Teary eyed at the world

I just read this in the Straits Times Interactive. And it brought tears to my eyes. 10 children. I wonder, what are all the other children doing? Why does he have to work? And he does such tough work too. 10 cents per kg of cardboard, and we have bosses who sit around doing minimum work who leave work at 530pm so they won't miss their yoga class. They earn much more. Where is the fariness in this world?

And you also have people throwing $$ at Xiaxue and SPG...money going to the wrong place?


Taken from Straits Times Home Section 27th July 2005

Mr Ng, a cleaner, suffered severe head injuries in the accident on Monday evening and is now fighting for his life at Alexandra Hospital.

Yesterday, Miss Ng, his youngest daughter of 10 children, tearfully recounted the horror of finding her father knocked unconscious by a taxi in front of their home in Block 27A, Commonwealth Avenue.

It was about 4.15pm.

Minutes earlier, he had returned home from work, downed a bottle of water and hopped onto his tricycle laden with discarded boxes.

He never got to sell them.

Mr Ng was flung off his tricycle by the collision. He hit the taxi's windscreen before landing on the road.

Said Miss Ng in Mandarin: 'A shopkeeper came and told us. I ran downstairs and saw my father, with his face down. I was very scared. I didn't know if he was still alive.'

Mr Daniel Pang, 32, who was in his mother-in-law's dessert shop near the accident scene, said: 'I heard a loud bang and saw the old man on the ground. It was raining and he was soaked, so I borrowed a jacket from a passer-by to cover him.'

Afraid to move him, he and other passers-by waited for the ambulance while Miss Ng dashed to seek help from older sister Lai Keng, 46, who works as a clerk in a nearby office.

Her mother, Madam Soh Hong, 76, meanwhile, waited in fear and anxiety at their three-room flat for news, while minding her 18-month-old grandson. 'My legs are too weak for me to go downstairs,' she said in Hokkien.

Her husband, on the other hand, was 'very hyperactive', a workaholic, she said.

He would rise at 5am to work as a cleaner, return home at 4pm and then leave soon after to collect and sell discarded boxes.

'Sometimes, he would cycle as far as Bukit Batok and Jurong because buyers would pay 10 cents instead of eight cents for 1kg of cardboard.'

Pausing, as if wondering what the future holds, she added: 'He continued to work to support Lye Suan and me.' Madam Soh suffers from high blood pressure while daughter Lye Suan, who is jobless, spends about $60 a month on her treatment at the Institute of Mental Health.

Said the other daughter Lai Keng: 'My father was very stingy with himself. Even though he loved mangoes and pineapples, he would never buy them because he thought they were too expensive. But he would readily give $50 to Lye Suan.'

The Traffic Police are seeking eyewitnesses who can call them on 6547-1818. The cabby, a 47-year-old man, is helping in the investigations.

In the past two years, 17 cyclists have died each year in road accidents.

Mr Ng, who is in a coma, has a slim chance of surviving the accident, doctors have told the family.

Said a tearful Madam Soh last night, after seeing her husband for the first time since the accident: 'All his life he worked and never had a chance to enjoy life.

'Now in this state, we have to let him go peacefully.'