For the first seven years of his life, Dr Tan Lai Yong was not allowed to leave the one-room rental flat he shared with six older siblings and their parents.
It was for his own safety, his stay-at-home mum decided. Their area around Kallang Airport was rife with dangerous gangs in the 1960s.
“My dream job was to be a grass cutter.”
“Once or twice a year, my mum would bring us downstairs to play,” Lai Yong, now 61, told Stories Of Hope.
“She warned me not to go near the canal where it was muddy and dangerous; there were snakes, and the tall lalang (coarse grass) would cut my fingers.”
His father eked out a living as a pirate (illegal) taxi driver. The family had no money to send him to kindergarten, and no money for toys or a TV. So Lai Yong passed his days “imagine-playing with brooms and utensils”.
Lai Yong, his wife and their daughter in their “castle” during his 14-year stint in Yunnan, China. His daughter and son are now in their 20s.
“I also spent a lot of the time looking out of our seventh floor window watching the world go by,” he said.
He was especially fascinated by the grass cutters maintaining the area, as well as Indian cattle raisers cutting the grass to feed goats and cows.
“The grasscutter was fearless. He could go up to the edge of the canal … to the ends of the earth.”
They would manually cut the lalang by swinging a sickle – a long pole with a blade tied to it – overhead.
“My dream job was to be a grass cutter.
“The grass cutter was fearless. He could go up to the edge of the canal. He was not afraid of the gangs, the snakes, the lalang, the river. This guy could go to the ends of the earth,” Lai Yong recalled.
Little did Lai Yong foresee how his early hunger to explore would one day lead him to China to work with rural communities. He would come to be nicknamed “the barefoot doctor” and “the wandering saint”.
When Lai Yong was seven years old, his mum told him that he had to go to school like his gor-gor and jie-jie (older brothers and sisters). He had no clue what to expect.
“She told me that going to school was to fan (Cantonese for play). I thought it was the best thing in the world.
“School was always about play; it was an adventure. And I have to thank my mum for the idea” said Tan Lai Yong, who later told his kids the same thing.
On his first day of school, young Lai Yong didn’t understand what the English- or Chinese-language teachers were saying. He didn’t respond when they called his name (which incidentally means “come glory”).
“I only knew that my name was ‘Ah Weng’ (what my mum called me in Cantonese).”
“I only spoke Cantonese at home, and had no exposure to other languages.
“I only knew that my name was ‘Ah Weng’ (what my mum called me in Cantonese),” he said.
Lai Yong didn’t know his ABCs either. And in the first week of school, he was not allowed to go for recess until he finished writing the alphabet.
“I could see my mother standing outside the classroom with food for me. So my game plan was to get out and eat the food she brought,” he said.
Motivated by food, he quickly learnt his ABCs.
It was only in Primary 3 that Lai Yong was allowed to go about on his own.
“Then something happened when I was in Primary 5 that verified what my mum said about the dangers of our area,” he recalled.
Lai Yong had joined the Boy Scouts, and during Job Week, he and his friend Tan Mann Hong (now an orthopaedic surgeon) went door-to-door asking for chores to do in return for small donations.
“A bigger sized teenage boy – a neighbourhood thug – came between us and put his arms around our necks.”
“On a lonely path near the old Gay World amusement park, a bigger sized teenage boy – a neighbourhood thug – came between us and put his arms around our necks,” Lai Yong recalled.
“He accused us of insulting his brother, and tried to extort 10 or 20 cents from us.”
But thanks to Mann Hong, who had his wits about him, the two young Scouts reached the bus stop and escaped on a bus.
Lai Yong’s world opened up in an unexpected way when he was in Secondary One in 1974.
He had joined the Christian programme Youth for Christ, located next his Siglap Secondary School, where he read the Bible for the very first time.
“Coming from a restricted childhood, reading about Jesus Christ opened up the world for me. He sailed the seas, walked into Samaria …
“He was alive to me. He went places, and told stories about people like robbers in the parable of The Good Samaritan.” (Luke 10:25-37)
As a young boy, Lai Yong knew first-hand what it meant to have people come to steal and destroy.
