Lessons from my taxi driver father and my teacher mother: Lim Siong Guan launches memoir

Early in his career, Lim Siong Guan had the vantage point of working closely with two architects of modern Singapore. He served as the first Principal Private Secretary to Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He also worked closely with Dr Goh Keng Swee, the mastermind of Singapore’s economy, defence and security. “Over […] The post Lessons from my taxi driver father and my teacher mother: Lim Siong Guan launches memoir appeared first on Salt&Light.

Religion Nov 11, 2025 0 14 Add to Reading List

Lessons from my taxi driver father and my teacher mother: Lim Siong Guan launches memoir

Early in his career, Lim Siong Guan had the vantage point of working closely with two architects of modern Singapore.

He served as the first Principal Private Secretary to Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

He also worked closely with Dr Goh Keng Swee, the mastermind of Singapore’s economy, defence and security.

“Over the course of my career, I have taken on jobs that I felt were a stretch, or multiple portfolios simultaneously, but I have not worried,” writes Siong Guan in his memoir which was launched yesterday (November 10, 2025).

“In fact, the more complex the situation, for example the Singapore Airlines hijacking case in 1991, the more I sensed God’s presence.”

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President of the Republic of Singapore congratulates Emeritus Professor Lim Siong Guan on the launch of his memoirs “Lim Siong Guan: The Best is Yet to Be”. Photo courtesy of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

In Lim Siong Guan: The Best is Yet to Be, the Christian shares lessons learnt from working with Singapore’s pioneering leaders, and others – including his own father, who drove a taxi, and his own mother, a teacher.

Through Siong Guan’s reflections – along with letters and insights from Singapore leaders and those who know him best – readers discover his deep belief in helping others be the best that they can be, and do their best for Singapore’s future, during his inspiring 50-year career in public service.

Siong Guan headed the Singapore Civil Service from 1999 to 2005. He then chaired the Singapore Economic Development Board, and subsequently served Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC as Group President, and later as Advisor to its Group Executive Committee.

Today, Siong Guan is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Singapore and a Distinguished Practitioner Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he teaches leadership, governance, future readiness, organisational excellence, and change management.

Lim Siong Guan at the launch of his book. Photo courtesy of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Lim Siong Guan with moderator Mrs Lucy Toh, Principal of National Junior College, at the launch of his book. Photo courtesy of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

The book includes a sharing by Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President of the Republic of Singapore, who had the “advantage of being tutored by Siong Guan” soon after joining the Administrative Service in the mid-90s.

He wrote: “To me, Siong Guan represents the best. He epitomises the values that make the Singapore Civil Service so different from any other, and has helped to shape those values: his dedication, his toughness under pressure, his constant questioning, and his unrelenting efforts to develop those around him.”

The book is authored by Joanne H Lim, Siong Guan’s daughter.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President of the Republic of Singapore and Emeritus Professor Lim Siong Guan flanked by Associate Professor Leong Ching (left) and Ms Joanne Lim at the book launch. Photo courtesy of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

“This is a daughter’s loving portrait of what her father stands for. It captures the spirit of one who loves his country, and is always learning and acting on what he believes his country seeks to achieve,” wrote historian and sinologist, Prof Wang Gungwu of the National University of Singapore, in an affirmation of the book.

Below is an extract from Lim Siong Guan: The Best is Yet to Be, reproduced with permission:

I was born in March 1947 to Lim Teck Seng, a taxi driver, and Mary Yeo, a teacher.

We lived in a rent-controlled compound house on Hillside Drive in Hougang, with my maternal grandparents as well as about 30 family members – quite a community.

In this family portrait from July 1951, Siong Guan is the boy in the front row, second from right, directly in front of his maternal grandfather, Yeo Hock Chan. Photo from Lim Siong Guan: The Best is Yet to Be.

We lived the “kampung spirit” of giving and taking, looking out for each other, and being willing to listen and compromise. Our house had seven external doors, but we never locked any in the daytime.

