I am the father of four boys

A lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Simon (left) and Daniel are 9 months here. My X and I lived in Singapore at the time, but no matter how adorable the twins were, they were a strain on our relationship. In November 1988, my X packed up the kids and the maid and flew down to a good friend she had in New Zealand. The (Danish) friend had married a Kiwi lawyer and they settled in Nelson on the Sou

By the time my X approached due date with the twins, she weighed almost as much as a fighting fit heavy weight boxer. The placenta was running on the fumes, so she checked into Gleneagles Hospital, we had the best Gyne in town to help out. Two weeks before the due date, 2 Feb 1988, Simon and Daniel were born by cesarean section. Here is Simon, 3.2 kg as I recall, 30 minutes old, the nurse and I cl

Both twins were healthy, no sweat, we bought lamb skin rugs for them to lie on, it is supposed to be comforting. Simon is a few weeks old here I think. 

I know Simon is 3 months here, I took a series of photos of the twins at that stage, I will get back to that later. Fascinating how the hand-eye motor skills start to develop at that age. 

This is Daniel less than an hour old, 3.0 kg but totally unprepared for the world. Something funny happened at the birth: The twins got switched! In the womb, Daniel was in the head-first position to come out first, we knew from countless ultra-scans that the smaller one would be born first and named him Simon, the slightly heavier fetus behind was Daniel.  

My X was under total anesthetic of course, so when the guys got wheeled out to me next door for the Apgar test and all that, I thought No 1 (Simon) was the smaller one and called him by that name right away. In fact, the heavier baby behind was lifted out first during the surgery and cheated to become the first born! When Daniel here was brought out a few minutes later I realized what had happened

By the time our little core family started shifting to Denmark in 1992, Adam had arrived. While I lived in Skodstrup, Denmark 1993-1999, these three little fellas were a constant source of pleasure and joy for me. I called them my 'three little pigs' - Simon (left) was Practical Pig building his house of bricks, and Adam and Daniel the silly, play-full kids playing flute and fiddle all day.  

So Adam was born in Singapore, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital where my X had a suite. When my X said she felt a bit funny five days after the due date, I said: "it is time to go!!" and we rushed to the hospital. A Canadian lady Gyne was there - and so was I! My only natural birth experience, it was a miracle, I will never forget it! At the time, all my family photography was now on Video 8. I still h

So my first still photography of Adam is from after we started shifting to Denmark in the summer of 1992, Adam is already 1/2+ year here. As I remember it, his birth weight was 4.6 kg and he was some 56 cm long; he was always big and strong and mature for his age. 

In the beginning, while they were small, the three boys would share the large master bedroom on the top floor of the Skoedstrup house. It was my job to put them to bed at night, and I would sing my old country songs as well as You’re My World especially for Adam. Daniel would say softly: "You don't have to sing tonight, Dad". Then I might tell a story I made up instead, but next evening I would si

And that is what Adam was to me then: My World. In Culture Shock! Denmark that came out in 1996 I wrote: 'Adam ... born on the darkest day of the year but the sunshine of my life'. When another annoying kid on the playground threw sand in Adam's face I threatened to kill him, and I got into trouble over that. But what do you know: The brat didn't do it again!  

My three little pigs. It was an adjustment for all of us to move to Denmark; my X and I didn't always see eye-to-eye over how to organise things. But I did my best to shield the kids from all this. In turn, they provided me with so much enjoyment; whatever else happened around me, picking them up from daycare, later school and spending time with the kids was the highlight of my day. 

Starting in 2001, the situation slowly started to unravel for my Danish kids. Initially it was manageable, but the writing was on the wall. My X got into financial difficulties with her business, she realized that there was a lot of nice equity in our house in Skodstrup; property prices had increased  a lot since I bought it in 1992. At the time I made her co-owner, so in 2001 she sold it off and 

This is my X's new house; above from the front at the end of the long driveway in, and here the back garden. Daniel is posing with his pet cat, Simon had a dog, Adam a pen with rabbits. It all looks very idyllic, doesn't it? 

