Monday 30 March 2015

Mr Ang Guan Cheong and his family were the last people to pay their respects to Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Photo: Channel NewsAsia

Blessed to be
last family to
pay respects

fter more than 450,000 people

and waiting for more than four
hours, it finally came time for
the Ang family to pay their respects to
Mr Lee Kuan Yew at Parliament House.
Mr Ang Guan Cheong, 27, and his

family were the last in the seemingly

never-ending streams of people who
have thronged Parliament House since
Wednesday, but for him, being last is a
blessing in itself.
Speaking to Channel NewsAsia after they left Parliament House at about
a quarter to midnight, Mr Ang said:
According to Chinese tradition, it is
actually a great honour to be the last
person to pay respects. Its symbolic
(and) of great importance. So my family
is ... blessed to be given this opportunity, because it was totallyunplanned.

His father, Mr Henry Ang, 62: said:

We were very, very fortunate that we
did not need to wait six to seven hours.
Everybody knows Mr Lee is the greatest man.
Mr Lees body lay in state between
Wednesday and Saturday.
Due to overwhelming response, the
State Funeral Organising Committee
decided on the first day to extend the
hours for visitors to pay their respects
from 8pm to midnight, before further
extending it to 24 hours.
The queue was temporarily sus-

pended at about 11pm on Friday because

the crowd had become too big. It opened
again at about 6.15am on Saturday.
In all, 454,687 an average of
6,500visitors per hour paid their respects at Parliament House. Separately, about 1.2 million people visited the 18
Peoples Association (PA) community
tribute sites spread across the island.
The sites were closed at 6pmyesterday.
The flowers, gifts and condolence
cards placed at the sites throughout the
past week will be handed to MrLees
family, the PA said.

Soldiers, volunteers honoured to have helped out

Siau Ming En and Amanda Lee

siaumingen@mediacorp.com.sg

s the crowds started to disperse once Mr Lee Kuan Yews

cortege made its way out of the
City Hall area, the army of volunteers
and others who had helped out over
the past week finally had the chance
to take a step back and reflect on their
involvement in an event of great nationalsignificance.
Fresh graduate Kwok Shao Hui,
24, was among the volunteers from
the Singapore Scout Association who
were roped in to help with crowd control and distribute flags for the funeral
procession yesterday. She recounted
that though some members of the public
had ignored her instructions, it was a
meaningful experience. I dont think it
was that hard, but the weather wasnt

really on our side, she added.

The queue for the lying-in-state was
closed at 8pm on Saturday night to allow for preparations for the funeral
procession that started at 12.30pm.
Soon after the queue was closed, a
thousand soldiers started dismantling
the tents and barricades at the Padang,
which was a major holding area for
those waiting to pay their last respects.
In all, 360 tents and 2,000 barricades
were erected.
Third Sergeant Jazin Zakaria, 21,
said he had been unable to pay his respects to Mr Lee because he was in
camp for the past week, but helping
out with the lying-in-state meant that
he was able to do his part in honouring Mr Lee.
I actually feel fortunate to be given
the opportunity to help out ... These
eight hours of work cannot be com-

A lot of the
soldiers
(were) looking
forward to
contributing to
this event and
feel honoured
to be activated.
Lieutenant-Colonel
Yew Thiam Poh
Commanding
officer of 5 SIR

pared with what Mr Lee gave for the

country, he said.
Lieutenant-Colonel Yew Thiam Poh,
commanding officer of 5 SIR, added:
A lot of the soldiers (were) looking forward to contributing to this event and
feel honoured to be activated.
In a Facebook post on Saturday,
Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said
more than 5,000 Singapore Armed
Forces personnel were deployed between Wednesday and Saturday to
serve as vigil guards, build tents, as
well as provide logistics and security,
among other tasks.
Apart from the soldiers, volunteers and cleaners also helped clean
up thearea.
Company director Adrian Ang, 41,
who had signed up on Facebook as a
volunteer, said: We wanted to collect trash, but halfway through the

process, we realised theres not much

trash and people were hungry after
queueing for so long and needed food.
So we took turns to buy food, even getting McDonalds for children queueing
late into the night.
Cleaners whom TODAY spoke to
downplayed their contributions and
said they were merely doing their job.
One of them, Mr Qiao Chang Shan, 43,
said: As long as we see litter on the
floor, we will pick up.
Another cleaner, Mr Solaiman
Sathiman, 54, pointed out that compared with other big-scale events held
in the area, such as the Formula 1
Grand Prix, the volume of trash was
not high.
This is not so (bad) ... F1 was worse.
Here, I think, not much work, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VALERIE KOH
AND KELLY NG