Jeryl owes it to mum and lucky star
Teen singer ready to take the world stage
Fate surely smiled on 16-year-old songstress Jeryl Lee Pei Ling at the time of her birth, when her future was about to be decided.
Her mother could not afford to raise a child and was asking if someone would adopt the baby as soon as it was born.
Jeryl’s adoptive mother, Ivy Liew, 64, said that her friends asked her in 2000 if she could help the pregnant woman by adopting the baby.
“I was already 48 and my husband Lee Luan Sung was even older. Our four children were grown up and we were about to be grandparents,” she said in an interview with The Star.
“But I like daughters, so I agreed to it initially,” she said.
Many people around Liew told her she was too old to take on the burden of raising another child and talked her out of it.
So she told the expectant mother that she had changed her mind.
“The woman was dismayed and the next morning went into labour. It was so sudden that I couldn’t shake off that sense of duty, I felt that I had to honour my word.
“So I went ahead with it despite the criticism,” said Liew. And she has never regretted it, always supporting her adopted daughter to nurture her talent.
Jeryl gained fame when her voice rang out in Beijing’s famous Bird’s Nest Stadium early this month, at the grand finals of the Sing! China competition.
She beat 14 other young and talented international singers, and made it into the Top Six, making her adoptive family proud of her.
Jeryl looks set for a successful career in singing.
In 2014, she was champion of the Water Cube Cup Overseas Chinese Youths Singing Competition in Beijing, outshining 54 other contestants from 23 countries.
She celebrates her birthday every May 23 and said that being adopted had not affected her in any way.
“I don’t know anything about my past. It has never mattered. The only mother I know and love is this one,” she said, giving Liew a big hug.
Mother and daughter were having dinner at the 1881 Chong Tian Cultural Hotel.
They said that an anonymous client of a lifestyle management company in Indonesia wanted to engage Jeryl to sing at a wedding next year.
The company had been trying to contact Jeryl without success until it found out from news archives here that she performs at the hotel.
The Star reported on Sept 3, 2014, that Jeryl was singing at a charity dinner there, so the company contacted hotel managing director Seah Kok Heng last month.
Seah then invited Jeryl, her family and friends to dinner to give them the good news.
With her at the dinner was longtime friend and another singing prodigy, Wong Jin Ern, 11, who has also been a belly dancer since seven; she has many state and national-level competition wins under her belt.
Seah gave Liew some advice on managing Jeryl’s singing career.
Jeryl said she earns “a tidy sum” from private singing engagements and that every ringgit goes to her mother.
“She is a devoted daughter. She won’t keep the money and lets me manage her funds,” said Liew.
After dinner, Jeryl asked for a glass of honeydew melon juice with milk and without ice cubes.
“I drink this often. It tastes like ice cream and helps my vocal chords relax,” she said.
Also, she does not follow an exercise regime or diet plan; and wishes that she would put on some weight.
She was never on Facebook, she said.
“I have created four FB accounts, but each time, something goes wrong after a few weeks and I won’t even be able to log in.
“I think my accounts get hacked, so I have given up,” she explained.
She uses Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, ASKfm and Weibo instead.