Betty Chen is many things: a devoted family woman, a loyal friend and a lifelong philanthropist who served as president of Singapore’s Chinese Women’s Association for 26 years. The nonagenarian, who will turn 96 next month, imparts lessons on life and tells us how she stays young at heart
Betty Chen has an incredible presence. She commands the room effortlessly and those in her orbit can’t seem to help but fawn over her—openly admiring everything from her immaculately coiffed hair to her infectious smile, and basking in her confident, calming aura.
She is, in every sense of the word, a true matriarch—both a mother and a powerful leader. Think a real-life Shang Su Yi, the revered grandmother, or ah ma, in Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians. And yet, Chen is strikingly relatable.
It is lunchtime when she arrives on set for this photo shoot. While we are used to extravagant requests here at Tatler, Chen’s lunch order is refreshingly simple: an egg and avocado croissant sandwich. After lunch, she enjoys being pampered: getting her hair and make‑up done, and her nails painted in a brilliant red hue. She reveals that today is the first time in a long while—years, even—that she has left the house without make-up.
Chen is a girls’ girl and always has been—from a youth spent in some of the world’s most prestigious girls’ schools (Raffles Girls’ School in Singapore and Methodist Ladies’ College in Melbourne, Australia) to spending her life surrounded by women and focused on bettering their circumstances. She has dedicated much of her life to the Chinese Women’s Association (CWA) in Singapore, for whom she has helped to raise millions of dollars over the years.
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Chen’s story does not begin in the Garden City but in Hankou, China, where she was born in 1926 in a house on the Rue de Paris in the city’s French Concession. Her father, Wong Shiu Kei, better known in social circles as S K Wong, was a well-known banker who had graduated from Stanford University. Her mother, May Wong, was born in Sacramento, California. After meeting and marrying in the US, the former’s work brought the young couple to Asia.
In 1927, a year after Chen was born, the family moved to Hong Kong before settling in Singapore in 1930. It was during this time that May became deeply involved in community work, serving on the committee that ran social welfare organisation, Po Leung Kuk. Originally founded in Hong Kong as a safe haven for women and children who were abducted and trafficked in the late 19th century, Singapore Po Leung Kuk was established in 1888 to rescue, rehabilitate and educate girls and women who had been forced into prostitution.
“When my parents came to live in Singapore, my mother would accompany her next door neighbour down to the docks and meet the ships that arrived from China, [watching] the passengers who came down the gangway,” Chen recalls. “There were often several girls who had been sold as slaves by their poor parents in China. These girls would be taken by my mother and friends to Po Leong Kuk, where they were looked after, and taught to cook, sew and look after children, and embroidery skills to enable them to earn a living.”
May also harnessed her husband’s connections in the finance world to organise charity balls and fairs, raising funds for war orphans from China and Britain. “My mother was born in Sacramento and, like many Chinese, saw what it took to make a living as an immigrant and a minority,” Chen said. “People are stronger when they help one another.”
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