Ah-mah was born in Pagum,Medan Town,Sumatra,Indonesia in January 1921(the Chinese year of the cock). As for her birthday, there isn't a record and Ah-mah was not much concerned about it. Ah-mah's father was a well known officer who graduated from Scotland,United Kingdom. Her mother was Hokkiean. She was born to a wealthy family. She had 9 brothers and sisters from her natural mother(she was the fifth) but she had 14 brothers and sisters from her step-mother. She went to Penang Convent High School and then Mater Dei(in Bangkok). In time of financial problems, her father (with her step-mother) had to move from Indonesia to Thailand. She had to move here with her father. Her natural mother did not move to Thailand with her but she stayed in Indonesia to take care of 7 of Ah-mah's brothers and sisters. One of Ah-mah's brothers(Thana Liauburin) moved with her to Thailand. He also went to school in Penang with Ah-mah. It is not a surprise that Ah-mah loved this brother very much. She also loved the brothers and sisters from her step-mother.
Ah-mah came to Bangkok when she was 13 years old. Her father opened a school for teaching English in Bangkok in the neigbourhood of the General Post Office(Prisanee Klang). This was where Ah-mah and Ah-pak met. There were 2-3 other men who were interested in Ah-mah but Ah-pak had many better qualities. The main one being that he was a very mature and responsible person. When they got married, Ah-pak was 20 years old and Ah-mah was 21 years old. Ah-pak had a leather goods business. They had together 3 sons and 1 daughter. They are now 52, 49(female), 47 and 37.
They succeeded quite well in educating their children. Their eldest son obtained his B.Sc.(Mechanical Engineering) from the Royal Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Their daughter was educated in Assumption Convent School and Mater Dei in Bangkok. She later received a scholarship(4th. on the national roll) to England to study French. She received her Bachelor's degree from the University of London and her Master's degree from the University of Lancaster. Their second son finished his high school education from Assumption College(Bang Rak). Then he went to do medicine at Siriraj Hospital. He finished his Master's degree at San Diego State University, U.S.A.. Their third son finished his high school education from Assumption College(Bang Rak). Ah-mah had 6 male grandchildren and 1 female grandchild. They were born from 2 sons and 1 daughter.
As for the social life side of Ah-mah, she had many good friends. Some of her friends knew her as an adviser, some knew her as sympathetic listener. All her friends and members of the family, rich or poor, loved and had respects of her. One important person that we have to mention is Ah-goo who is the sister of Ah-pak. She and all of her children had great respects for Ah-mah. This was also so for the rest of Ah-mah's family. Ah-mah had many distinguish qualities. They are that she was a very generous person. All the workers in the factory feel sorry that she had left us. Ah-mah was not unreasonable about things but she used reasons in all her decisions.
Ah-mah's special abilities are:
1. Her uses of languages. She was a great linguist. Her first language was her national language which was Indonesian. Even though she had left the country for many years, she still remembered a reasonable amount of it. Her next language was Hokkiean which was the mother's language. The next language was English, then Hakka. Apart from these, she also spoke Mandarin, Taechew, Cantonese and Thai.
2. She had precision in her work.
3. She took great care and attention in her work.
Ah-pak and Ah-mah worked well together but then Ah-pak had a tumour when he was 47. From modern day of medicine, we now know that he had cancer at the back of the nose. Back then, when we analyze the tumour, the result was negative. We could not figure out the source of the tumour. Later Ah-pak had converging eyes. This was the conformation that he had this type of cancer. We gave him radiotherapy. Ah-pak was a very heavy smoker. He smoked over one of packet of ciggarettes a day. He died when he was only 49 years old.
Ah-mah did not have Ah-pak from then on. She still carried on helping her children with the business. She was a great support for the workers. She helped them solve their problems especially in health problems.
When Ah-mah was 75, she got weaker. Her weight decreased a bit but because of her courage and tolerance, we did not see a clear decline in her health. We knew when one day, Ah-mah had hemoptysis(bleeding) when she coughed. She had this quite often so she told her children. When the children knew this, they took her to Siriraj Hospital for an X-ray. The result was negative. They had a CTscan done and they found out that she had lung cancer. The cancer had spread to the Supraclavicular Lymph Node (right). The tumour had the size of 1.5"x2". The cancer was at the stage of 3b (meaning that the cancer had spread quite far). She received chemotherapy. At first, she vomited fairly often and she was swollen at the legs. She vomited very often that the doctor in charge had to give her an injection to stop her from vomiting. The third time she received the treatment, the doctor changed the medication. She got better in some respects( the vomiting seized and her legs were less swollen) but she had great pains in her bones. The doctor gave her medication and she became better. From then on, she got better and better but the tumour at the neck did not disappear totally. She received six courses of chemotherapy and altogether the course took 6 months. After this, the doctor gave her 25 days for radiotherapy. The therapy was considered successful for the tumour in her neck was almost gone. She had poor resistance against the cancer. Her immune system got weaker. The amount of white blood cell decreased but more importantly, the amount of platelets decreased dramatically. The platelets help the blood to clot. Later she had a very high fever that we were afraid that she would have a very serious infection. Ah-mah went to the hospital for the 9th time on the 12th. December. She was breathing heavily, tired and had a very high temperature. We thought that she had a very bad lung infection. The next day, she passed away. She died at 22.40 on the 13th. December 1996.

Tributes to Ah Poh

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