<TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"> </TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead vAlign=top><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt_89 <NOBR></NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>8:22 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>33514.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>May 22, 2010
A death in the family
Beyond a lurid tale lies a journey of loss and grief touched by kindness, to lay a wandering spirit to rest
<!-- by line -->By Neo Xiaobin
<!-- end by line -->
<!-- end left side bar --><!-- story content : start -->
IT LOOKED like another lurid tale from the seamier side of Singapore life - the naked body of a beautiful Chinese karaoke lounge hostess found floating in the pool of a posh Sentosa bungalow owned by a wealthy real estate tycoon.
Most of the squalid details were there. It does not take much imagination to fill in the rest, nor much time for the sniggering to start. Village girl from China turned hostess in Singapore to make a quick buck, comes to grief. Morality tales do not come much clearer than that.
But look a bit harder behind the scandal headlines and a different, more complex and distressing tale emerges.
It is one of an impoverished family, bereaved and bewildered by a tragedy they can hardly comprehend, who sell everything they own to make a desperate journey to Singapore to bring home their daughter's body.
It is also a tale of Third World ambition coming up hard against the harsher, unforgiving realities of life in a rich country and a tale - there is some good out of all of this - of what the kindness of strangers can achieve.
The story hangs, of course, on that fateful night at Sentosa on March 23.
Media reports provide the outline.
Mr Adrian Chua Boon Chye, 39, founder and chief executive of Roundhill Capital, a property investment management firm, reportedly met the slim, 1.6m, long-haired beauty Li Hong Yan, 24, at Las Vegas De' Palace, a karaoke lounge in Havelock Road.
They were believed to have left together and gone to a Boat Quay pub before heading to Mr Chua's waterfront house in Sentosa Cove's Ocean Drive, one of which sold for $30 million late last year.
She spent the night and was found by a maid about 8am the next day, floating face down in his 1.3m lap pool. She had no apparent physical injuries, and it is believed she drowned. Police have classified the case as unnatural death and are still investigating.
Ms Li had arrived here four months earlier on Nov 10 aiming to support her parents - impoverished soya bean farmers - in Heilongjiang, a province in north-eastern China bordering Jilin province to the south, Inner Mongolia to the west, and Russia to the north.
'She was the smartest one among the three of us,' elder sister Hong Bo, 26, a housewife, recalls in Mandarin. 'My sister was the most filial and soft-hearted. She loved animals. When we were younger, we used to have an old cow that pulled our carts. My sister would rather walk than sit on the cart as she didn't want to be an extra burden and tire the cow.'
Ms Li landed a day job as a catering supervisor in an Indian eatery along Jalan Besar, until she went back to China on Feb 6 for Chinese New Year. She was also moonlighting as a karaoke hostess in a number of KTV lounges in Havelock Road until her untimely death.
While it made few ripples here, Ms Li's death unleashed something of a whirlwind when her parents received a call in Heilongjiang from her Chinese national friend, Ms Zhao Fan Ru, on the morning of March 25, informing them about it. Her illiterate father Li Kui You, 58, and his wife, Madam Sun Jing Fang, 49, who had never been out of the country, called Ms Li Hong Bo and other relatives to try to make sense of it all and help them get to Singapore.
Mr Li, desperate to raise money to fly here, sold the only valuable asset he owned - about 20,000 sq m of family land - to a fellow villager for 15,000 yuan (S$3,000). He also raised 37,000 yuan in loans from relatives.
The party of five - Ms Li's parents and sister, her sister's mother in-law Madam Fang Shu Hui and her relative, lawyer Bai Bao Hui - set out for Singapore, arriving here on April 7 after a trying five-day journey by car, train and plane.
Ms Li had largely disappeared from the headlines by then, but her family's trauma was just starting.
Coping with grief and fatigue was just part of it. There was the lack of funds and the high cost of Singapore living, the helplessness of being in a foreign land and the stress of dealing with the media.
