Missing mum Lydia Sum

HONG KONG • Hong Kong singer Joyce Cheng (right) still misses her late mother, comedienne Lydia Sum, and hopes to find a partner who can accept her like her mum.

Sum died on Feb 19, 2008, at 62 after losing her battle with liver cancer.

Last Saturday, Cheng, 34, posted on social media a photo of herself as a child with her late mother.

She wrote in Chinese: "Look how naughty I was. While going through the old photos, I found that I made funny faces in the photos I took from six to 13 years old."

She said she was very noisy, liked to run around and could not sit still as a child, but she would turn quiet when Sum shouted her name and looked at her sternly.

Cheng, whose father is Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng, added that Sum would punish her if she misbehaved, such as if she were rude or told a lie. "The funniest thing was that when she beat me, I would cry, but she would tell me not to," recalled Joyce Cheng.

The singer would feel guilty when her mother hugged her after that.

Sum would then tell Cheng what she had done wrong, adding that she felt more pained than Cheng while beating her.

Cheng wrote: "I am 35 this year. You have left us for 14 years. The older I am, the more I cherish the feeling of you always by my side."

Cheng, who is single, ended the post by saying that she hoped to find someone like her mother who would always be by her side and accept her, warts and all.

Media reports have said Cheng would inherit her mother's estate after turning 35 in May this year.

But when asked about the claims in August last year, the singer laughed them off, saying that such news would surface once in a while, with varying claims, and that she was numb to such reports.