The Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation

Last week, we bade a final farewell to my beloved mother, Daisy Chen Fan Li Jing. My family and I are deeply grateful for the outpouring of love, support, and condolences from so many family and friends —those who were present on the day, and those who have reached out from around the world. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Mom — or Ah Bei, as she was affectionately called by family and friends — was born in Shanghai and came to Hong Kong at the age of nine. At twenty, she married my late father, Robert, and just a year later, she courageously boarded a flight alone that would take her halfway around the world to Ghana — a journey that in 1959 required refueling stops in Bangkok, Bombay, Athens, and Rome, where she stayed overnight before catching the final leg to Accra.

I share this story because it shows just how remarkable she was — a young woman from Hong Kong, traveling alone to Africa at a time when few would dare to. It reveals two qualities that defined her throughout her life: her boundless curiosity and her natural instinct for taking bold, intuitive risks.

Just weeks before she passed away, we reminisced about her time in Africa. With a twinkle in her eye, she told me, “You know, as a young woman, I had no fear — I wanted to see and experience the world.”

That fearless spirit sometimes led her into hardship — most tragically, when she and Dad, trying to save money and be together in Ghana during her first pregnancy, a seemingly routine examination went wrong and she lost her twins. Yet even in grief, she was resilient. She found strength in the challenges of starting our family business in Ghana and later in Nigeria. To her, it was all part of the great adventure she had chosen.

As a child, I benefited immensely from her love of exploration. On our biannual home leave trips from Africa to Hong Kong, she made sure we stopped in different cities across Europe. Those early experiences opened my eyes to the richness of diverse cultures and taught me not to fear but to embrace the unknown. I owe my own curiosity and openness to her.

She never ceased to amaze and inspire me. Albert Einstein once said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” That phrase describes Mom perfectly. Her curiosity shaped every stage of her life and kept her mind vibrant until the very end.

When Dad retired and they settled back in Hong Kong, they took up singing Peking Opera with friends. One day, she excitedly called and invited Su and me to hear her and her friends perform together, we expected her to sing a small part. Instead, we sat in awe as she performed flawlessly for nearly an hour in front of an audience of over a thousand people. For someone known to family and friends as being famously forgetful, with the exception being food and directions to her favorite restaurants anywhere in the world, that performance left an indelible memory and newfound respect for her commitment to lifelong learning.

In her later years, she poured her energy into our family foundation’s work in early childhood literacy, co-founding and personally funding the Feng Zi Kai Children’s Picture Book Awards during its first decade. And during COVID, she discovered yet another side of herself — taking up painting and recreating Feng Zi Kai’s renowned series of illustrations capturing the innocence of children. Her work was stunning, and even more so because she only discovered this talent in her eighties. It was yet another testament to her lifelong spirit of curiosity and reinvention.

As we said our final goodbye to our dearest mother, grandmother, sister, and friend — a woman whose easy laughter and bright smile lit up every room — we take comfort in knowing she lived a full and extraordinary life. Her journey was one of courage, discovery, and love, just as she dreamed when she first stepped on board that plane to Africa all those years ago.

Mom, I miss you deeply. May you rest in peace.