Perhaps one of the most famous quotes of the second half of the 20th century comes from John F Kennedy, delivered at his inauguration as the 35th president of the United States in 1961. Standing on the East Portico of the Capitol building in Washington, DC, he offered a challenge to the American public: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
For decades, this idea has influenced baby boomers and their Generation X offspring. The sentiment is also a universal one; service, after all, is definitely not (only) an American conceit. For some, the value is instilled from a young age; for others, it might be something they come to only later in life.
For restaurateur and hotelier Loh Lik Peng, it all started with a phone call. “I think I was in my late 20s or early 30s [when] Madam Kay Kuok (a member of the eminent Kuok family of the Shangri‑La Group) called me, completely out of the blue. I certainly knew who she was, but didn’t know she knew me at all. And I didn’t know what she was calling me for,” Loh tells Tatler. “When she asked me to join the board of the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA), I nearly fell off my chair. I said yes to the invitation, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.”
That call, and
