Facebook reminded me that 6 years ago on this day, I was at the inaugural Forbes Asia “30 under 30” Summit as an awardee.
I still remember- that one of the amazing things which stood out was the consistent narrative cited by awardees, about their parents being key to their journey of breakthrough.
While some parents had to uproot to foreign countries and start afresh, others nearly lost their lives.
Some parents earned a living making roti prata, others never mastered English. One Afghan woman shared how her Dad was nearly killed for putting his foot down to send her to school, which was culturally unacceptable.
All struggled. All paid a price. All played a part in instilling foundational values, some distinctly Asian, in their children’s lives which were key to their success today.
None of these parents’ sacrifices were ever glamorized, awarded, or put on the big screen.
Growing up, my father, who grew up as the youngest of 11 children, in a Malaysian village, was hospitalized for malnourishment as a teen. He spoke of 11 of them “sleeping like potatoes”, butt-cheek-to-face in a single room, how he’d made jam from scratch from pineapples in the fields because they couldn’t afford to buy it.
Growing up, he always told me over our late-night one-on-one Dad-and-daughter dates over Teh-O at a roadside coffee shop, “You have to do your best in life, and give something useful back to society.”
This is the nobility and tenacity which binds the Asian-family narrative which many of us grew up in.
I wrote in my journal that day- “As much as I’m privileged to be in that hall of 150 outstanding world changemakers aged under 30 (feeling like an odd-ball next to their entrepreneurial achievements), it blows my mind to think of the amazing parents, who were responsible for raising them.”
This picture will always, now and forever, be for my Dad. ❤️