Book review: Singapore's Lost Son, by Kaiwen Leong
After Singaporean Kaiwen Leong was sexually assaulted at age 10, his life spiralled downwards.
Marshall Cavendish
After Singaporean Kaiwen Leong was sexually assaulted at age 10, his life spiralled downwards. A failure at school, he was best known for getting into fights with schoolyard bullies; he was kicked out of four secondary schools. His teachers all agreed he would amount to nothing, and they made sure he knew it.
Singapore's predominantly Chinese society, like Hong Kong's, sets great store by educational success. When the teenaged Leong finally found himself in a school where "subnormal" pupils were left to rot, he knew he had hit rock bottom. Singapore's Lost Son tells the story of how he overcame the imprecations of the naysayers and his own despair to realise his childhood goal of graduating with a PhD from a top university.
At the suggestion of a substitute teacher, the one person who believed in him, Leong left school and sat his A-levels as a private student. He was accepted by Boston University in the United States and so began his journey to find and prove himself.
Four years later, he had a bachelor's degree with majors in mathematics and economics, and a master's degree in each subject. The core of the book is a fascinating account of how by "blind determination" Leong surmounted the many obstacles in his path.