One Bible verse in particular left a big impression. It was Acts 1:8 which read: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
“I had a picture of the grass cutter who could go right up to the canal where no snake, gangster or lalang was going to affect him,” he said.
Lai Yong was also fascinated that Jesus spent time with people like outcasts and lepers, whom most would not usually associate with.
Another Bible verse, John 10:10, captured his attention. In it, Jesus said: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
As a young boy, Lai Yong knew first-hand what it meant to have people come to steal and destroy.
“The promise of ‘life abundantly’ attracted me to be a Christian. That was a transformation.”
Lai Yong and his wife Lay Chin, on their first wedding anniversary in 1992. They met as teenagers at the church that nurtured his faith and heart for helping other communities.
He was nurtured by Bethesda Frankel Estate Church, which has a strong focus on missions – spreading the love of God through good deeds.
“Growing up, going on missions was part of the Christian experience,” said Lai Yong who was 20 when went on his first mission trip to a country up north.
Lai Yong would see how God would direct his path to becoming a doctor.
While doing NS (National Service), he planned to sign on to the army as an infantryman.
He thought he had failed his ‘A’ levels and didn’t bother to go to Temasek Junior College to collect his results. It was too far from camp.
Lai Yong’s former classmates only managed to get through to him at night via the platoon’s public payphone, which was perpetually engaged. They told him about his good results. In disbelief, Lai Yong assumed they had mixed him up with someone else in his platoon with a similar name.
Lai Yong admitted to the professors: “Even if you give me a place, I don’t have the money to go.”
Lai Yong shared the news of his unexpectedly good ‘A’ level results with his platoon mates. He was unsure of what to do next.
“I didn’t even know what a university was,” he admitted.
One platoon mate advised Lai Yong to apply to medical school. He was Mann Hong, his old Boy Scout pal who had gone to a different secondary school.
Lai Yong believed that it was by God’s hand that the two of them had ended up as bunkmates in NS.
“God is kind. He put Mann Hong beside me,” said Lai Yong.
Someone helped him to get the application form for medical school and paid for the $5 application fee.
Lai Yong was shortlisted for an interview, but did not give a first good impression.
“Through God’s provision of friends and finances, I saw education as a gift, a privilege.”
“I got lost and was 10 minutes late,” he said. An interviewer also chided him for sitting down before they invited him to do so.
Lai Yong also admitted to the seven senior professors on the interview panel: “Even if you give me a place, I don’t have the money to go.”
But he needn’t have worried. He received a PSC (Public Service Commission) bursary that enabled him to study medicine.
Again, Lai Yong credited this to God’s goodness.
“Through God’s provision of friends and finances, I saw education as a gift, a privilege,” he said.
While in NS, Lai Yong was chosen to serve in the aviation medicine course in the Republic of Singapore Air Force. Only seven medical officers are picked for the highly-coveted role each year.
“It was high-tech, cutting-edge, and there was aircon in the office,” said Lai Yong.
Subsequently, Lai Yong got wind about an overseas posting in a jungle. The assigned doctor would need to check on the water supply, keep an eye on the sewerage and toilets of the camp, and care for trainees and the communities around it.
Lai Yong volunteered for the work.
Why was he willing to give up creature comforts for a camp in a jungle with no proper toilets?
“The experience was going to be very important in my long-term interest to work with rural communities,” he explained.
“It was a wonderful opportunity. Where else could I learn about sanitation and public health?” he asked.
Lai Yong thanked God for providing a way to merge his love for missions with his view of medicine as a gift.
Lai Yong put in his request to be transferred to the jungle. His higher-ups were understandably less than thrilled.
He was called in to see his boss, the Chief Air Force Medical Officer.
Major (Dr) Peng Chung Mien – who later became a Colonel – asked: “Are you serious? MOs (medical officers) are trying to get into the Air Force and you want out?”
