Early Life
Born into a humble family, Wee Kim Wee was the son of a clerk, Wee Choong Lay and his wife Chua Lay Hua. His father died when he was eight. Wee studied at Raffles Institution, and he started out as a clerk working for The Straits Times, before becoming a reporter focusing on political issues. He eventually became one of the paper's main reporters. In 1941 he joined the United Press Associations, and was its chief correspondent in the 1950s. He returned to The Straits Times in 1959, and was appointed deputy editor in Singapore. In 1966, he interviewed the former Indonesian president, General Suharto, reporting Suharto's intention to end the three-year confrontation with Malaysia (see Konfrontasi). He broke the news with a front-page headline using Suharto's own words: "Suharto: 'Peace: The sooner the better'" .
Read more about this topic: Wee Kim Wee
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death’s perfect punctuation mark is a smile.”
—Julie Burchill (b. 1960)