Happy is the word the outgoing Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs Shelley Lee Lai-kuen as frequently used to describe herself as she contemplates her imminent retirement from the civil service.
'I am a happy person, I can hardly recall any bad memory,' she said, searching back through 34 years of a career with the Hong Kong government.
At her Wan Chai office, the so-called 'mother to everyone' smiled broadly when she proudly showed - among a pile of farewell gifts from officials and politicians - the pictures given to her by orphans who lost their parents to Sars.
In one picture, a boy she nicknamed 'Fung Fung', whose mother was killed by Sars, drew a woman - Ms Lee - wearing a face mask. Around the faceless woman is a rainbow made with colourful pieces cut from plastic straws. On top of the drawing, Fung Fung wrote: 'Thank you, my dear auntie.'
It was the first impression Fung Fung, then seven years old, had when he met Ms Lee as she knocked on the door of his Amoy Gardens home at 5am on March 31, 2003. It was the day the Kowloon Bay housing estate was quarantined to stop the Sars outbreak.
Ms Lee was at the time leading her Home Affairs team to the estate.
Another picture was drawn by a group of children from poor families in Shamshuipo, the city's infamous slum area. They named themselves the 'Soco Children', as they are regular clients of social workers from the Society for the Community Organisation.
