Lament of a distraught parent

GEORGE TOWN: Jason Ch’ng was hooked on playing online computer games and his irritated father used to scold him for that.

Ch’ng Chin Teik dearly regrets doing so now.

Ch’ng, 52, believed that Jason, one of the five Chung Ling High School students who drowned after a dragon boat mishap on Sunday, would not have joined the boat club if he had not stopped him from playing online games.

“I had given him an earful for being so obsessed with playing online games earlier, particularly since he was preparing for the SPM examination this year.

“It could be the reason he signed up immediately when his friends invited him to join the club three months ago,” Ch’ng said when met at the funeral parlour in Jalan Mount Erskine yesterday.

He said the entire family objected when Jason signed up with the club since he did not know how to swim but the teenager convinced them that it was a safe sport since it was a school initiative.

The parents of Wang Yong Xiang were so distraught at losing him that they fainted when his body was found. They had to be admitted to hospital.

There was reason for their heartbreak. He was their only child, whom they had waited for 12 years.

Wang’s cousin, Lim Chee Kiat, 18, said the couple had tried for a child for more than 10 years before Yong Xiang was born.

“I have objected to him taking part in such a dangerous activity but he wanted to give it a try. It was his first training out at sea,” Lim said.

The mother of Cheah Zi Jun also fainted and was pushed into the mortuary on a stretcher by St John’s Ambulance members to see her son for the last time.

Lim Wey Yeng, 16, said the life jacket he had on kept him afloat until he was rescued.

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