My mother has always been passionate about the arts and in many ways influenced me in my career. I remember her taking me to Cantonese operas, musicals, art class, ballet class and piano class.
All through her career, she was always doing some new course or other. Basket weaving, glass painting, Chinese brush, calligraphy, oils, water colours etc, It was part of a course she was taking but she enjoyed it tremendously and her passion never waned.
She pioneered many different arts programs in the shool, organized trips abroad, brought in new sports, hired coaches for our teams and lead many groups to victory on the national level.
She used to make personalized gifts for all her students on children's day, painstakingly sticking alphabet letters to toothpicks to make name tags, bookmarks and all kinds of sweet encouraging pieces of her heart. She continued to inspire and kept in touch with many of her students even as they graduated.
After she was diagnosed with cancer she continued to busy herself with plans she had for the new school until she was physically unable to.
On behalf of my family, we just want to express our sincere gratitude and heartfelt thanks for the HPPS alumni for making this happen in such a short time, and for their tireless efforts in getting publicity for this event.
There's a quote by Henry Brooks Adam that says, 'A teacher affects eternity, he can never really tell where his influence stops' And this was evident in the out-pouring of gratitude and concern we had at her funeral in Feb 05. It was comforting, encouraging and inspiring for all of us to meet her students.
The setting up of the Jenny Kow Arts Fund will hopefully help to nurture young talent, give them a sense of purpose, fulfill their dreams and contribute in the growth of the arts. My mother believed in grooming and educating the whole person and never once taught children to score in exams. Through hard work and determination and inspiring them to learn, good results were a happy consequence. A good character and nurturing an all-rounder was her guiding principle and it's inspiring to see the lasting effects of that in her students.
I hope that you will find my mother's story inspiring and be inspired to live life with passion. Dream big, live large and laugh loud! God Bless!
Petrina Kow
Graduating class of 1988
