Sunday March 22, 2009
Rising from the ashes of defeat
By JUNE H.L. WONG and CHIN MUI YOON
After a series of unfortunate events befell Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun – from a car accident, to misquotes in the press, to losing her PJ Utara seat and a controversial appointment – many wondered if her political career was as good as over. She is determined to prove them wrong.
IT happened 30 years ago but it was a defining moment for a then teenage Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun.
“I was helping my parents to slice char siu (roasted pork) at their stall and my T-shirt was greasy before meeting my schoolmates for a movie. My mother told me to change my clothes but my father said to me, no need to do that. He gave a Chinese quote that says you can sit anywhere you wish and when it’s time to go, just get up, dust off your pants and walk. He said, ‘You don’t need to pretend to be anyone else but to be whoever you are’.”
People close to Chew know that she has taken her father’s advice to heart. The MCA Wanita national chairman is simple, down-to-earth and unpretentious. Her Chinese educational background may have resulted in her sometimes less-than-elegant command of the English language, but Chew has never pretended to project a different public image.
It took much persuasion to get her to agree to a simple makeover for the photo session to accompany this story. “It’s really not me, to be made up and dress up; I am who I am,” she protests.
Chew has made her home a sanctuary furnished with calligraphy and carvings like this beautiful Goddess of Mercy wooden sculpture. She declines our invitation for a dinner interview at a hotel. Instead, she offers a home-cooked meal at her brother’s house in Bukit Jelutong, Shah Alam, Selangor. Spacious and comfortable without being extravagant, the corner terrace house accommodates her older brother, his family and her parents. We tuck into her father’s tasty curry wild boar, stewed black mushrooms, and hot lobak (white radish) soup.
“Although she is living next door, we hardly have our daughter home for dinner with us,” says Chew Wai Sien, 75.
After dinner, we walk over to Chew’s house; the common fence between the houses has been removed. She bought the house, shortly after losing her Petaling Jaya Utara seat on March 8 last year to DAP’s Tony Pua.
There was speculation whether Chew, 45, who was considered a hard-working model elected rep, might give up politics in a huff.
But she is far from retiring. Although she lost her seat and government position as Women, Family and Community Development Ministry Parliamentary Secretary, experienced a long healing process from injuries sustained in a car accident and was embroiled in a controversial appointment from which she resigned, Chew is far from retiring.
Chew bravely facing the media after losing her PJU seat badly on March 8, 2008. In fact, politically, she seems to have gained second wind. As Wanita MCA chief, she is also automatically a vice-president in the party’s central committee. She is also Wanita MCA Selangor chief, MCA Perlis State Liaison Committee chairman, MCA Crisis Relief Squad national chief and PingRong-NKF Haemodialysis Centre president. Word is she will be getting a Cabinet post as well.
Humble beginnings
Chew’s affinity with the man on the street can be traced back to her humble beginnings. She was born in Penang as the third child of four children. Her father and mother, Cheang Ah Looy, 70, moved the family to Kuala Lumpur when she was three.
They lived in a Hainanese enclave behind the former Majestic Hotel opposite the railway station. Her parents operated a popular roast duck and mixed rice stall in the Petaling Jaya new town centre where Chew washed pots and dishes after school.
Chew, who attended Cheng Mo Primary School and later, Kuen Cheng Chinese Girls’ School, Kuala Lumpur, enjoyed an independent childhood, cycling everywhere and was involved in basketball and Judo, for which she holds a brown belt.
“My parents later moved to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, to operate a stall there as there were better prospects. I wanted to drop out of school to help them but I was too frightened to submit a letter to the fierce headmaster, so I stayed behind,” Chew recalls.
To make ends meet, Chew worked at odd jobs in a packaging factory, manning fun fair stalls, and selling hamburgers and secondhand books in PJ town centre.
Chew (front row, second from left) during her carefree days with her secondary school basketball team. “I’d buy old books from friends and sell them near the PJ State cinema along the five-foot way,” she recalls. “Some times, drunk people emerging from the nearby pubs, thinking I was a beggar, would throw dollar notes at me.”
Studies and work
After Form Five, she left to join her parents and worked in a restaurant kitchen. Friends scolded her parents for not keeping their daughter in school. Chew had skipped a grade and was deemed to be smart.
Her mother scavenged enough money for her to take up a London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) course.
“I studied very hard and can you believe it, with my bad English, I was top in commercial law!” Chew recalls with a laugh. “People kept encouraging my parents to send me for further studies but money was scarce. So I sent out resumes and Yeo Hiap Seng offered me a job. But then a fearful thought gripped me, ‘Will I be spending my whole life behind a desk with a calculator?’”
So when her uncle saw an advertisement for a proofreader with China Press, Chew applied for it. She impressed the editor so much that he offered her a post as a reporter. Her salary was RM150 with a transport allowance of RM90.
After six months, she obtained a scholarship to study Chinese Literature at the Cheng Tai University in Taipei, Taiwan. She returned four years later and rejoined China Press as a court and crime reporter.
“I earned RM870. But after giving RM350 to my parents, I barely had enough left for myself!” says Chew. “My editors pressured me to get a car and I didn’t have money for that. So after four months, I accepted an offer from the Hokkien Association to teach Chinese Literature at the Chong Hwa Independent High School in Kuala Lumpur.
“I took my job very seriously. Many of my teachers taught in a very boring manner and I didn’t want to become that kind of teacher.”
