual age because I am still young”

In 2016, a 107 year-old Mr Oon Thow was already making headlines for active ageing after being spotted by a Member of Parliament making their rounds in his Bukit Batok neighbourhood. Just two to three years ago, Mr Oon would head to the coffee shop every day, in his wheelchair, for his early morning kopi and egg prata which he takes with sugar. 

Born in 1908, Mr Oon Thow is a native son of An Xi, the Fujian Province of China. He was a shy and introverted man who came to Singapore alone, leaving briefly, only to return with a wife. Together, they set up a farm around the Bukit Timah area growing some vegetables, and rearing chickens and pigs for subsistence, with a little for trade. They raised their four daughters and three sons on the farm. He was a family man who was constantly working hard in order to provide for his household. Life was tough on the farm, where all three sons had to start helping out at a very young age. The family eventually moved to Sungei Kadut but had to be evicted in the 70s to make way for other developmental plans. Mr Oon switched to lacquer woodworking, and retired when he was in his mid-70s. 

During the Japanese Occupation, Mr Oon was captured by Japanese soldiers with truckloads of other men. Out of respect for comrades who did not manage to escape, he is tight-lipped about his experience. He holds the trauma close to himself to this very day, and, as a matter of principle, refuses to adorn garments that have been manufactured in Japan. 

The secret behind Mr Oon’s longevity, according to his family, is the fervent insistence that he is still young. He believes that he can still do what others who are much younger than him are able to do, such as travel. He was at least 95 years old on his last visit to Fujian and would have continued to travel if not under doctors’ strict orders. At 108, he maintains good vision. He sees clearly that we are having a conversation, but is unable to hear what is being said because of his hearing loss. Yet, he occasionally chimes in with a “What did they ask?”, because he feels very protective of his family and cautious about giving away too many intimate details about their lives. 

Time also seems to have stopped for Mr Oon. The past feels like yesterday, but whenever Mr Oon asks about his friends, no one has an answer—no one knows because it was a lifetime ago. This is possibly what it means to have lived a life—especially when your past, present and a future seems to exist in the same time, and come together in one full circle. 

(Mr Oon Thow has since passed on)