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My family was in Singapore when the Japanese War started. We were in Singapore at the time of Pearl Harbor, and by the beginning of 1942, the Japanese invasion of Burma and Singapore had started.

It's irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. I've lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you're dead.

Singapore has been incredibly well-managed. It was created out of the swamp, with a strong emotional idea: a safe place for mostly Chinese, but accepting other cultures and other races.

I don't much like Singapore. It's very big, very modern and very urbanised. As a rule, I prefer older places where you get a sense of the history.

I was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong the year I was five.

I was born in Yangzhou, China, two years after World War II ended. I was 5 when my family escaped to Taiwan. Eight years later, we moved to Japan.

I love Southeast Asia. As a child, I lived in that part of the world. My first time in Burma was in 1958 with my parents.

My parents were born in Korea. They spent a good part of their life in Korea.

I was born in a very small town in North Dakota, a town of only about 350 people. I lived there until I was 13. It was a marvelous advantage to grow up in a small town where you knew everybody.