Media coverage of her work as a “longkang MP” – seen here checking out a clogged drain in Sungai Way, Selangor, in February last year – was used against her effectively by the Opposition during the General Election. The long hours and regular commuting on the bus took its toll and Chew developed a thyroid problem. Her weight plummeted from 63kg to 55kg. When her parents returned from Sabah, they hardly recognised their worn-out daughter.
Chew quit her teaching post and after recovering her health, took on a plum job as an advertising and promotions officer with Asia Television in Kuala Lumpur that distributes popular Hong Kong TVB serials.
“The three years on the job gave me invaluable experience,” Chew recalls. “I struggled with using English in the beginning, as Mandarin had been my mother tongue. But it was here that I learned to manage large scale events and mega concerts.”
Joining politics
Event organising proved to be Chew’s forte as an MCA member. Politics came knocking when an aunt from the Temerloh, Pahang, branch visited the family one Chinese New Year and said the party needed young blood like Chew.
In 1992, Chew joined Beliawanis, the MCA’s young women’s bureau. Since she had a natural affinity for publicity and fund raising, she was roped in to organise numerous events. One such gathering was so popular it resulted in the Wisma MCA in Kuala Lumpur being packed with young people, which impressed then MCA president Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik.
In 1997, Chew organised a concert at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur, that drew over 10,000 people. Other major events she helped organise included the farewell for Dr Ling and the recent MCA 50th anniversary.
“I had no expectation or goals when I joined the MCA, I only wanted to serve,” says Chew. “I certainly never expected to be an MP. Then in 1999, Tun Ling sent word for me to get ready to stand for elections in Cheras.
“PJ Utara was considered a DAP stronghold when I was switched over there instead of Cheras. I was lucky. I don’t think I would have stood a chance to become an MP if it was in the Cheras constituency (DAP veteran Tan Kok Wai was elected for four consecutive terms here).”
Chew beat DAP’s Ronnie Liu and served two terms during which she was recognised as an approachable and hardworking MP.
“I was thrown into the deep end when I first got elected but I knew I had to deliver and that I had to win the people’s confidence.”
That she did, attests a senior reporter with the Chinese press who has covered Chew since her first term as a MP in 1999.
“She is responsible, pro-active and has done her job admirably. Overall, she is an approachable MP who has charisma and is very proficient in Mandarin,” he says.
Dr Henry Ramaya from Grace Community Services, Taman SEA, Petaling Jaya says Chew is “one of the most efficient and obliging politicians” he has ever worked with in his 25 years of community service.
“Chew has helped the needy and the community countless times. We can see her any time, as she made it clear from the start she is here to serve.
She is approachable, pleasant and has no airs. We’ve never heard her grumble once! She doesn’t just attend meetings but follows through on a project. She just takes it upon herself to help.”
Polls defeat
Despite her good track record, Chew could do nothing to retain her seat.
“I have always made myself available to the people and I believe I have served my constituency well. Of course I was disappointed I lost the seat but I do not blame anyone. People were against the BN and it was hard to campaign.
“The press had expected me to cry at the counting station. But I didn’t. I had already expected the outcome. When the counts trickled in from the first ballot box, I called (then MCA president) Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting and told him, ‘I’m sorry, I think I have lost the seat’. My supporters were all crying. But I slept well that night because I knew I had done my best.
“I received supportive SMSes, emails and calls for a whole month. It’s okay I lost the seat. If this will bring about good changes within the party and for our country, this is what I want as a politician.
“I have never thought of leaving the MCA,” she says. “I owe my party a lot. They gave me so many opportunities to serve, to develop, to become a MP, and even as a parliamentary secretary. Now that the party is in trouble, it is only right for me to stay and to do my best, wherever that may lead me. I cannot abandon the party. Those who hop over ... I don’t know ... they have to answer to themselves.”
Forging ahead
Despite the setbacks of 2008, Chew has been busy leading a new generation of women.
“Young people have forgotten how we have fought for the Chinese to belong in this country. But we must accept reality too. People look forward, not backward to our past glories and achievements. MCA, too, must transform itself or we will become irrelevant.
“We must admit our mistakes and change. People say they have given BN 50 years and that is enough. But I’d ask them: Will you now wait another 50 years for another party to rise? Or do you just want to weaken the BN?”
Chew remembers a decisive point in her life when she sank into depression over her eye injury. “I kept wondering what I had done to deserve this. I had never abused my political position and privileges – I even paid for for all my plane tickets! Many people had approached me to help introduce them to the right people or to win contracts but I had always refused. I never once gave instructions to municipal councils to show any form of favouritism to anyone. I believe I have won respect for that.
“I am a Buddhist, and I kept praying and asking why bad things had happened to me. One day, a Christian friend visited me and told me, ‘Don’t ask why, but ask yourself what is it you want to achieve and what you want to do?’
“After that, I started to remember how good God has been to me. I was encouraged. Since then, I have accepted that sometimes things don’t go as you plan but life goes on.”
That includes March 8.
“Yes, many things have changed,” says Chew. “There must be checks and balances and I’m for anything that’s good for our country. For MCA, we are more focused on political strategy and more vocal in Parliament.
“For me, I have a free hand to act. (MCA president) Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat is receptive to my plans, proposals and advice. I can tell him openly what I feel and he listens.
“I am in the midst of creating a women’s en-trepreneur programme and I have many plans. I am moving on after the ghosts of March 8.”
It says a lot of how far Chew, who once thought she would follow her parents’ footsteps and become a hawker, has come and how much farther she can go.
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Single and self-sufficient
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