For 10 days, the family stayed in the same room in Ipoh Lane that Ms Li had rented here, surviving on bread and cup noodles. They hoped for answers that would paint a clearer picture of what happened, but got none. Another blow came when they learnt through Chinese newspaper reports that Ms Li was not working as a hairdresser here as she claimed but was moonlighting as a karaoke hostess.
Amid this despair, a fortunate turn: Singaporean undertaker Roland Tay and wife Sally Ho, of Direct Singapore Funeral Services, read about their plight in the newspapers and volunteered their help. The couple arranged the wake and funeral, picked up the tab, completed the necessary paperwork and helped them deal with the media.
Mr Tay, who has donated his services in past high-profile tragedies and murder victims such as Chinese national Huang Na and Kallang body-parts victim Liu Hong Mei, said: 'They have nothing, and there was no one for them to turn to. I just wanted to help them ease their problems.'
That did not make the funeral arrangements any less traumatic for Ms Li's parents. They broke down and collapsed several times after seeing their daughter's body at the Singapore General Hospital morgue.
On April 10, Mr Tay received permission from Sentosa Cove's management for the family to perform a Taoist ceremony by the bungalow pool where Ms Li is believed to have died. The family brought with them Ms Li's favourite clothes - a white hooded top, blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers. The clothes were laid neatly on the grass by the pool as a monk performed the rites and chanted prayers.
There was no sign of Mr Chua at the ceremony, nor any activity inside the bungalow. Its green, woven curtains were drawn shut. Dead leaves had settled at the bottom of the pool. Also absent was Ms Li's father, who was so physically and emotionally traumatised that he missed the service at Mandai Crematorium on April 11.
Then, another fortunate turn. Newspaper photos of the grieving family prompted more than 20 anonymous well-wishers, mostly Singaporeans, Caucasians and Chinese nationals here, to come forward with condolences and $35,000 in donations.
For that, Madam Fang, bowing deeply, said: 'There are no words to describe our gratitude to the donors and the Tays for everything they have done for us.'
THE final leg of the family's journey began on April 16, an overcast and wet Friday.
At Changi Airport, they handcarried all their luggage, including an A3-sized red suitcase containing a wooden urn holding Ms Li's ashes. At the check-in queue, as if all strength had departed him, Mr Li let out a sigh and sank to the floor on his haunches. He hardly spoke till back in Dalian airport 12 hours later, when he broke down in the arms of relatives.
Greeting them was Ms Li's brother Ai Hui, 21, a lance corporal with the People's Liberation Army, who had not seen his family since he enlisted with the Shenyang Military Region in Liaoning Province two years ago. He was allowed out with special permission on compassionate grounds.
The relatives had no idea what transpired in Singapore, except that Ms Li accidentally fell into a pool and drowned.
'If the rest of the relatives found out exactly what she was working as in Singapore, I'm afraid they may look down on her family,' said Madam Fang.
The group wended their way down Yingke Road from the airport to a lodging house 600m away. When Mr Li's legs gave way, his son piggybacked him the rest of the way, as he struggled to get down. 'My heart is aching so badly,' he moaned.
The younger Mr Li did his best to console his father: 'You still have my eldest sister and me.'
The next day, while curled up in bed resting in a 60-yuan-per-night lodging house, Ms Li's father, who had thus far maintained a stoical silence, covered his face as he wept.
'My wife has no more strength left to cry. I have to put on a tough front as the man of the household in front of everyone else. But it's not tears that I'm crying. It's blood. At least we managed to bring her back to her favourite city. Only when her ashes are laid to rest will I fulfil my duty as her father.'
Ms Li spent 21/2 years in Dalian working as a salon hairdresser, and before that, four years as a flax mill worker in Keshan County. Her dream had been to earn enough to relocate her family to Dalian, where she eventually hoped to settle down.
To fulfil her last wish, the family spent the next two days tearing around Dalian, preparing for her sea burial at the sea-facing Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park.
