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The Chinese new year is a mere two days away. A new year means a new beginning, although as someone has pointed out, the only difference between an old year and a new one is a mere second when the clock is about to strike midnight on the eve as Chinese families around the world […]

You can be in a room full of people, and still feel lonely. The same can be said of the elderly living in a house full of family members. When your adult children have little time for you, and your grandchildren prefer to spend time with their friends or their digital devices, you are left

With multi-generational families no longer living under one roof, the role of grandparents has taken on renewed significance. What would busy working young parents do without grandmas (and grandpas) stepping in to help with the little ones? Well, there’s always the daycare centres or a nanny/domestic helper to look after them. But nothing compares with

Did you know that the United Nations designated 1 October as the International Day of Older Persons? I bet the day came and went like any other day for most senior citizens – uneventful and forgettable. The local media did not deem the day important enough to devote some space to it in their columns.

Coming up the driveway to Little Sisters of the Poor / St Francis Xavier Home for the Elderly in Cheras, KL It was back in the 1970s that I first heard of Little Sisters of the Poor (LSP). I had imagined it to be a place where the elderly poor would spend their final years

The early 1960s were my coming of age years. I was in high school then till 1964 when I completed my Form 5. I was a typical teenager, enamoured of all things British or American, especially the pop music scene of those days. I learned to dance the twist, the locomotion and the limbo. My

It’s been 16+ long months since the MCO lockdown on 18 March 2020. The ‘New Normal’ is no longer the buzz word. It’s the ‘New Poor’ these days. More folks from the M40 (middle income group) are joining the ranks of the B40 (lower income group). With massive lay-offs, retrenchments and businesses shutting down, many

  Ageism is closing the doors of opportunity to our senior citizens. Whether it is looking for employment, getting a place in an HRDF upskilling course or applying for a bank loan to start a business, our age puts us at a disadvantage. It shouldn’t. The recent announcement in the media of the government speeding

For this blog post, I have selected to address an issue that many of us seniors here in Malaysia and Singapore are familiar with – a reluctance to ask our doctors for more information even when we want to know more. Perhaps it’s to do with our Asian culture of keeping quiet especially when in

We’ve heard it before: 60 is the new 40 and 70 the new 50. Yet, there are many among us senior citizens who view themselves as 60 going on 80, and 70 going on 90. They think old, look old and act old. They have OLD stamped all over their body and mind. No wonder