She shared her travel experiences of younger days, of how she defied her parent’s orders to visit some of the world’s troubled countries such as Yugoslavia and Israel etc on a travel scholarship.. During a visit to Aswan dam in Egypt, a machine gun was stationed at every 100m, yet in her feisty manner, she requested to visit the dam, citing the reason that she would only be at that place once in her life. She did it with the security guards escorted her throughout the visit.

Her passion for life extended to helping the less fortunate. While visiting a polio centre, she noticed that the chickens reared by the centre were all without feathers..only to learn later that the feathers had been plucked off to make feather dusters. Puzzled over the fact that there were a high number of polio victims despite the low cost of the vaccine, she found out that it was the remoteness of the area that caused the vaccine to spoil by the time it reached the needy people. Setting her mind to do something about what she had experienced, she worked with polytechnic students to design a cooler box to store polio vaccine so that the vaccine last longer when transported to remote areas. Plus designing a chicken incubator that allowed more livestock to be reared.

In a life where our daily conversations revolve around bread & butter issues and climbing the corporate ladder, it is rejuvenating to learn that there are others who had chosen to follow a different path. To make a difference in whatever capacity that they have.

When I told her of my plans to scale Everest next year, she made an interesting comment of the significance of this trip:

It is not the journey, not the suffering but a reconditioning of the soul.

Words of wisdom from a 65yr old who looks barely past her fifties.

Dr Elsie Yu. I like that.