A divination master picked April 19, 8.06am, as an auspicious time for her ashes to be scattered. According to Dalian custom, because Ms Li was single and died an unnatural death in a foreign land, hers is a wandering spirit that cannot be buried back home. Neither her remains nor her belongings were allowed to be brought home or buried in the family's ancestral plot in Shandong.
'It is believed that if a single wandering spirit is buried in the ancestral plot, there will be a curse on the future generations of the family and a tragic death will occur every generation,' said Ms Li Hong Bo.
THE burial morning was shrouded by fog. By 6.30am, the grim party of 10 made their way to Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park.
Mr Li Ai Hui was in his military uniform to send his second sister off. 'Her wish was for me to be a good soldier. I will not disappoint her,' he vowed.
Next to the jetty, a make-shift altar with incense, fruit and Chinese wine was set up for the family to pay their last respects. Stacks of yellow joss paper were burned and the wind sent ash spiralling into the darkening sky.
As the symphony of sobs began, Mr Li Ai Hui wiped away his parents' tears. When his own fell, he turned his head away so no one would see.
According to custom, female relatives were not allowed to partake in the burial. Just before 8.06am, the men climbed into an 800-yuan rental boat and headed out into the choppy sea. Mr Li unzipped the red suitcase containing his daughter's ashes and unpacked petals of her favourite red roses, bought at an exorbitant 30 yuan the day before.
'8.05.57... 58... 59,' Mr Li Ai Hui counted down the seconds from his watch.
'8.06.'
Mr Li, wearing a pair of red hand- sewn gloves, scooped up the brittle white ash and roses with both hands and cast them out into the murky sea. He let out guttural moans, as his son reminded him not to cry. It is believed that if tears fall into the ashes, the deceased will not rest in peace. As he quickened his motions, his wails intensified with each fling: 'Let father send you off one last time!'
When the ashes were all gone, he hurled the wooden urn and suitcase overboard, along with his gloves. As the boatmen started the engine and headed back, the suitcase and urn bobbed in the water, encircled by the petals. No one was allowed to look back.
The final goodbye had been said.
THERE was one more task to complete with the cash raised in Singapore.
The family had spent S$2,000 on air tickets. The rest was converted into 161,700 yuan - the equivalent of S$33,000.
They took 17 hours of trains and four more hours of driving to return to Li Ming Village in Keshan County, where their thatched-roof m&d hut waited, and a brown mongrel barked testily as it tugged against its chain. Madam Fang hastily searched the cupboards for a handwritten contract that had been drawn up three weeks earlier.
The villager who bought their land for 15,000 yuan agreed at the time to sell the plot back for three times what he had paid. But after hearing their sorry tale, he sold it back to them for twice the amount.
In all, the family spent about 80,000 yuan on the Singapore trip. They used 37,000 yuan to repay loans borrowed from friends and relatives. The remaining money from the donations - about 15,000 yuan - was saved up for any return trip to Singapore for the coroner's inquiry and to cover the parents' future expenses. Mr Li, who makes at most 10,000 yuan on a good year from tilling his land, said: 'We are deeply grateful to the anonymous donors. Because of their money, at least we have a form of financial security for the next two to three years.'
Buying back his land brought an ending of sorts. But it was impossible to sit in the family's 350 sq ft newspaper-plastered home, where Ms Li used to sleep on a 'kang' (a heatable brick bed commonly used in the north where it is cold) together with her parents and siblings, and not think of her fateful journey. Mired in poverty but fuelled by ambition, she decided, like many others, to try her luck in Singapore, only to die naked in a private pool amid a public scandal.
After his traumatic journey to Singapore and over a month to heal, her father paces around in bewilderment, unable to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch.
'Whenever I close my eyes, I see her... Hong Yan convinced me to let her go to Singapore. She said the country was very safe. Good legal system, nice people, great environment. I did not know the extent she suffered. If I knew what she was going through, I would not have let her go,' he said.
