NadiaComaneci.com

An unofficial fan site.

Fan contributions

Mai Loon Goh from Penang, Malaysia -- Graduation picture, May 1988.

While receiving my  BA degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota, and the Duluth campus, I was honored with the school's highest award "In Recognition of Leadership and Service to the University and Student Life"."
 
Thank you, to Nadia, for her encouraging words from "Nadia: The Illustrated Autobiography of Nadia Comaneci", which I read every morning to keep my spirit high.  "Success In any sport, and I suppose life itself, is all about confidence; recognize your limitations by all means, but work away at trying to push them further back all the time. It is unbelievable what can be achieved. Failure is always easiest to bear when you know in yourself that you have given your best, and maybe a little extra."  I liked these words the most when I first read them in 1981. After Nadia retired in 1984 the International Gymnast Magazine highlighted these words into a tribute article for Nadia, at that time I just completed a sketch for Nadia, so I added the words of courage to my sketch.  When I was in US, I posted the sketch to in front of my reading desk, every morning I read it loudly before I left my room.  Nadia's words of courage kept my spirit high, and I did managed to challenge the impossible and accomplished something beyond my widest expectation.

I am now the Head of physical education and Art Department in Penang Chinese Girls' Private High School.  One of my Indonesian Chinese students was named after Nadia by her parents.  A fourth grader Chinese text book in my school's special beginning Chinese class, describes the story of Nadia in 1976, and praises her.  Most of my students know about Nadia and adore her.

Last year I completed three major projects within three months for conservation of my beloved homeland multi-cultural heritage, our Penang State Executive Counselor for Tourism, Cultural and Women Affairs comment to me showed the effects of Nadia's words "You don't take no for an answer (when I am working on my projects and dealing with the government)".  During that period I was sleeping only three hours per day while working on the projects only after school, and I managed with collective team effort I edited "Souvenir Album 'Anna and the King' in Penang", which now is out of stock and auctions by others fans as collectors item.  I received praises for the book by the Production Designer of this movie during the night she received her nomination for Best Art Direction in Oscar.  The associate producer of this movie and James Bond movie all e-mailing their praises to me.  My team also set up a web site for "Filming 'Anna and the King' Penang, Malaysia" in http://www.pht.org.my/AnnaKing/ , which helped to promote my hometown to the movie fans.  Then I managed to get the premiere of this movie to raise funds for our non-profit non-government organization for heritage conservation and education projects.

Our State Executive Counselor now asked me to be her Special Assistant for Department of Tourism, Cultural and Women Affair, and I will officially joining her on January 1, 2001.  I will be on the team working on getting our Penang to be listed as UNESCO World Heritage City Listing, application submission on July 2001.  Thank you Nadia for being a great role model to me, and gave me the strength to challenge my limitation and aim for the impossible.

Mai Loon can be contacted through mailoon@yahoo.com