Lai Yong explained that his plan was to work in missions.
The Major asked if he had bought property in Singapore.
Lai Yong replied that he had bought an HDB flat which would give him a home, along with the freedom to go on overseas missions. He told the Major: “If I had bought private property, I won’t go. Because I will have to keep earning money to finance a mortgage.”
Satisfied that Lai Yong had “thought about it, counted the cost, and was serious about it”, the Major signed the release letter.
Lai Yong gave up a coveted posting for one in a jungle camp that would equip him to work with rural communities. “Where else could I learn about sanitation and public health?” he asked.
Lai Yong’s one-year stint at the overseas jungle camp turned out to be a highlight of his life.
Along with new skills, he also picked up a new language.
As a doctor, Lai Yong is currently able to take someone’s medical history in Thai and Malay, and speaks functional Teochew, Hokkien and Cantonese.
Afterwards, Lai Yong would also give up a coveted stint at a major hospital, to become a prison medical officer instead.
In 1996, he left to be a medical missionary in a rural, Thai-speaking part of southern China for 15 years.
In China, Lai Yong (right) worked with local doctors to help the poor, orphaned, the disabled and lepers.
Lai Yong also took his children to visit a leper colony.
Lai Yong received numerous awards for his work in China that included efforts to alleviate poverty, develop the community and train village healthcare workers. One award was presented by former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.
But Lai Yong and his family returned to Singapore in 2010 because he felt that he was being treated “like a VIP” there, which was “dangerous for my soul“.
“Medical missionaries are put on a pedestal. People say ‘Wow, you gave up so much’,” he said.
“Other people, like teachers and homemakers, also give up a lot for Christ.”
“I have classmates who went off to even tougher postings, like to the slums in one Asian country.
“In God’s kingdom, the heroes are the silent ones. Other people, like teachers and homemakers, also give up a lot for Christ.”.
On his return to Singapore, Lai Yong rejected well-paying offers from major healthcare players. Instead, he chose to teach university students about the harsh realities faced by marginalised groups like ex-offenders, migrant workers, and red-light workers. They learn about the trauma of childhood abuse and debate policies that may have led to income inequality.
The students visited seniors in HDB heartlands as part of a student community effort. They are pictured at the College of Alice & Peter Tan. Photo from nhgeducation.nhg.com.sg.
Former President of Singapore Tony Tan presenting Dr Tan Lai Yong with a Healthcare Humanity Award in 2015. Photo from news.nus.edu.sg.
Today, Lai Yong is in transition. He works a few months of the year as an adjunct associate professor at the College of Alice & Peter Tan at the National University of Singapore. He and his wife are also learning a new language and culture as they prepare to work in remote islands around the Asean region.
Lai Yong lives a life of abundance, but not in the way some would see it. His focus isn’t on owning supercars – or even a car – and mansions.
Neither is his focus on deliberately living a frugal life.
For example, he takes the bus because it gives him time to read.
“I’ve read books like War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and Knowing God by JI Packer all on the bus,” he likes to tell people.
Bangladeshi friends teaching Lai Yong (right) and student volunteers cricket.
“When Jesus said ‘I come to give you life, and life-abundantly’, He was not promising material things, but the fullness of relationships.
“I have experienced this fullness: God has given me the privilege of studies, friends and fellowship at church. It sounds logical – rather than mystical – to bring this kind of relationship to other communities.”
Dr Tan Lai Yong celebrated his 61st birthday and the passing of the pandemic by taking part in a triathlon on September 4, 2022. It was to fundraise for the work of the care and counselling team of St Luke’s Hospital. They provide psychosocial support to distressed patients and their caregivers who may be experiencing burnout. You may like to support Lai Yong’s fundraising effort here (till September 30).
St Luke’s Hospital started as Singapore’s first hospital to serve the elderly sick. It has since expanded its services beyond the elderly to enrich more lives. The Institution of a Public Character cares for 2,300 inpatients and 3,500 outpatients each year, regardless of race, language or religion.
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