'She worked so hard to earn money for all of us, but she forgot to take care of herself.'
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
A death in the family
Beyond a lurid tale lies a journey of loss and grief touched by kindness, to lay a wandering spirit to rest
<!-- by line -->By Neo Xiaobin
<!-- end by line -->
<!-- end left side bar --><!-- story content : start -->
IT LOOKED like another lurid tale from the seamier side of Singapore life - the naked body of a beautiful Chinese karaoke lounge hostess found floating in the pool of a posh Sentosa bungalow owned by a wealthy real estate tycoon.
Most of the squalid details were there. It does not take much imagination to fill in the rest, nor much time for the sniggering to start. Village girl from China turned hostess in Singapore to make a quick buck, comes to grief. Morality tales do not come much clearer than that.
But look a bit harder behind the scandal headlines and a different, more complex and distressing tale emerges.
It is one of an impoverished family, bereaved and bewildered by a tragedy they can hardly comprehend, who sell everything they own to make a desperate journey to Singapore to bring home their daughter's body.
It is also a tale of Third World ambition coming up hard against the harsher, unforgiving realities of life in a rich country and a tale - there is some good out of all of this - of what the kindness of strangers can achieve.
The story hangs, of course, on that fateful night at Sentosa on March 23.
Media reports provide the outline.
Mr Adrian Chua Boon Chye, 39, founder and chief executive of Roundhill Capital, a property investment management firm, reportedly met the slim, 1.6m, long-haired beauty Li Hong Yan, 24, at Las Vegas De' Palace, a karaoke lounge in Havelock Road.
They were believed to have left together and gone to a Boat Quay pub before heading to Mr Chua's waterfront house in Sentosa Cove's Ocean Drive, one of which sold for $30 million late last year.
She spent the night and was found by a maid about 8am the next day, floating face down in his 1.3m lap pool. She had no apparent physical injuries, and it is believed she drowned. Police have classified the case as unnatural death and are still investigating.
Ms Li had arrived here four months earlier on Nov 10 aiming to support her parents - impoverished soya bean farmers - in Heilongjiang, a province in north-eastern China bordering Jilin province to the south, Inner Mongolia to the west, and Russia to the north.
'She was the smartest one among the three of us,' elder sister Hong Bo, 26, a housewife, recalls in Mandarin. 'My sister was the most filial and soft-hearted. She loved animals. When we were younger, we used to have an old cow that pulled our carts. My sister would rather walk than sit on the cart as she didn't want to be an extra burden and tire the cow.'
Ms Li landed a day job as a catering supervisor in an Indian eatery along Jalan Besar, until she went back to China on Feb 6 for Chinese New Year. She was also moonlighting as a karaoke hostess in a number of KTV lounges in Havelock Road until her untimely death.
While it made few ripples here, Ms Li's death unleashed something of a whirlwind when her parents received a call in Heilongjiang from her Chinese national friend, Ms Zhao Fan Ru, on the morning of March 25, informing them about it. Her illiterate father Li Kui You, 58, and his wife, Madam Sun Jing Fang, 49, who had never been out of the country, called Ms Li Hong Bo and other relatives to try to make sense of it all and help them get to Singapore.
Mr Li, desperate to raise money to fly here, sold the only valuable asset he owned - about 20,000 sq m of family land - to a fellow villager for 15,000 yuan (S$3,000). He also raised 37,000 yuan in loans from relatives.
The party of five - Ms Li's parents and sister, her sister's mother in-law Madam Fang Shu Hui and her relative, lawyer Bai Bao Hui - set out for Singapore, arriving here on April 7 after a trying five-day journey by car, train and plane.
Ms Li had largely disappeared from the headlines by then, but her family's trauma was just starting.
Coping with grief and fatigue was just part of it. There was the lack of funds and the high cost of Singapore living, the helplessness of being in a foreign land and the stress of dealing with the media.
