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BY ELYSA CHEN
AGE and aches from chronic arthritis have not dimmed the fire in this 77-year-old rebel of the street.
She collects discarded cardboard to earn a few dollars a day and she sleeps on the pavement.
But she does not want your pity or handout.
This street aunty has got pride, guts and a wilful streak. Government welfare officers who have approached her to offer help know this only too well.
Said Madam Cheng Toan Ngor: 'They're always asking me to go with them. But I don't need them to take care of me.
'I don't need to eat their rice, or take their money. So why should I go with them?'
An office worker who declined to be named described how Madam Cheng had given him a earful when he offered money to her once.
He said: 'She's got a very strong sense of pride. Try giving her money,and she will curse and swear at you.'
Madam Cheng was in the news when a video clip on her was circulated on the Internet recently.
The clip, produced by Agence France Presse (AFP) and lasting less than two minutes, gave the impression she was neglected despite her age and her suffering.
Her plight moved many netizens to comment about care for the the poor and the elderly in Singapore.
Has savings
However, in an interview last week, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan disclosed that she not only owns property and has savings, but also has a family who wants her off the streets.
However, Madam Cheng wants to do things her own way.
She said she doesn't need help from the Government or anyone else to survive.
'I'm not scared of hardship. Old people who are willing to work can pick cardboard like me. Those who don't wish to have such a life can ask their children to take care of them,' she told The New Paper in Mandarin.
'Each individual has his own preferences. I want to rely on my ability to take care of myself.
'I don't need anyone's pity.'
She does not accept money even from her own children. Her son is a businessman, one of her four daughters is a teacher, while the others are housewives, said Madam Cheng.
She said: 'I can take care of myself, and I can earn money for myself. What do I need to take their money for?'
Madam Cheng, who earns between $5 and $7 a day from selling the cardboard and drink cans she collects, starts her day as early as 6am.
She sometimes works till 3am, waiting for the pubs along Amoy Street near Chinatown to close so she can collect their discarded cans and bottles.
One kilogram of cardboard fetches a mere 10 cents.
It is a tough job for someone who complains of joint pain,and whose legs are swollen.
She said: 'It hurts, but I just need to do my work slowly and steadily. I have no choice but to wake up early. If not, all the cardboard will be taken by the others.'
Despite her tough life on the streets, Madam Cheng does not want any help - unless you can tell her where she can find cardboard.
When The New Paper tracked her down at Amoy Street on Tuesday at 5pm, she was so fiercely independent that she initially refused to accept a drink that this reporter had bought for her.
We spotted her hunched figure in an alley, pushing her cart which was still quite empty. It was hard work for the 1.5m-tall woman.
Her hair was dishevelled, and grime had collected under her fingernails and toenails, which were long and yellowed.
She wore a round-neck grey T-shirt, which was stained with her perspiration, and black pants, on which she hung a paper cutter.
The pockets of her pants were weighed-down by her coin purse and ointment.
She complained often of arthritis pains during the 40-minute chat.
Madam Cheng, who used to be a cleaner at industrial buildings and shopping centres, said she turned to scavenging on the streets nine years ago.
She had developed a chronic pain in her feet and could no longer hold on to her job as a cleaner.
Her husband had died of cancer.
Although she has five children, she does not want to live with them.
Madam Cheng, whose children are in their 40s, said: 'Their business failed, and they need to take care of their own children. How can they take care of me?
'People have to shout in my ear, and I talk loudly because I'm going deaf. Who would want to live with someone like that?'
Weekly visits
So, she is contented with weekly visits from her children on Sundays, when they would take her food.
One of them lives in Ang Mo Kio Ave 6, she said, but she was unable to tell us the block or unit number.
She was so protective of her children that she would not allow her face to be photographed, lest she embarrassed them.
Checks by government officials revealed that Madam Cheng owns property. The New Paper understands that the property under her name is not an HDB flat.
However, when asked about it, Madam Cheng claimed that she lives in a three-room HDB flat, and goes home every night after the pubs along Amoy Street close. When we asked to visit her flat, Madam Cheng declined, saying that it was 'very dirty'.
Madam Cheng's friend, Madam Shen, who is in her 50s, has also been collecting cardboard along Amoy Street for the last 10 years.
Said Madam Shen: 'Sitting at home is so boring. Our children have their own families and their own lives, so we'd rather come out to work.'
This article was first published in The New Paper.
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