Much has been said about Sybil Lau over the past weeks.

But less so from her directly. The 45-year-old made her first public appearance at the Elections Department on Jul. 19 as the enigmatic fiancée of presidential hopeful Ng Kok Song.

Then, she spoke just a few lines, mostly in somewhat halting Mandarin — which, combined with the couple's famous thirty-year age gap, sparked a barrage of online memes and jokes.

Given all that, I'm somewhat apprehensive when we sit down together at the Mothership office for an interview. Would she be nervous? Defensive? Reluctant to be there at all?

Turns out I didn't have anything to worry about. Lau is quietly charming off-camera, candidly admitting to being unfamiliar with the spotlight and in front of the camera.

"It was something totally new to me. I think it was the first time I ever spoke to the media," she says.

"I wasn't wearing my glasses. So when I don't wear my glasses, I tend to squint. And also when I don't wear my glasses, I blink a lot because not only could I not see, but I'm not used to having lights on me. And it's so many lights, that it's blinding.

I think it sparked a meme called #FreeSybil. I thought that was fantastic...I mean, we thought it was hilarious."

Living a private life

Lau's unfamiliarity with the media stems from being "a very private person" all her life.

"When he first told me he was going to run for President, my first reaction was shock," she admits.

"And the second thing that came to my mind was 'there goes my private life'. Because I spent a long time trying to keep my life private."

Lau first came to Singapore about 18 years ago. Born to an ambassador father and a portfolio manager mother, she'd hoped to establish a career in finance in Asia.

That was how she met Ng. In 2019, a friend approached her, saying he'd met "her favourite fund manager", and asking if she'd like to meet him.

It took a while before she realised he meant Ng; a year ago, she'd come across a video of him talking about investments, found it interesting, and shared it with her friends.

Her curiosity piqued, she agreed to meet him. At their first meeting, Lau — who was managing her family's wealth — arrived fully prepared to hear an investment pitch from Ng who'd started a fund of his own.

"But interestingly, we ended up talking about everything except his fund," she tells me.

He made an immediate impression. Leaving that meeting without ever having heard that expected investment pitch, he struck Lau as "an incredibly humble" person. 

"I felt like he was quite different, in the sense that he was actually listening to what I'm saying.

Because a lot of times, people might be present in a room. But they're not mentally or actually present, because they're not listening, really listening, truly listening to what you have to say."

Oblivious at first

While she admits to being "quite oblivious" at the start, their feelings grew as the months passed.

"Every time I met him, we found that we had more and more in common," she says. "So I think it evolved over time."

There were also things that stood out about him: how he took care of his parents and lifted his family out of poverty, how he cared for his wife when she was dying of cancer, even taking a year off work to focus on her.

"To me that is very Chinese," she says.

"I might not sound very Chinese. But inside I'm very traditional, I'm very Chinese. And filial piety is something that is one of the core values that we all have."

Besides that, what struck her was his "incredibly kind" nature.

"After we hung out for a while, he'd say, 'can we dabao something at the hawker centre, because I want to bring it home for my daughter.'

"And his daughter is 33 years old," she quips.

In particular, she tells me about an occasion that made her realise exactly how much he cared. "It was during Covid," she recalls.

Her parents had just moved to Singapore and had to quarantine in the hospital. But soon after the quarantine, her mum fell sick.

"My mum has always been battling a lot of illness, because she's extremely frail," she says. "She was very, very ill and had to be readmitted to the hospital."

Her mother was later diagnosed with sepsis, then multiple organ failure. For two and a half months, as her mother battled her illness, Lau would visit her in the ICU.

"I was there every single day. From when they would let me in at 7am, until they told me that sorry, I have to go home, because it's 8pm," she tells me.

"A lot of times I would just sit there, or I would just wait outside. And that was the first time I actually saw him cry."

As she relates the story, she pauses, visibly emotional. I glance across the room, where Ng sits, his expression a mirror of hers.

She takes a breath and continues:

"Being with me through it showed me that no matter what, he would be there for me.

And then eventually when my mom passed away, he was there with me. And I was holding her hand."

'You have to do this'

Given all these, her fiancé's presidential aspirations came as a shock.

"The first thing in my mind was, well, why would he want to do this?" she says.

"Because he doesn't have an ego. He doesn't care about fame. He's not that kind of person at all. And he's not the type of person that would just say, 'I want to do something'."

