In Memory of

Ki is a man with a checkered past and a lot of baggages, emotional and physical. He was once a headman of a gang in Jurong, leading riots and clashes, dealing with drugs and dirty money. There was also a time when he was a boy from a broken family, running from one rental room to another with his father and sister because of harassment from the loan sharks. At the same time, he had to endure beatings from bullies in secondary school. 

Three stints in prison and ten years later, he decided to seek a new lease of life. It was not something that happened overnight, nor one special episode that turned his life around. It was a decade of struggling with guilt and disappointment - including many rejections after interviews when the employers learnt of his record; the sudden passing of his dad; surviving assault by 108 men as a rite of passage for leaving the gang; studying hard and clinching a 4.0 GPA for NITEC only to be looked down on when he was released - that made him want to fight even harder. It was also meditation, finding peace in religion and pottery, meeting benefactors and higher education that catalysed this transformation. 

When I first met him in 2015, I was afraid, just like when I first met Mel. I would never, in my wildest imagination, believe if you told me I’d find my other half in someone like Ki. But as we started hanging out, we found a common love for the arts and working with youths from disadvantaged background. Most of all, it was his golden heart for the boys he worked with, to whom he kept giving and giving to even when he was penniless, fighting for when their rights and space were compromised and loving them like his own brothers, that moved me. To that he always said, “I know what it is like to be poor and looked down on”. 

In the year ahead, I would be writing and documenting more of Ki and his past. It’s a project I’ve been formulating in my head for awhile, but have yet to find the best way of presenting it. Akan datang :)

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