It was Tuesday, 16 December 2025, when I woke up that morning feeling nostalgic. I had learnt that on the coming Friday, my partner Pui Yan's father was about to retire after 50 years of practising medicine. I was trying to feel how one feels in his last week of working.
I recalled that moment when I asked her, "Is there anyone going with him to the clinic on his last day?" She said we were going to have lunch with him on that day. I immediately thought, why just lunch? Why not get him to share his wisdom and legacy after giving so much, for so long, to family, to patients that he treated?
Pui Yan seemed very excited about my suggestion. We both then immediately thought that it was such a great move in honouring his dedication and sacrifice to his passion and career.
We reached out to her dad, Dr Wong Wing Keen, and he was open to sharing the things that made him who he is today. So we quickly borrowed a simple recording mic from our videographer friend and went on a shoot that Friday with no tripod, no fancy gear. We both had no idea how to shoot professionally, but went purely out of interest.
What matters most is that I got the moments captured.
I realised after that shoot that it matters less how I shoot it; what matters most is that I got the moments captured.
We also realised that about 12 years ago, we were both part of an oral history project that we did with Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, honouring people who had given their youth for our independence. In that training, we were assigned to interview people of the Merdeka generation to keep their stories alive. So creating rapport with senior people and getting to know them is something we are familiar with.
Here you can watch a short clip of Dr Wong Wing Keen's retirement moment that we captured in his clinic at Sunway Medical Centre. I'm very proud of being able to capture the moment and not letting it go unfilmed.
From there, we created KARANG with this in mind: we want to help other families capture their parents' struggles, where they come from, their turning points in life, the values they want to leave for their grandchildren and the next generation, so that they not only pass on wealth, but also wisdom and values together.
If this story makes you think of someone in your own family, start a conversation with KARANG about preserving their story.