"So it took me a while to understand."

It wasn't just the loss of her private life that made her anxious. There was also the age gap; Lau professes to be fully cognisant of how the public might react to it.

"Would that be a liability? Would I be a liability to him?" she says. "Those were things I worried about, without telling him."

But once she had processed what he'd said, the first thing that she asked was if he was doing this for Singapore. "Because I couldn't think of any other reason that he would do this," she says.

"Maybe I should have waited for him to answer me," she admits. "But the next thing out of my mouth was 'Kok Song, you have to do this. Because by you coming forward, it might inspire a lot of other people in the future — not be scared, and to come forward.'"

"So [whatever] people will say about me, I don't care. Because that isn’t important.

If everybody cared about their private life over Singapore, over the public good...I think we'd be in trouble."

Working in the community

But has she given any thought to herself as a prospective First Lady?

"Traditionally, the spouses of candidates aren't in the limelight, because of course, it is about [the candidate]," she caveats. "I try to support Kok Song as best as I can. Most times, I'll be standing at the back... I support him by helping out with his campaign."

That said, Lau does have her causes. I ask her about her interests, and they all seem to boil down to one thing: health.

Her journey into philanthropy began at age 13 — partially inspired by her grandfather, who spent much of his adult life building hospitals and donating to healthcare R&D.

"One day after school, I surprised my family [because] I was very late going home," she shares.

"And they said, where have you been? And I said, on my way home — because I walked to school — I passed by the rehabilitation hospital that helps patients with head injuries and also palliative care.

And I walked in there, and I just said I wanted to know if I could help... because I noticed that they are quite understaffed."

Lau would spend the next seven years volunteering there for three to four hours every day after school. "I would sit with them, I would help feed them, I might help wheel them around," she relates.

"So caregiver support has been very important to me, ever since I was a child."

Today, healthcare remains one of her vested interests. In addition to investing in last-mile and gap funding for healthcare, she's also a board member at SG Enable, a local agency dedicated to enabling persons with disabilities.

"The first time that I went to visit Enabling Village... I didn't even know that it existed," she recalls.

Learning that the place was almost like a community on its own — with 80 per cent of the employees being persons with disabilities —"touched something in [her]", Lau shares.

It was also at SG Enable that she was able to explore one of her other interests: art. "I wanted to help them because they told me they wanted to empower persons with disabilities through art," she explains.

"And art is something that I know maybe a little bit about, because I myself am an artist, and I love to draw and love to paint."

Through her efforts, she was able to help bring to fruition an art exhibition showcasing works by persons with disability.

"And I think our President Halimah graced the event," she quips.

"It was fantastic, because what I really wanted to see was the faces of the artists and also their family. When you see your artwork next to a Picasso or a Botero... you should have seen the look on their faces.

It wasn't a selling exhibition, but to me, it inspired a lot of hope. And it just made me, and everyone, very happy."

A sincere relationship

Finally, I address the elephant in the room.

Why Ng, even despite the age gap? Was that ever an obstacle for her?

She ponders that question for a while. "I'm 45 years old," she tells me. "I think at my age, I really know what I want and I know what I don't want.

"And if I didn't find somebody that I didn't feel comfortable with, I don't think that I would want to be in a relationship."

It's pretty clear — and Lau freely admits this — that she's the less romantic of the two. In fact, when she met him, she hadn't been thinking about marriage or a relationship at all; and so the age gap never came up.

"I don't even think I ever asked him how old he was. That just doesn't matter to me," she explains.

"To me, there are a lot of things that aren't important. I think age isn't important. I think race, religion — even gender sometimes wouldn't be important to a lot of people."

And as to the questions about the sincerity of her feelings: "For lack of a better word, I'm financially independent," she says, deadpan.

Before we end, I prod at her hopes for married life — any aspirations, goals for the future?

Her answer is simple and earnest. And, I realise, very much like her.

"I hope married life will be the same as my life now," she says.

"I think marriages are always built on mutual respect. And you should have a lot of fun together, meaning you should be able to laugh, you should be able to talk. And he's my best friend, we talk about everything.

So, whether it's hearing about how someone's day went, to just talking about anything under the sun...I hope that if and when we get married, that it will be just like that. It'll be like any other day."

Top image by Andrew Koay and from Ng Kok Song's Facebook page