Even though she was adopted, my mother was the “matriarch” who ran the whole extended family in a gentle way, and with little money.

My parents’ influence

My parents were huge influences in my life, as well as the lives of my three sisters and two close cousins whom I grew up with.

My mother, Mary Yeo, was a very open-minded school teacher.

When a decision had to be made, she would always listen to our point of view and have an open discussion with us children, but she would never pressure us to decide a certain way.

My mother also had a very big heart. One day, she heard that a family from her school was giving up a baby girl because they were too poor. My mother left to see the baby, and returned with my second younger sister!

Siong Guan with his sisters when they were living at the rent-controlled compound house on Hillside Drive. Photo from Lim Siong Guan: The Best is Yet to Be.

My father, Lim Teck Seng, was a taxi driver. He was a man of few words and was not affectionate, but he showed his care through his actions.

He would always try to be in the surrounding area of our schools when it was time to go home so that he could give us a ride home if possible. It was a big “treat” for us each time he could.

My father would also occasionally bring home delicious food that he had come across in the course of his driving all over Singapore. He would even wake us up in the middle of the night to eat whatever he had bought.

We were grateful for what we had and whatever “bonuses” came into our lives.

My mother was much the same. Once in a while on her pay day, she would buy beef rendang from Rendezvous Restaurant, which was then at Bras Basah. It was always a special treat for us, because she could only afford to do so once a month at most.

The day we got a fridge was a big event! The day when we got our little black-and-white television was a big event! The day we got the telephone was also a big event!

These “technological advancements” were “frightening intrusions” in our lives. They were major and exciting things to have, but the thought that we were missing something in our lives without a fridge or television or telephone never crossed our minds.

We were brought up happy as we were – we were grateful for what we had and whatever “bonuses” came into our lives. We only got new clothes and shoes once at Christmas and once for Chinese New Year, and we were happy to make do with what we had for the rest of the year.

Community living

At our rent-controlled compound house, we had only one toilet for our whole community.

Our toilet was actually an “outhouse”, some 15 metres from the main house. There was no modern sanitation, so the human waste, or “night soil”, was passed into a bucket that was collected every day by the “night soil carrier”, who balanced two buckets of “night soil” at the end of a bamboo pole over his shoulder as he went from house to house in the neighbourhood.

We lived in a rent-controlled compound house my maternal grandparents as well as about 30 family members – quite a community.

I remember the time the “night soil carriers” went on strike and we had to dispose of the wastes ourselves. We dug a hole in the ground every few days and buried the “night soil”, complete with wriggling maggots!

Our compound house had a rather large empty piece of land in front – a hotbed for lallang, a coarse weedy grass, which we children had to help clear manually every so often using small sickles.

The children in the neighbourhood were always welcome to come around to play rounders when we were little, graduating to football as we grew up.

Fifty metres from our compound house was a small Malay kampung. We had a Malay washerwoman from that kampung who came around to help with the washing and ironing. During that time, we housed several stray dogs which survived on food remnants. One of the dogs once bit one of the Malay kids; almost all the men living in that Malay kampung came marching to our house with poles and parangs to take revenge on the dog! The dog’s life was saved by the gentle persuasive words of our Malay washerwoman.

It was an act of humanity we never forgot, and an example of racial harmony so prized in Singapore till today.

School days

I started school in a neighbourhood school, Paya Lebar Methodist Afternoon School (PLMAS), on Boundary Road in Upper Serangoon.

In 1957, I transferred to Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) on Coleman Street when I was in Primary Five.

Most of the boys at ACS on Coleman Street did not come from rich families. Many of my classmates lived in Chinatown, which was not far away.

I was actually one year younger than my cohort because I got a double promotion at Primary One. At that time, primary school was seven years, before it got standardised to today’s six years. Again, I never thought that I was at a disadvantage because I was younger than my peers; I was just curious and liked to learn.

The Boys’ Brigade

After passing the PSLE, I moved on to Form Two (now called Secondary One) at ACS (Barker Road) in 1959, and joined the Boys’ Brigade, a Christian youth organisation.

