‘It’s like having your insides ripped out’: Singaporean air crash widow on getting over Hong Kong husband and daughter’s death
When AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashed into the Java Sea in 2014, all 162 people on board were killed, including Wee Mei Yi’s husband and their two-year-old daughter. She talks about overcoming grief and making a life for their son, Luca
Brought up with The Bard I was born in Singapore in 1972. Dad was a manager in a Malaysian bank, then the United Malayan Banking Corporation. Mum was a secretary at Singapore Airlines and they stayed in these jobs throughout their lives.
I didn’t want to be anything particularly. The school that I went to (Singapore Chinese Girls’ School) was very strong in arts and humanities. Learning Shakespeare from nine years old onwards made us very articulate. Later I went to Anderson Junior College, and then studied English literature and anthropology at the University of Western Australia.
(Wee’s late husband, Choi) Chi-man was born in Tai Po (Hong Kong, in 1966) and came from very humble beginnings. His family are Hakka; his grandmother still lives in the New Territories, very self-sufficient in her 90s.
His father jumped on a boat and moved to Hull [in northern England]. The family then followed. Chi-man moved to the UK when he was only three years old and had no English, but he quickly became one of the top students at his school. He also became a fantastic football player.
You’ve got mail Chi-man was offered a place at Cambridge University but felt they were so leftist that he went to study electrical engineering at Essex University. He went to work for Schneider (Corporation) in Paris, Chicago and Singapore for 19 years. I’d always been in banking, marketing and communications, and was working at ABN Amro Bank.
