This chapter is about Philip’s situation and personality while growing up.
Philip was born in 1946, a year after the Japanese Occupation. He was the second of three children born to a poor Teochew family. His father was Chinese-educated and passed away when he turned four. Because his mum was working he was left alone most of the time and was independent since a young age. At times, “he would follow his mother on a nomadic lifestyle, moving from house to house while she worked as a domestic helper for expatriate families. Other times, he would help park bicycles opposite a movie theatre to earn some extra pocket money.
In school (St. Joseph’s Institution) he was socially independent, he was known to be quiet and well-behaved. He chose to be a librarian in school so that he had access to the books first. He would finish his math homework months in advance so that he would not need to sit in class as it was boring and spent his time in the library reading instead.
While most of his friends wanted to be prefects, he chose to do AV (audio and visual) preparing the microphone for the principal every morning so that he did not need to stand in the hot sun listening to the sermon. “I was happily sitting alone in the control room with my legs up.”
As the GCE “A” levels examination drew nearer, Philip felt that he lacked lab practice for Chemistry. He was concerned about his grade as he was gunning for an overseas scholarship to Canada. He practiced for the lab in the attic of his aunt’s shop house with chemicals bought using money made from screening movies on Saturdays with the school’s projector.
When Philip was in Canada for his degree he worked illegally, making windows in a factory during the second summer. He was paid C$1.75 an hour. In his third year while working for an industrial engineering consulting firm for a month he would wash dishes in a restaurant outside Toronto every Friday.
After coming back from Canada, Philip had to serve his bond as part of his overseas scholarship. He noted at one point of time that if he wasn’t bonded, he would be living in Canada. He was frustrated at the inefficiency of the PSC (Public Service Commission) at giving him a job. The PSC was in charge of the administration of scholarships in the civil service. While waiting for PSC to assign him a job, Philip applied to two jobs not relating to the bond which he was accepted. The first acceptance was to Litton Industries, an American electronics company, and the other was EIDA (Engineering Industry Development Agency) in EDB (Economic Development Board). PSC refused to let him take on those jobs and Philip consistently complained at their inefficiency. To shut him up PSC sent him to The Ministry of Finance to do government budgeting.“They didn’t bother to interview me, they just packed me off”.
After a month, Philip got bored of the budgeting work and could not see himself in the deparment for the next five years of his bond. He heard that the Ministry of Defense (Mindef) was looking for engineers and transferred over marking the beginning of his “four-decade long career in the public service”.
Reference for this summary:
[Book] Neither Civil Nor Servant: The Philip Yeo Story by Peh Shing Huei, Straits Times Press, 2017.