For 10 days, the family stayed in the same room in Ipoh Lane that Ms Li had rented here, surviving on bread and cup noodles. They hoped for answers that would paint a clearer picture of what happened, but got none. Another blow came when they learnt through Chinese newspaper reports that Ms Li was not working as a hairdresser here as she claimed but was moonlighting as a karaoke hostess.
Amid this despair, a fortunate turn: Singaporean undertaker Roland Tay and wife Sally Ho, of Direct Singapore Funeral Services, read about their plight in the newspapers and volunteered their help. The couple arranged the wake and funeral, picked up the tab, completed the necessary paperwork and helped them deal with the media.
Mr Tay, who has donated his services in past high-profile tragedies and murder victims such as Chinese national Huang Na and Kallang body-parts victim Liu Hong Mei, said: 'They have nothing, and there was no one for them to turn to. I just wanted to help them ease their problems.'
That did not make the funeral arrangements any less traumatic for Ms Li's parents. They broke down and collapsed several times after seeing their daughter's body at the Singapore General Hospital morgue.
On April 10, Mr Tay received permission from Sentosa Cove's management for the family to perform a Taoist ceremony by the bungalow pool where Ms Li is believed to have died. The family brought with them Ms Li's favourite clothes - a white hooded top, blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers. The clothes were laid neatly on the grass by the pool as a monk performed the rites and chanted prayers.
There was no sign of Mr Chua at the ceremony, nor any activity inside the bungalow. Its green, woven curtains were drawn shut. Dead leaves had settled at the bottom of the pool. Also absent was Ms Li's father, who was so physically and emotionally traumatised that he missed the service at Mandai Crematorium on April 11.
Then, another fortunate turn. Newspaper photos of the grieving family prompted more than 20 anonymous well-wishers, mostly Singaporeans, Caucasians and Chinese nationals here, to come forward with condolences and $35,000 in donations.
For that, Madam Fang, bowing deeply, said: 'There are no words to describe our gratitude to the donors and the Tays for everything they have done for us.'
THE final leg of the family's journey began on April 16, an overcast and wet Friday.
At Changi Airport, they handcarried all their luggage, including an A3-sized red suitcase containing a wooden urn holding Ms Li's ashes. At the check-in queue, as if all strength had departed him, Mr Li let out a sigh and sank to the floor on his haunches. He hardly spoke till back in Dalian airport 12 hours later, when he broke down in the arms of relatives.
Greeting them was Ms Li's brother Ai Hui, 21, a lance corporal with the People's Liberation Army, who had not seen his family since he enlisted with the Shenyang Military Region in Liaoning Province two years ago. He was allowed out with special permission on compassionate grounds.
The relatives had no idea what transpired in Singapore, except that Ms Li accidentally fell into a pool and drowned.
'If the rest of the relatives found out exactly what she was working as in Singapore, I'm afraid they may look down on her family,' said Madam Fang.
The group wended their way down Yingke Road from the airport to a lodging house 600m away. When Mr Li's legs gave way, his son piggybacked him the rest of the way, as he struggled to get down. 'My heart is aching so badly,' he moaned.
The younger Mr Li did his best to console his father: 'You still have my eldest sister and me.'
The next day, while curled up in bed resting in a 60-yuan-per-night lodging house, Ms Li's father, who had thus far maintained a stoical silence, covered his face as he wept.
'My wife has no more strength left to cry. I have to put on a tough front as the man of the household in front of everyone else. But it's not tears that I'm crying. It's blood. At least we managed to bring her back to her favourite city. Only when her ashes are laid to rest will I fulfil my duty as her father.'
Ms Li spent 21/2 years in Dalian working as a salon hairdresser, and before that, four years as a flax mill worker in Keshan County. Her dream had been to earn enough to relocate her family to Dalian, where she eventually hoped to settle down.
To fulfil her last wish, the family spent the next two days tearing around Dalian, preparing for her sea burial at the sea-facing Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park.
