An uncertain future
Lady Boss
With her cousin’s help, Bee Chew found a job in a hairdressing salon, where she helped with simple chores like pouring tea for the customers and cleaning up the shop. It was hard work, but she was happy. As she watched the hairdressers at work, she slowly came to realise that she had found her calling. “Something just clicked, and I knew that someday I would be a hairdresser,” she relates. Filled with confidence at her epiphany, she set out to learn as much as she could. And in the days that followed, Bee Chew spent hours observing the techniques of the different hairdressers, dreaming that one day she too would be able to do the same. For the first time in her life, she felt content. Then one day, her boss announced that she was closing down the shop as she was migrating to Australia. As Bee Chew had shown herself to be a quiet and responsible woman, her boss made arrangements for her to come to Singapore by train, where she would have the chance of a better life. she met the man who would be her Bee Chew was devastated, her dream of being a husband. And before long, the happy hairdresser shattered. With no desire to return couple had three children. to her village, she agreed to her boss’s wishes. And at 19, a young Bee Chew, uncertain of her Now that she had a family, Bee Chew future, made her way to Singapore alone. became a housewife, raising her children the best she could. Despite her duties as a wife and mother, she never gave up her dream. “I would plan my hairdressing lessons Alone in a foreign country with little so that I would still be able to send my children education, the future looked bleak for off to school and pick them up when they Bee Chew. But she refused to give in to were done,” she reminisces. She also spent her her fears. Driven by her strong desire free time experimenting with different natural to be a hairdresser, she set about ingredients to treat hair problems. Her hard work finding a way to make her dream and determination paid off when neighbours and come true. Having no money, she friends started coming to her flat for hair treatments. worked as a house maid for months She started out with one steamer, one shampoo chair to earn enough so she could and two customer chairs. Soon, business was booming attend hairdressing courses. For and she opened her first shop at Ang Mo Kio in 2006. two years, she worked hard to Bee Chew’s dream had finally come true. supplement her passion, until
Dreams do come true
82 Singapore Business Gurus 2013: Lady Boss