Yo Mama's So Special

Valerie Soh, regional managing director, ELEQT

“When I think of my mom in Hong Kong, I always think of the old airport in Kowloon City. I spent a couple years of my childhood here, from about three to eight, and my mom was a flight attendant with Cathay Pacific. She has all of the vintage uniforms and I remember picking her up at the airport, and she’d point out how low the airplanes were flying, and how close they were flying to the buildings.

“She has this magnetism about her. She is incredibly approachable, she’s warm, and it just comes down to her amazing smile. She’s shy, like a kid, but easy to talk to and easy to embrace. She remembers every friend I’ve ever had since I was in primary school. She gets them gifts when I forget. She gets gifts for my primary school teachers, and keeps in touch to see how they’re doing. She remembers how to make things personal. Human relations aren’t that easy, but she is just a master at making people feel good about themselves, and showing she cares.”

Marisa Zeman, daughter of “Father of Lan Kwai Fong” Allan Zeman and founder of resort wear boutique Nude is Rude.

“Every Halloween, my mother would make my Halloween costumes. I loved to dress up and she loved to dress me. She would scour the streets of Sham Shui Po and the old markets of Hong Kong and would work with the factories in Hung Hom to put together the most amazing and professional costumes.

“Every time we would drive through Repulse Bay past [now-demolished] Eucliffe Castle, she would tell me that was where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs lived. And I believed her for years because it was such a wonderful thing for a little girl to believe.”