The house had a big garden with large mature trees and a water feature, here Adam is kicking the football around on the lawn. The place was a bit remote, in a rural area some 20 km north of Aarhus, but there was a primary school nearby in walking distance and it looked to me at the time as if the boys could have a fairly decent upbringing here. 

My X set up this home-work table for the boys in a brightly lit room overlooking the garden; it is Simon doing his home-work here. 

Daniel sitting opposite. It all appears well and good, right? But it wasn't. My X didn't buy this house, she rented it. She squandered the money she cleared from the sale of the house I owned. It was a major injection of liquidity for her, but the cash only lasted a year or so; I never got half the revenue I was entitled to - my X simply confiscated it.    

But at the time - in 2001 - I played along and tried to make the transition the best it could be for the boys. Each one of them had a room upstairs in the big old house. This is Simon's, he is 13. 

Daniel stayed in touch with me. He rejected the Nordic model of welfare payments and 'happy pills', i.e. the over-prescription of antidepressant medication which is endemic in Denmark. Daniel graduated with an amazing As-only Masters in English from Aarhus University in Oct 2013; this is his official photo while he was doing freelance editorial work shortly after college. 

I believe life is hard. There is no free lunch, you have to earn your keep, and you do that by helping others and being of value to them; they may or may-not help you in return. I'd like to think that at least one on my sons shares that sentiment. In 2014 Daniel came out to Singapore and he stayed with us for a while looking for work. He landed a job as an English high school teacher in Greenland 

While working in Greenland, Daniel would come out to see us in the tropics most winters. This is his Christmas vacation, December 2016. Here I give him an extra treat and fly him and Mark out to Ko Surin off the Thai west coast, a beautiful group of islands protected from mass development. I took this auto-release scenic of the three of us during a walk-a-swim to a desert island near the chalet wh

Same place: Ko Surin National Park, Thailand, Dec 2016. I hire a boat and take the guys out to snorkel around one of the rocks surrounded by beautiful coral reefs. Both Mark and Daniel are strong swimmers. Daniel, working 200 km north of the Arctic Circle at the time, could use a bit of sun! 

Exactly a year later: December 2017. Daniel is 29, I am 65, Mark is 15. Daniel come out to us in Singapore for his annual R&R and to pick up a bit of extra vitamin A. Bee Choo and I take him on a major roadtrip from Bangkok down across southern Thailand to visit Pilai Poonswad's sprawling estate off the Thai east coast. Here we stop at the peak of Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Burmese borde

Fast forward to December 2018. Tired of Thailand, we take Daniel to the picturesque island of Langkawi off the west coast of Malaysia during his visit to us. Although smaller than Singapore, the geology of this island is much more interesting. I put the camera on the roof of my rented car to take this picture of the four of us near the summit of the island, Gunung Raya at 890 metres. 

I don't know why, but for some reason I am unable to add more photos into the section above. I give up, the ways of GoDaddy are sometimes somewhat opaque. So here is a new section, this seems to work!? Where was I? Right, in 2023, Daniel moved to Cyprus to live and work. 3 May 2025, he meets up with some of his friends one weekend and writes: "Quite a diverse cast of characters, Mandarin Chinese a

7 Feb 2024, Daniel makes a Jan-Feb visit to us in Singapore. It is the Pulau Buloh island on the right. 

We do a walk at Sungei Buloh, one of my favorite places in Singapore, where you can hike for a couple of hours end to end. Daniel spots this Buffy Fish-Owl in the mangrove and it flies up to perch nicely like this: Looking down its own back! 

I even throw in a nostalgic 3N/4D trip to Fraser's Hill, Malaysia for Daniel and me. Exactly 10 years after Daniel's last visit to the 1,200 m.a.s.l. hill station. Here he is 30 Jan 2024, with the wonderful view looking north across the Main Range, still covered in virgin rainforest. See the 'Fraser's Hill' page for more details.     

And what do you know, not long after, Daniel and I meet up again. This time in Daniel's adopted country of Cyprus. 21 April 2024. Here Bee Choo takes us in front of a monument commemorating the modern Republic's struggle for independence. 

And here Bee Choo is busy photographing the two of us again. 27 April 2024. Where else would we have dinner, but at Daniel Restaurant, Larnaca? You can see more about this trip on the 'Cyprus' page. 

