Empowering the Elderly: Dr Mary Ann Tsao, Prestige Anew Ball Patron Award winner, on championing an ageing population

Prestige Anew Ball 2022 Patron Award winner DR MARY ANN TSAO, who is the personification of graceful ageing, gives us a rare insight into the experiences that have prepared her for being a champion for the greying population.

“We understand what a younger person thinks because we have been there, yet we don’t know much about the older person. I want this essential conversation to start now,” said Dr Mary Ann Tsao during the Asia-Pacific conference for the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing in Bangkok earlier this year.

This speaker needs little introduction. Born into one of Asia’s most illustrious families, 67-year-old Mary Ann is the second child of the late Frank Tsao, a shipping magnate and the founding chairman of Suntec City Development. While her name has been synonymous with eldercare and ageing issues for many years, the Tsao family has always been well-known for its dedication to philanthropy and community service.

In 1992, one year before her late grandmother Tsao Ng Yu Shun chaptered the Tsao Foundation, the US-trained pediatrician had been summoned back to Singapore from the US where she was living since she was 12. While the intention was for the then 30-something to head the organisation, Mary Ann had already been thinking about ageing-related issues that confront the population at large, across income sectors and demographics, through many conversations with her granny.

Thanks to these two ladies, Tsao Foundation has since been steadfast in its objective to empower and enable older people to have a better quality of life through a holistic approach encompassing eldercare, training and education. But service to the community must run through Mary Ann’s blood, for her lifelong passion for uplifting others began even before that.

A SINGULAR INDIVIDUAL

Prior to meeting Mary Ann, I had expected a formal interview with the philanthropy stalwart. Most of the research I did on her and the Tsao Foundation yielded mostly information about the charity and its causes.

I probed a little further, and discovered information on IMC Pan Asian Alliance, the family’s business empire, and Family Business Network (FBN) Asia, which her younger brother Frederick founded in 2008. Nothing much could be found on the family, least of all Mary Ann. I had no insights into her life.

Shortly into our meeting at her tastefully furnished home, she has already charmed me with her great sense of humour and hearty laugh. She is down-to-earth, and despite her wealth, very frugal. She baulks at spending over $1,000 on aesthetic treatments, although she confesses to recently getting cheaper treatments for melasma out of “vanity”. And during the Covid lockdown phase, upon her return from the US where her 24-year-old elder daughter is currently studying, she had refused to pay extra to upgrade to a suite when serving SHN notice in a hotel. A keen listener, Mary Ann is forthcoming about sharing her life lessons and pointers on ageing well.

Her genial personality belies the serious, and very important, nature of her work. Besides serving as founding director and chairperson of the Tsao Foundation, she is also chairperson of the Tsao Family Office and acting chair of FBN Asia’s Singapore Country Committee. As for her role in foundations and panels advocating for successful ageing, there are just too many to list.

For her contributions to society, Mary Ann has also received numerous accolades over the years. In 2000, 2004 and 2015, she was honoured with the Public Service Medal and Public Service Star awards accorded by the Prime Minister’s Office. This July, she was recognised by the United Nations as one of the Healthy Ageing 50, a group of 50 leaders credited for transforming the world to be a better place to grow older.

What started as a desire to do something for her grandmother “turned into a conviction for the cause over time”, she confesses. And of course, she has a clear idea of how to go about it, to age well.

“Having a good social network is what determines how well you will age,” states Mary Ann, referencing a famous Harvard study on a group of individuals that commenced in 1938. “Your social life at the age of 55 gives a good idea of the quality of life you will get as you age.”

Fret not if a current review of your social life gives you cause for concern. “You must set goals for where you want to be in old age. Not just financially, but mentally, physically and socially. Think about what it takes to get there and take decisive steps towards it. Create your future,” advises Mary Ann, who consciously makes friends with people across generations and feels lucky to have close friends and family who love and care for her.

She smiles fondly as she tells me that the Indian peach-coloured kaftan she is wearing was a gift from her older brother, Calvin, who often shops for her. Then she adds: “One must also learn to be resilient to changes as no matter how one plans, life can and will throw us a curveball and challenge us.”

MADE OF STEEL

Mary Ann should know about curveballs. Widowed when her children were three and eight, she suddenly found herself a single mum who had to raise two kids despite having the support of her extended family. No stranger to adversity, having lived in the US as an adolescent without her parents and later experienced the rigours of medical training, Mary Ann soldiered on and is today very proud of her two grounded young adults. Her younger one, a son, has even worked as a Grab Food delivery man to earn extra pocket money.

Recalling how her family had first fled from Shanghai to Hong Kong, after which she had to leave for California with Calvin during the 1967 Hong Kong riots, she reveals that she couldn’t stop crying when she realised they had no idea when they would see their parents again.

In the city of Davis, Mary Ann and Calvin were brought up by their aunt, Linda Tsao Yang, who became the first woman and Asian to be appointed executive director to the board of the Asian Development Bank, after qualifying as an economist late in life. “She showed me what a woman could achieve. My aunt, who is 96 now and still very active, taught me to be independent from young,” says Mary Ann, who adds that she learnt to be a good housekeeper, and can sew and cook as well.

During medical school, she did her residency in the tough neighbourhood of South Bronx, New York. “You see people who are in terrible circumstances which they are born into, and how hard they are trying to survive despite their odds. And you learn not to judge.”

Mary Ann’s exposure to social medicine also taught her this: “There is no point being doctors if you are just going to fix a broken body and send the patient back. You have to make changes at the source. Medicine is activism. The heart of health issues is often social. You have to effect change at the social level. You have to think big; you have to change systems.”

When our chat shifts to the subject of philanthropy by other illustrious families, Mary Ann comments that there is a huge jump in foundations committed to charitable causes in the past six years. “However, I don’t see much giving that is more proportionate to the level of wealth,” she states, noting that she observes more altruism from the less affluent. “But the trend is going in the right direction, with younger generations getting more involved.”

This positive development certainly resonates with Mary Ann, who shares yet another inspiring snippet of her life story. “When my parents left Shanghai, my father whowas25or26hadtobuildupthe business again. He worked very hard because he couldn’t let the whole family down.

My siblings and I, who are the beneficiaries, saw how his actions helped many people. It gave us a sense of responsibility towards others that extends to the community.”

Just like the courageous and indomitable individuals in her family, age is not slowing Mary Ann down one bit: “I want to be useful to society for as long as I can.”