In many ways, it was just a natural thing for me to do. Church was very much part of my life, and I attended Sunday school every week.

Church was very much part of my life, and I attended Sunday school every week.

The Boys’ Brigade took up a good amount of my time but I was never ambitious about attaining positions. I just pursued my interests and did the best that I could in everything I did.

I joined the bugle and fife band because I was attracted to it despite having no music background whatsoever. I played the cymbals as I reckoned it did not require any specific musical talent or knowledge of music, other than to be able to keep the rhythm. Following that, I played the side drum.

I was subsequently appointed the band major, and later promoted to the rank of colour sergeant, the highest rank available short of becoming an officer. My promotion was quite a rare event during that time, so I think it just reflected how short they were of leadership candidates!

The Boys’ Brigade was a place of early leadership training for me. I learned the importance of team work: while I might have been the leader of the band, I needed the cooperation and support of every single member, some of whom were older than I.

No pressure to excel

While in ACS, I was never among the top five students in my level till my third year in secondary school.

While I enjoyed maths and science, I had lots of difficulty with Chinese and Art. Chinese was really challenging as we spoke Malay and English at home, given that we lived with my maternal grandparents and their roots were Peranakan.

I often cried when I failed my Chinese tests.

In many ways, it was ironic that I failed Chinese. My father had emigrated from China to Singapore, and was a compositor (whose job was to pick up individual Chinese characters to load onto the printing press) with a Chinese printing house before he became a taxi driver.

“My father, Lim Teck Seng, was very meticulous and kept a file of newspaper clippings and letters that mentioned me,” said Siong Guan. Photo from Lim Siong Guan: The Best is Yet to Be.

As a taxi driver, he spoke virtually every Chinese dialect, and learnt how to converse in Malay and English.

However, my father placed more emphasis on English than Chinese as he felt that children would go higher and further in life with English since Singapore was a British colony. Thus, he never taught us children Chinese or dialects during the little time he had to spend with us at home.

My father spent a lot of time studying English by himself. He was very disciplined and meticulous; he mastered English by learning the English dictionary from A to Z. His English handwriting too was a real delight to behold.

Celebrating effort

When I share with people how my father would bring the family for a picnic at Tanah Merah Beach (instead of a beating or scolding) when we children failed in something, they were amazed that we were “rewarded” for failing.

If you could survive another day, it was already an achievement.

But we never saw the picnics as a reward. It was a form of comfort and a recognition that they believed we had done our best. It was indeed unusual for parents to celebrate effort. My parents were pleased enough if they felt we had tried our best. Their thinking was indeed quite forward-looking!

Today, kids are often made to do things to make their parents proud. I did not get that kind of push. People from poorer backgrounds did not think like that – if you could survive another day, it was already an achievement; anything else was a bonus.

If you look at parents today, they all seem to be in competition with one another. I am lucky that my parents were different, particularly my mother.

The heart of a teacher

My mother was a teacher, as was my late second sister and my wife.

My mother truly had the heart of a teacher. Instead of academic grades, she focused on whether each child had tried and done his or her best, and that probably rubbed off on me.

Teachers are delighted if their students overtake them in achievement and capabilities later in life.

As I mentioned in my first book, The Leader, The Teacher & You, I have come to believe that the most important attitude for us, as individuals and as leaders, is to have the “heart of a teacher” – about you doing the best for your people, enabling them to be the best they can be, and being happy for them when they succeed.

It is interesting that in most organisations, leaders look at their people as “tools” to get their job done and to get them to higher places. But a teacher seeks to help their students be the best they can be, and they are delighted if their students overtake them in achievement and capabilities later in life.

This is unlike in many organisations where bosses are just as likely to suppress those who could be their rivals in the coming years.

My parents also had this principle: If you want to do something, do it well. For me, it was always about wanting to make something good happen; it was never about pride or achieving greatness. I would take the initiative to learn any skills required to do a job effectively and efficiently.

