The world of Tzu Chi Nov-Dec 2021 (Vol.138)

TZU CHI 138 37 transporting them to builders. Life was rough but she never complained. Lim Whey and Kon Loy got married when the latter had just turned 23. He started his own hardware store and Lim Whey moved to his hometown, Dengkil, to help manage the business. “I did not know of his misdeeds before I married him. He only told me about them after we got married, and my only hope was that he would not go down the same road again,” Lim Whey shared. Though Lim Whey appeared as the epitome of an equable lady, she did have her dark moments but she would avoid making a scene during an argument. Whenever her husband threw a tantrum, she would ignore him and let him calm down. Life was quite settled and mundane— raising four children and running their business—but it took an impactful turn in 1997 when they met Tzu Chi volunteer Ang Kim Seng. Forging a friendship and setting milestones “We have business connections with Brother Kim Seng. One day, he asked us if we wanted to be Tzu Chi donors and we just agreed because we wanted to do good deeds. We did not even know much about Tzu Chi,” Kon Loy said with a smile. Kim Seng owned a hardware store in Klang, which is a 45-minute drive fromDengkil. Due to the long distance, he could not collect the couple’s donation every month. However, the couple would stop by his store and hand him their donations whenever they had to deliver goods to Klang. Kim Seng frequently invited them to the Tzu Chi volunteers’ sharing sessions recollecting his young and frivolous days. A prodigal on the run Born into a poor family, he started work in his teens when his peers were well sheltered in school. He felt inferior to others, and to compensate for his lack, he resorted to collecting protection fees, leveraging on his somewhat stern appearance. In his village, he was infamous for being someone who never compromised, and used brute force to settle conflicts. When he was 18, he injured someone in a fight, and the police were after him. Overnight, he fled his hometown to Kuala Lumpur, where he worked as a delivery boy at a hardware store. It was a defining moment when he decided to leave his past behind and start anew. He worked diligently and soon gained the recognition of his boss, who later entrusted him with the task of running the entire store. It was during these years that he learnt the ropes of running a business. At 20, he fell in love with LimWhey when he was delivering items at the quarry where she worked. Lim Whey is the fifth among her six siblings, and her family, who lived in Cheras, could not afford her an education. “I went to school, but I could not read,” she laughed. While her parents were at work, she and her elder sisters took care of the house and their youngest sister. Her responsibilities also included walking to a plantation half a mile away to pick dry firewood to be used as cooking fuel. By the age of 14, she had worked several jobs, including baby-sitting her neighbour’s child, moving bricks at a construction site, and loading wheelbarrows with lime and