Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, right, accompanying Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Thong, center, to a gathering with Ben Bernake in 2006. (Courtesy of the Embassy of Singapore)
After SIXTEEN years in Washington and months of farewell events — a few 50-plus breakfasts, lunches and dinners — Ambassador Chan Heng Chee returned house to Singapore on Saturday. “It’s bittersweet and a bit sad,” she advised us Friday after a champagne send-off from her workforce.
Chan grew to become her ultimate week in D.C. right into a sentimental adventure: artwork museums, espresso at Patisserie Poupon in Georgetown and a last lunch at her favourite group restaurant, Nam Viet.
“I has been using round simply to have a look at the bushes and get a really feel of Washington ahead of I go,” she stated.
Chan, 70, was the second-longest-serving ambassador in Washington (handiest Djibouti’s Roble Olhaye, who additionally represents his usa on the United Nations, has served longer) and the primary feminine ambassador to the us from an East Asian u . s .. While she arrived in 1996, there have been 5 different feminine envoys; now she counts 29 out of a complete of 192.
Ambassador Chan, center, greeting then-Secretary of Protection Donald Rumsfeld, left, on a 2004 commute to Singapore. (Gerald Herbert/AFP/Getty Images) Her recommendation to different girls taking into account the task? “Never be daunted by the truth you're a feminine ambassador coming to a man’s global. Don’t start by pondering you're deprived. Simply elevate on.”
Which she did: Chan received admire for making improvements to business members of the family with the United States, befriending D.C.’s community of tough ladies and internet hosting vigorous dinner events.
“I was once a college professor of political science,” she instructed us. “When I throw a dinner party, I LOVE a dialogue. I didn’t recognize the phrase ‘salon’ until I came and those instructed me I ran a salon. My first response was, ‘Is this just right or bad?’ ” (THE MOST PRODUCTIVE conversations, she determined, are facilitated by arranging 14 visitors round one lengthy desk).
Ambassador Chan, left, with Leader of Protocol Capricia Marshall on the Washington Nationwide Opera’s 2010 masked ball. (Russell Hirshon) One of Chan’s ultimate farewells got here Wednesday evening on the art-filled house of superlobbyists Tony and Heather Podesta. “No u . s . large or small has had a more practical suggest for her people,” Tony Podesta advised the visitors. Chan — who's headed to a 3rd profession as chair of a analysis middle at Singapore’s College of Generation and Layout in addition to a stint as ambassador-at-large on the Ministry of Overseas Affairs — mentioned she’ll take house what she’s realized approximately charity and philanthropy.
“I’ve met such a lot of individuals who placed public provider ahead of themselves,” she stated. “It occurs in different countries, however to not this level. It’s very American.”
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