Yew Cheng Hoe (left) is a well-known community leader in Petaling Jaya. The lanky elderly man heads the Damansara Jaya Owners and Residents Association, one of the best organised neighbourhoods in the country.
The 67-year-old devotes almost all his time to serving his neighbours, acting like an elected representative – if not more effective than one. The residents call him up for everything, from domestic disputes to maids running away, and they expect him to solve their problems.
His passion is in organising community protests against the construction of high-rise buildings in Damansara Jaya in the name of redevelopment. It’s a thankless job but Yew, who is still hale and hearty, is familiar with being unrecognised and unappreciated.
Not many in the neighbourhood, including the older ones, are aware that Yew is one of Malaysia’s greatest sports legends.
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4 comments:
There must be a rule against giving datukships to the current group of athletes, but we should consider giving these titles to our forgotten sportsmen as what you mentioned in your column.
There's another group of heroes that are totally forgotten...our unsung national heroes who lost their limbs and lives and sacrifice their youth, time and energy to defend our nation and ensure we all live in peace and harmony today!!!!! look at how their life now!!!!! does the goverments and publics are so forgetful to ignore their sacrifice to the nation!!!! the gallantry awards allowence is lower or just the same for gold/silver/bronze medalist!!! wadapuck!!! n thn, those who receiveed the PTU-pingat tentera udara (gallantary awards for air force pilot) didn't get any rewards at all!!!
I applaud your efforts in highlighting their deeds, which, as you propose, merit some award and honours, along the lines of a Datukship, I guess. What I don't quite agree is your putting down the titled honours given to a certain Malaysian who was bestowed a Datukship for being the first Malaysian to swim across the English Channel. That was totally under the belt, even by someone like you. For all i care, you also do not deserve the datukships awarded to you. Should i then compare the achievement of the swimmwer to yours, and say that some mainstream news people do not deserve the Datukship given to them?
sri hartamas
Agreed with your comments. Datukship should be awarded to those great sportsmen/women who had retired and not to those still in the game. Many great sportmen/women had been neglected once they stopped playing the game and worse still left in the cold. Our government gave away Datukship due to political reasons and the current batch of sportmen/women benefitted from the country's political turmoil. There must be a proper committee at Federal or State levels to handle this sensitive matter please.
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