My parents also had this principle: If you want to do something, do it well.

For example, when I was made the editor of the ACS school magazine, I taught myself how to type with both hands and all my fingers so that I could work more efficiently. I took out my mother’s old typewriting manual and went through all the exercises there.

Similarly, as it was clear that my family would not have the money to send me to university, I worked hard to get a scholarship.

By God’s grace, I was awarded the Colombo Plan Scholarship and the Yang di-Pertuan Negara Scholarship (later renamed the President’s Scholarship) in 1965. I studied engineering as that was the scholarship that was offered.

Another newspaper article from Siong Guan’s father’s collection. Photo from Lim Siong Guan : The Best is Yet to Be.

I graduated with first-class honours in mechanical engineering from the University of Adelaide in 1969, and became the first university graduate in my family.

The only book my father gave me

In all my life, my father had only given me one book to read – How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie when I was about 14 years old.

I was always thinking about the well-being of others while seeking the improvement of the status quo.

The book inspired me to win the trust of my teachers and peers through my actions. Most importantly, I learnt how to put others before me, to see things from their perspective and to think of ways to help them. The lessons I learned in the book were very helpful when I became head prefect at ACS in 1964 and assumed leadership positions in the Boys’ Brigade.

Putting what I learned from the book into action, I realised that helping others made me feel happy and satisfied. That set me on the path of leadership, for I was always thinking about the well-being of others while seeking the improvement of the status quo.

My father also taught us that “health is wealth”. Unfortunately, he passed away when he was only 52 years old. His early death made me feel that I am always living on borrowed time, and it instilled in me a sense of urgency to do all the good that I can when I can.

Watch this space on how Lim Siong Guan came to have a steadfast belief in a loving God, making it possible for him to want the best for everyone who comes his way.

Lim Siong Guan : The Best is Yet to Be, published by World Scientific, is available at Books Kinokuniya Singapore. Click here to buy the hardcover book, or here to buy the softcover version.

ABOUT LIM SIONG GUAN

In his 50-year-long public service career from 1969 to 2019, Lim Siong Guan engineered sustainable success in every organisation he led, primarily by creating a culture that harnessed the energy and creativity of his people, and organising structures and systems for long-term success so that the organisation would be in time for the future. His leadership philosophy is: “Think People. Think Future. Think Excellence.”

After graduating from the University of Adelaide in Mechanical Engineering, Siong Guan started serving his scholarship bond at the Mechanical Branch of the Public Works Department. After a few weeks, he was transferred to the Sewerage Branch of the Public Works Department – while it was definitely not the most glamorous or aromatic of postings, Siong Guan enjoyed learning on the job.

In 1970, Dr Goh Keng Swee, who was the mastermind of Singapore’s economy and defence, took Siong Guan into the Ministry of Defence to help build up Singapore’s defence. Siong Guan became a Systems Engineer – dreaming, planning, doing, and learning on various projects he knew nothing about, including setting up the Junior Flying Club.

Dr Goh later selected Siong Guan to become the General Manger of Singapore Automotive Engineering (SAE) when he was 24. During the time he was there, Siong Guan made SAE profitable, and more importantly, he infused the staff with a sense of mission and a spirit of enterprise.

In 1978, Siong Guan became the first Principal Private Secretary to Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, after which he became the Permanent Secretary of four ministries for 25 years: the Ministry of Defence (1981–1994), the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office (1994 –1998), the Ministry of Education (1997–1999), and the Ministry of Finance (1999 –2006). He was the Head of the Singapore Civil Service from 1999 to 2005.

He then chaired the Singapore Economic Development Board from 2006 to 2009, and served as Group President of GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, from 2007 to 2016, and then as Advisor to its Group Executive Committee from 2017 to 2019.

For his various contributions, the Singapore Government conferred Siong Guan the Order of Nila Utama (First Class) in 2006, the Meritorious Service Medal in 1991, and the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 1982. He was also named the fourth S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore in 2017.