Are these some of the reasons that she was a great loss to Singapore??
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Oct 5, 2010
REMEMBERING MRS LEE 1920 - 2010
Foreign students at Mrs Lee's wake
By Vanessa Jalleh & Hannah Koh
Ms Marie Pereira (in black) who had been updating the students on news reports about Mrs Lee Kuan Yew since she died last Saturday, had brought more than 20 of her foreign students to the wake on Tuesday. -- PHOTO: KEE YA TING
MS MARIE Pereira, a teacher at Informatics, brought more than 20 of her foreign students to Mrs Lee Kuan Yew's wake on Tuesday to pay their respects as she feels that this is a meaningful way for them to be involved in an occasion that has drawn Singaporeans together for the last few days.
She has also been updating the students on news reports about Minister Mentor's wife since she died last Saturday after a long illness. On Monday and Tuesday, some 10,000 people have gone to the Istana to pay their respects to her.
Interested to know more about the woman who has been acknowledged as 'the mother of the country,' the students told Ms Pereira that they too would like to pay their last respects to Mrs Lee, even though some of them have only been in Singapore for a year and had just heard of her over the weekend.
One of them was Yan Jia Jia, 20, from Anhui province in China. She came to Singapore this year, but went with her schoolmates to give tribute to Mrs Lee, whom she said must be 'a great lady'.
'I saw a report on TV about how both Mr and Mrs Lee worked hard for the prosperity of Singapore. I was very touched,' she told straitstimes.com after pay her respects on Tuesday.
Ms Pereira recalled attending a Hong Kong Bank event at the Fullerton Building in 1984, at which MM Lee, then Prime Minister, gave a speech.
She said that as Mr Lee delivered his speech, Mrs Lee, who was also present, gave him her full attention, which Ms Pereira said was an act of true 'dedication'.