See the windows circled here? In that room my youngest son, Mark Wen, was born 2 Sep 2002. His mother, Ng Bee Choo, now Bee Choo Strange, and I were married 1 April that year, see 'My wife' tab for details. 

We had a cesarean section scheduled for that day, 2 Sep, so Bee Choo checked into the Mount Alvernia Hospital a day early, 1 Sep 2002. She was a bit stressed out and moody at the time, having worked late into the night the previous day preparing monthly sales reports for her trading company, Nature's Niche Pte Ltd.   

So while the nice elderly gyne patched up Bee Choo (Dr Quack, don't let the name fool you, he was excellent!), I got to do the fun bit with a nurse: Clean up, check, weigh, wrap and photograph Mark. He was 3.745 kg, 52.5 cm and scored 10 on the Apgar test after 5 minutes. A lovely bundle of joy indeed. 

This is mother and son a few hours later, after Bee Choo came to and was transferred back into her room. 

Mount Alvernia Hospital is run by some religious outfit with old nuns for nurses, there is a nice view over nearby MacRitchie Reservoir; it was so pleasant there that Bee Choo stayed for a few days and had the staff help her with the breastfeeding and such. I could crash on the couch as required, but most of the time I had to run the business in Bee Choo's absence. 

6 Sep 2002, we check out and bring the new addition to the family home, a staff takes this photo for us after the final check. Mark's weight had dropped to 3.455 kg at the time, but he would gain the loss back quickly. 

I have said it before, but I will say it again: Life is not a spectator sport. You have to get out there and participate. In this section are some of Mark's moments to shine. Here as a baby on the evening news from Channel News Asia: His mother took him to a new nature exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre, and I guess the camera man thought the baby made a cute shot. 

Fraser's Hill, Malaysia, 2003. Mark's dad is interviewed as an arbitrator during the bird race, and the cute baby again makes the screen.   

February 2006; 3-year old Mark is featured on Channel News Asia again. Some social programme does an interview with me as the 'old dad' and Mark (50 years my junior) gets to co-star.   

I played along with this and even gave that iconic 2005 one-and-only shot of Mark with all his Danish half-brothers to the researchers. In fact, I think it is a good idea if couples have their children late in life. In failed states like Niger, Chat and Bangladesh, the mother's mean age at first birth is 18. In Australia it is 30. Where would you rather live? 

The local English-language paper featured this theme as well: The old dad, and again Mark and I were selected as a case story. Adam was even included, he was visiting at the time. Straits Times 17 Nov 2004, Mark has just tuned 2. There are many advantages to having just one child late in life, but most importantly: The kid gets his/her inheritance sooner, and doesn't have to share!  

We all get our 15 minutes of fame, so the saying goes. Mark (middle, front row) got his 9 November 2011; while in primary school, his book project was featured in the local paper. 

11 March 2023, Mark is 20 and I don't think I really have to speak on his behalf any longer; he is fully capable of setting up his own website if he feels there is a need. But I can't help following up on the remark I made above: "When will Mark perform live on stage again?" This is the answer: A two-hour marathon concert with the Singapore National Youth Orchestra at the Esplanade Concert Hall.

Mark played for almost two hours in a programme that included Ravel, Tchaikovsky's stunning Violin Concerto Opus 35 and finally Rimsky-Korsakov's amazing Scheherazade Opus 35. Still can't see him?  

Here he is, with 10x optical zoom and a bit of cropping. Bee Choo was away in Malaysia that week but I attended from front/middle 2nd balcony, the best seat in the house! 

And lo and behold: Mark was called up by the SNYO again to accompany the Singapore Ballet for a two-hour concert at the same venue 10 June 2023. Notice the chorus above the orchestra providing vocals during the final piece of the night. A LOT of work and preparation goes into something like this. Bee Choo and I just had to attend and relax and enjoy! 

This was the programme for the night, Mark didn't play in the Serenade which was for strings only. But he played principal bassoon in the beautiful Ravel dance, where the woodwinds come out well and accompanying bassoon in excerpts from the famous The Nutcracker, an audience favorite. 

If you don't believe me, look at this page from the official programme; the dancers and the singers took up a few more pages of names!