A divination master picked April 19, 8.06am, as an auspicious time for her ashes to be scattered. According to Dalian custom, because Ms Li was single and died an unnatural death in a foreign land, hers is a wandering spirit that cannot be buried back home. Neither her remains nor her belongings were allowed to be brought home or buried in the family's ancestral plot in Shandong.
'It is believed that if a single wandering spirit is buried in the ancestral plot, there will be a curse on the future generations of the family and a tragic death will occur every generation,' said Ms Li Hong Bo.
THE burial morning was shrouded by fog. By 6.30am, the grim party of 10 made their way to Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park.
Mr Li Ai Hui was in his military uniform to send his second sister off. 'Her wish was for me to be a good soldier. I will not disappoint her,' he vowed.
Next to the jetty, a make-shift altar with incense, fruit and Chinese wine was set up for the family to pay their last respects. Stacks of yellow joss paper were burned and the wind sent ash spiralling into the darkening sky.
As the symphony of sobs began, Mr Li Ai Hui wiped away his parents' tears. When his own fell, he turned his head away so no one would see.
According to custom, female relatives were not allowed to partake in the burial. Just before 8.06am, the men climbed into an 800-yuan rental boat and headed out into the choppy sea. Mr Li unzipped the red suitcase containing his daughter's ashes and unpacked petals of her favourite red roses, bought at an exorbitant 30 yuan the day before.
'8.05.57... 58... 59,' Mr Li Ai Hui counted down the seconds from his watch.
'8.06.'
Mr Li, wearing a pair of red hand- sewn gloves, scooped up the brittle white ash and roses with both hands and cast them out into the murky sea. He let out guttural moans, as his son reminded him not to cry. It is believed that if tears fall into the ashes, the deceased will not rest in peace. As he quickened his motions, his wails intensified with each fling: 'Let father send you off one last time!'
When the ashes were all gone, he hurled the wooden urn and suitcase overboard, along with his gloves. As the boatmen started the engine and headed back, the suitcase and urn bobbed in the water, encircled by the petals. No one was allowed to look back.
The final goodbye had been said.
THERE was one more task to complete with the cash raised in Singapore.
The family had spent S$2,000 on air tickets. The rest was converted into 161,700 yuan - the equivalent of S$33,000.
They took 17 hours of trains and four more hours of driving to return to Li Ming Village in Keshan County, where their thatched-roof m&d hut waited, and a brown mongrel barked testily as it tugged against its chain. Madam Fang hastily searched the cupboards for a handwritten contract that had been drawn up three weeks earlier.
The villager who bought their land for 15,000 yuan agreed at the time to sell the plot back for three times what he had paid. But after hearing their sorry tale, he sold it back to them for twice the amount.
In all, the family spent about 80,000 yuan on the Singapore trip. They used 37,000 yuan to repay loans borrowed from friends and relatives. The remaining money from the donations - about 15,000 yuan - was saved up for any return trip to Singapore for the coroner's inquiry and to cover the parents' future expenses. Mr Li, who makes at most 10,000 yuan on a good year from tilling his land, said: 'We are deeply grateful to the anonymous donors. Because of their money, at least we have a form of financial security for the next two to three years.'
Buying back his land brought an ending of sorts. But it was impossible to sit in the family's 350 sq ft newspaper-plastered home, where Ms Li used to sleep on a 'kang' (a heatable brick bed commonly used in the north where it is cold) together with her parents and siblings, and not think of her fateful journey. Mired in poverty but fuelled by ambition, she decided, like many others, to try her luck in Singapore, only to die naked in a private pool amid a public scandal.
After his traumatic journey to Singapore and over a month to heal, her father paces around in bewilderment, unable to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch.
'Whenever I close my eyes, I see her... Hong Yan convinced me to let her go to Singapore. She said the country was very safe. Good legal system, nice people, great environment. I did not know the extent she suffered. If I knew what she was going through, I would not have let her go,' he said.
'She worked so hard to earn money for all of us, but she forgot to take care of herself.'
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