Dawn Yeoh recalls mum chasing her out of the house for telling lies: 'She literally grabbed anything she could see from my room'
The Singapore actress also shared about the first time she brought a boyfriend home to meet her mother.
She was just a student and even had school the next day, but it didn’t stop her mother from dishing out really tough love.
During her schooling days, local actress Dawn Yeoh was once chased out of the house for a night because she had lied to her mum about consuming chilled drinks.
“Anything cold, I’m not supposed to touch in school. But I did it again and again,” the 37-year-old told Yahoo Southeast Asia in an interview for her film King of Hawkers.
Yeoh said, “I think that particular incident where she finally threw my luggage [out] was because she had enough, and then she was, like, get out of the house. She literally grabbed anything she could see from my room. I remember very clearly it’s all my textbooks. And the next day, I still have school and all that.”
Fortunately, she had a classmate who lived nearby, so she spent the night there.
Yeoh then went back home the next morning, and “things were kind of back to normal” with her mother asking what time was school and whether she needed breakfast.
“It’s tough love between me and my mum. And I really appreciate her,” she gushed. Incidentally, this memory helped her relate better to a very similar scene that plays out in the movie.
In King of Hawkers, Yeoh plays the lead role of Zhang Nala, a newly divorced ex-wife of a second-generation rich playboy, who learns to restart her life by returning to manage her humble family-run bak chor mee stall in a hawker centre.
The start of the film opens with Yeoh’s character being thrown out of the house by her mother because she wanted to marry a rich man and have an easy life.
When Dawn Yeoh introduced a boyfriend to her mum for the first time
It’s not just the bad times that Yeoh remembers, though. She also recalled the first time she ever introduced a boyfriend to her mother and how well her mother reacted to it.
She shared, “I brought him in as a surprise, because all these years I haven't shown my mum any of my boyfriends, except that one. So she was quite touched… She just felt like, oh, my daughter finally brought a boyfriend [home].”
For Yeoh, who was 29 when this happened, she had not discussed relationship matters with her mother and she could tell that her mother found it to be a pleasant surprise.
“From there, we started talking more, and sharing more of my true feelings - even in the aspect of, like, relationships,” she said.
Yeoh shared separately, “[My mother] taught me so many values in life, as simple as things like, you don’t take other things for free. All these basic simple values were being ingrained since I was young…
“It really helps in my life experience, and of course, to my career, to my acting. Yeah, she really played a very important role in it.”
King of Hawkers also stars Ryan Lian, Hugo Ng, Liu Lingling, Collin Chee, Mimi Chu, Asher Su, Gini Chang, Kimson Tan, Anita Chui, Moses Cheng, and Das DD.
It is now showing in cinemas (except Shaw).
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