SG50 is a nationwide effort to celebrate Republic of Singapore's 50th birthday in 2015. on August 9 2015, a parade was held at the Padang, the location where the very first national day parade took place. It was also the first time, Mr. LEE Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding Prime Minister was not present. A bouquet of flower was placed on his usual seat, left emptied this time, in memory of him. Here is an essay penned by his Principal Private Secretary (1997-2000) Mr. HENG Swee Keat which provides an insight into the man many Singaporeans have come to love.

Mr Lee's Red Box by Heng Swee Keat

Mr Lee Kuan Yew had a red box. When I worked as Mr Lee's Principal Private Secretary, or PPS, a good part of my daily life revolved around the red box. Before Mr Lee came in to work each day, the locked red box would arrive first, at about 9 am.
As far as the various officers who have worked with Mr Lee can remember, he had it for many, many years. It is a large, boxy briefcase, about fourteen centimetres wide. Red boxes came from the British government, whose Ministers used them for transporting documents between Government offices. Our early Ministers had red boxes, but Mr Lee is the only one I know who used his consistently through the years. When I started working for Mr Lee in 1997, it was the first time I saw a red box in use. It is called the red box but is more a deep wine colour, like the seats in the chamber in Parliament House.
This red box held what Mr Lee was working on at any one time. Through the years, it held his papers, speech drafts, letters, readings, and a whole range of questions, reflections, and observations. For example, in the years that Mr Lee was working on his memoirs, the red box carried the multiple early drafts back and forth between his home and the office, scribbled over with his and Mrs Lee's notes.
For a long time, other regular items in Mr Lee's red box were the cassette tapes that held his dictated instructions and thoughts for later transcription. Some years back, he changed to using a digital recorder.
The red box carried a wide range of items. It could be communications with foreign leaders, observations about the financial crisis, instructions for the Istana grounds staff, or even questions about some trees he had seen on the expressway. Mr Lee was well-known for keeping extremely alert to everything he saw and heard around him - when he noticed something wrong, like an ailing raintree, a note in the red box would follow.
We could never anticipate what Mr Lee would raise - it could be anything that was happening in Singapore or the world. But we could be sure of this: it would always be about how events could affect Singapore and Singaporeans, and how we had to stay a step ahead. Inside the red box was always something about how we could create a better life for all.
We would get to work right away. Mr Lee's secretaries would transcribe his dictated notes, while I followed up on instructions that required coordination across multiple government agencies. Our aim was to do as much as we could by the time Mr Lee came into the office later.
While we did this, Mr Lee would be working from home. For example, during the time that I worked with him (1997-2000), the Asian Financial Crisis ravaged many economies in our region and unleashed political changes. It was a tense period as no one could tell how events would unfold. Often, I would get a call from him to check certain facts or arrange meetings with financial experts.
In the years that I worked for him, Mr Lee's daily breakfast was a bowl of dou hua (soft bean curd), with no syrup. It was picked up and brought home in a tiffin carrier every morning, from a food centre near Mr Lee's home. He washed it down with room-temperature water. Mr Lee did not take coffee or tea at breakfast.
When Mr Lee came into the office, the work that had come earlier in the red box would be ready for his review, and he would have a further set of instructi