Cast as Cinderella’s ugly sister, Vicki Ooi learned the power a play’s director has – and became one
- Hong Kong drama educator and director Vicki Ooi recalls an epiphany at school in Malaysia, and being haunted by an execution, and reveals why she isn’t retiring
I was born in 1941 in Penang, Malaysia, during the Japanese occupation. My cousin, who was a bachelor, worked in a prison compound and my mum, dad, three elder siblings and I lived there.
I have good and bad memories of that place. I remember standing on the back of my brother’s tricycle as he sped towards a man who was about to eat a banana. The man was behind bars. My brother was always greedy, and the man offered him his banana.
One day, when I was almost four years old, I recognised the man who was about to be executed. He was the man who had given the banana to my brother. Then my father covered my eyes and he was executed. I have never forgotten that; it often comes back to me as a nightmare.
On the brink
When the Japanese left Malaysia there was looting. The things the looters did not want they threw on the roadside. My brother picked up a gramophone and a record. He was always treating me like his slave and told me to wind the gramophone.