SINGAPORE — Over tea at the St Regis hotel recently, Lee Suet Fern, 62, was animated as she recalled the birth of her eldest son Shengwu in 1985, and the reaction of her in-laws Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime Minister, and his wife Kwa Geok Choo.
Notwithstanding her desire for privacy, she has found herself under the media glare in recent months, and over family matters too. Censured by a Disciplinary Tribunal for grossly improper professional conduct in her handling of the late Lee’s final will, Suet Fern is currently awaiting the result of an appeal to the Court of Three Judges, the highest disciplinary body that deals with lawyers' misconduct, against the verdict.
A lifelong connection to the LeesOver three meetings with this writer in August and September, Suet Fern was candid, yet measured, in her responses. At times, her tone was playful, almost girlish, especially when the conversation turned to her time at Cambridge University in the late 1970s and her early romance with Hsien Yang. At other times, she took lengthy pauses before answering, tiptoeing delicately around potential minefields.
“I joke that he didn't have much choice, there were so few girls in Cambridge in the 70s. He jokes that I fell for him, largely because he cooked so well for me. He also claims that he was persistent enough that, over time, the others just gradually fell away.” The bridal car was a little Honda Civic, Hsien Yang’s first car. There was no one to do her makeup or hair, but she did put on lipstick that she had bought at a Boots store before leaving England. They did not take studio photographs. Afterwards, when it was all done, Hsien Yang cooked her a steak for dinner.
The couple initially lived in Cairnhill Mansions, above Hsien Loong and his first wife Wong Ming Yang. But because Hsien Yang was often away for military training, “I did feel a little isolated and unprotected. I confided that in Yang, that when I first got married, she was quite frightening. Yang just gave me every assurance that it was him that I married and not his mother, and that he would always put me first.
Defining herself outside of the familySuet Fern was called to the Bar in 1982. In his 2017 memoirs “Life Journey of a Singaporean Professor”, her father wrote, “The chief examiner, a high court judge, confided in me that she was by far the best student of the class.”
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