It is in a small building, with an interior mostly in wood and with a background that brings us back to the early 1960s. This is where Ng Kee Siong has known success for more than 30 years when he decided to set up his own newspaper The Mirror. The building is a two-storey one. On the first floor at the entrance on the left, is the desk of the chief editor Ng Kee Siong.

Then, further inside, is the printing-office where there are three machines. Those machines were also bought a very long time ago. Upstairs, is the computer room. This is the place where the articles that will be published are typed. The number of people working for The Mirror is now eight. Three people type the articles, two others work as journalists, and three work in the printing office.

The newspaper talks mainly of the activities within the Chinese community. The two main objectives of this newspaper are to promote Chinese culture and the bilateral relationships between China and Mauritius.

<B>A passion for journalism</B>

The Mirror comes out every Saturday morning. Its customers are regular ones. But it also has consumers from abroad and spread all around the world in countries like Reunion Island, Madagascar, Canada, China, Australia and Hong Kong.

However, as every business, The Mirror has got its weaknesses. In fact, according to Ng Kee Siong, it is due to the decreasing number of Chinese readers. Moreover, he thinks that, as time goes on, Mauritius is losing its Chinese culture and values. He believes that not much importance is given nowadays to preserve Chinese language within families.

This why, in the last edition of his paper, he wrote a column to make an appeal to Chinese families to encourage the use of Chinese. Furthermore he thinks a Chinese school should be opened. At the beginning, more than a thousand newspapers were published every week. Now it has gone down to only seven hundred. Ng Kee Siong hopes his appeal will be successful to bring the number of readers back as before?

Ng Kee Siong?s love story with journalism started when he was 25 years old. At that time, he started working for the Chinese Commercial Paper. He spent 18 years there until the paper closed down.

The passion he developed for journalism during the time he spent there made him go further in this field. Indeed, he was then part of the team that founded a newspaper that could replace Chinese Commercial Paper. As a matter of fact, the newspaper was called New Chinese Commercial Paper.

The Mirror was actually founded with the help of two other journalists who have now passed away: Chu Vee Tow and William Lau. Ng Kee Siong had known both of them from his time at New Chinese Commercial Paper.

Today, at the age of 88, Ng Kee Siong is not about to give up his job. However, deep inside, he is relying on his son David who is 28 and in charge of Down Printing, which prints The Mirror. But he also carries his own business as manager of the printing-office that prints invitation cards, business cards and so on.

He is ready to take over the job of his dad when it is time. But he does not know how long he will be able to keep the business alive. Ng Kee Siong just hopes that the business can survive as long as possible, for the generations to come. At least, he feels that his efforts would not have been in vain?