ST, July 10, 2006
Husband: 84. Wife: 30
But Nobel laureate Yang Chen Ning and his wife are a picture of wedded bliss
THERE is quite a spring in the step of Nobel physics laureate Yang Chen Ning these days, and friends are wondering: Does his wife Weng Fan, 30, have anything to do with it?
Yang, a co-winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics and who turns 84 in September, is currently in town to give talks at the 37th International Physics Olympiad at Nanyang Technological University.
But it is the 54-year gap between the China-born American and his bride that has given the media a field day since they wed early last year.
'It's mutual. He also makes me happy,' Ms Weng told Lianhe Zaobao in an interview published yesterday.
Media pictures here and in Taiwan, where he and his wife stopped over before coming to Singapore, have shown the sprightly Yang holding Ms Weng's hand as they appeared at events.
In Taiwan, Prof Yang was even asked if his wife was pregnant, to which he said 'no'.
Ms Weng said she encouraged him to take vitamins and cooked Chinese herbal soups for him.
She is Prof Yang's second wife; his first wife Tu Chih Li died in 2003.
The present Mrs Yang met her husband at a physics seminar in 1995, at Shantou University in China's Guangdong province. She was then working as an interpreter and happened to be on hand to help Prof Yang and his then wife out.
In February 2004, the two reportedly met again - and this time the sparks really flew.
When he and Ms Weng, a divorcee, got engaged over the phone that year, Prof Yang said she was his 'last gift from God'.
They seem like any other married couple today, talking about everything under the sun and visiting art museums.
'We are happy together... We don't talk about profound things. We may not talk about philosophy or life. We talk about everything,' she said when Lianhe Zaobao interviewed her with her husband.
She also let on that her husband often gives her mathematical questions to work on, to test her mettle.
For his part, Prof Yang said they play a game at the end of their museum jaunts.
'I will ask her, what painting will you pick if the museum were to give you one? That's to see if we pick the same painting. This way, we have many topics to discuss.'
He also called her 'guileless'. As he put it: 'I described her as guileless when I first knew her. Two years later, she is still so. This is her trait. She is also not aggressive and will not attempt to change the world.'
What of her opinion of him then?
Ms Weng said: 'He is an interesting person... he never makes me feel down. He has moral character and that's best about him.'
Asked by Taiwan reporters about his life before marriage, Prof Yang said his friends would see him sitting alone on his sofa in his study with a television set.
'They always said I must be very lonely,' he said. Now, with MsWeng, he said smilingly: 'I don't need to say anything.'
He added that elderly people were prone to falls while moving about, but holding Ms Weng's hand made him feel secure.
