zest-zipper

2012-01-17T03:12:00.000-08:00

THE BALLAD OF DANCES WITH WOLVES
Last August I received an epic poem,THE BALLAD OF DANCES WITH WOLVES, from my former colleague, Mr.Poh Keng,Lim.

In an accompanying note, he wrote:

This 30-verse poem written by my friend twenty years ago had won him the prize of a TRK-3D30W mini-compo in the contest, SUPERSHOWS 1991. It was jointly organised by The Star and Hitachi, for the sheer effort that my friend had put in in the writing of the poem dedicated to Dances With Wolves.

At the footnote of the poem, Bro. Lim has specially dedicated it to the author of ‘Dances with the Wolves’, Michael Blake, for his moving novel in which “in the end, inspiration is everything”, to Kevin Costner who took a big gamble in producing such a magnificent picture and to John Barry who composed the superb film soundtrack which enhances the enjoyment of the movie.

I thought it would be a good idea if I could share this poem with other readers on my blog so that they too will have the chance to read and appreciate the beauty of this poem.

I translated my thought into a text message to my friend; to which he duly agreed and replied on 21 August,2011, emphasizing:

“Bro. Liew, I would be happy if you could send my poem to Kevin Costner to commemorate its 20th anniversary.Please try your best. Thank You.”

Hopefully the publication of this poem on my blog would achieve its dual purpose as it is intended to .

Below is the text of the poem:

THE BALLAD OF DANCES WITH WOLVES

Lieutenant Dunbar, how well you did ride,
You were dubbed a hero from a likely suicide!
You rode to draw fire, and then turned the tide,
Which brought wondrous victory unto your own side.

Decorated was young Dunbar,our suicidal hero
Who rode upon a buckskin by the name of Cisco;
Saved he was his foot for putting up a great show!
His boon was thus granted, so to the frontier he’d go.

With Timmons the peasant to guide him along,
The foulest man was he, Dunbar couldn’t be wrong;
Abandoned was Fort Sedgewick, to him now belonged,
“This is my post!” said he with a voice clear and strong.

Alone at his post, he would clean up the place,
And gathered he the garbage and set them ablaze;
Soon up on the bluff, a wolf started to gaze,
Dunbar nemed him Two Socks in a couple of days.

O piteous Timmons was he butchered by the vicious Pawnee,
But Dunbar he knew not, the loneliest man now was he;
A horse-stealing Indian soon appeared on the scene,
But when our buck naked hero appeared, O how he did flee!

Prepared was our hero for a coming encounter,
Where there was one Indian, there’s bound to be another!
Soon the Indians again did try to steal Cisco from his master,
But the clever steed would outsmart his two-timed abductors.

Walking on eggs was he, far too long it did seem,
Decided so our hero to break off his dream;
And dressed up was he in grand self-esteem!
Off to see the Indians who camped along the same stream.

Away he did ride way across the prairie,
And ere long he found beneath the oak tree
A mourning Indian, O so bloody was she!
Who soon swooned away at our hero’s entry.

The squaw in his arms to the Indian camp he did take,
But the reception was hostile causing our hero’s heartbreak!
But on the morrow, a visitation the Indians would make,
And it marked the beginning of friendship for each other’s sake.

They were Sioux Indians, Dunbar soon came to know,
A more peaceful tribe than the others would show;
Their chief was called Ten Bears with wisdom of old,
And Kicking Bird’s the holy man, a man to behold.

There’s Wind In His Hair, the young Indian brave,
And Stands With A Fist, the squaw Dunbar saved;
And friendship was made with the coffee he gave,
Soon, the wary Indians began returning his wave.

Dunbar when invited, to the Indian camp he would go,
But communication was difficult, painful and slow;
Stands With A Fist was Christine many years long ago,
Pawnee massacred her family when she was fourteen years old.

No more was Dunbar alone now with his neighbours so near,
Then, the earth shook one night when the buffalo appeared;
To the Indian camp he headed upon Cisco he steered
To inform his dear neighbours that the buffalo were here.

To the hunting ground they made for, but alas, what a sight!
With dead buffalo lying all over and stripped off their hides;
Who could have done such a thing in the living daylights?
But only white hunters who had no regard for Sioux rights.

When the next day arrived, the buffalo hunt then began,
O what a great stampede, how the buffalo there ran;
It was truly a spectacle between animal and man!
Finding the magnificent beasts was a flash in the pan.

Though it was Dunbar’s first hunt, a fine beast he did deliver,
And Wind In His Hair then offered him his first steaming liver!
The sight of the liver at first made his whole being quiver,
But once he had tasted it, he was thankful to his giver.

A grand celebration was there which lasted all night,
All were filled with elation, it was a wonderful sight!
Each day’s a miracle, and harmony came into light,
Back at the fort, Dunbar danced all by himself in delight!

One day on the prairie followed Two Socks so tame,
Dunbar ordered him home but he was playing games;
Animal and man were frolicking upon nature’s domain,
That’s how Dances With Wolves became Loo Ten Nant’s Sioux name.

Communication was a frustration to Kicking Bird’s plan,
Only half truths were told concerning the white man;
Stands With A Fist was a bridge to make both understand,
How many white men were coming to their very own land!

The Sioux war party would soon go against the Pawnee,
Dances With Wolves took care of Kicking Birds’s family,
When they were away, then came their old enemy,
But with guns from the fort, they gained a one-sided victory.

No dark political objective in this Sioux battle was there,
Nor battle for territories, riches or freeing men anywhere,
But the protection of the home, wives and children’s welfare,
And preserving the foodstuffs before winter hit the air.

All of a sudden it would then dawn upon him,
For he never knew who he was until now it did seem;
Dances With Wolves thus discovered himself from within,
Among his Sioux friends they now shared the same dream.

Stands With A Fist’s mourning was over, now she was free,
So Dances With Wolves could now join her in matrimony;
Spent they their honeymoon inside a tepee,
Trying their level best to produce a baby.

Leaving for the winter camp, were the Sioux ready to go,
But the tell-tale journal at the fort was Dances With Wolves’s woe;
So rode he to Fort Sedgewick, empty it was no more so,
White men thinking him an Indian, their shots killed poor Cisco!

Dances With Wolves found himself then in neck-deep trouble,
Branded was he by the U.S. Army a traitor on the double;
Shackled and disgraced, his dignity took a sudden tumble,
They even killed poor Two Socks as his world further crumbled!

But rescue was not far off from Wind In His Hair,
His captors were soon routed, it became their nightmare;
Soon back at the camp, there was much to be shared,
He recounted his adventures to all present there.

With Dances With Wolves’s painful decision to leave,
It caused quite an uproar for they found it hard to believe;
If the U.S. Army should find him, they would all come to grief,
As their freedom days were numbered, it was beyond all relief!

Kicking Bird and Dances With Wolves just between them two,
Exchanged they presents before the final parting was due;
“ We have come far – you and me,” Kicking Bird would review,
And Dances With Wolves sadly replied, “ I would ne’er forget you!”

Wind In His Hair loved him truly like his very own brother,
Dances With Wolves loved him too like there was no other;
But man’s inhumanity to man only makes poor mortals suffer,
As sadness descended the couple left their Sioux friends forever!

Dunbar was prophetic when he wanted to see the frontier
Before it was gone forever and the irony is now clear,
And like all good times, it too would in the end disappear,
Along with buffalo and Indian rights in just a matter of years!

2012-01-06T04:56:00.000-08:00

Leaving the Home Life

短期出家

16 December 2011, was an historic day when my head was shaved bald for the first time in my life to prepare me for my ordination as a novice monk at Wat Dhamma Piti Meditation Monastery, Ipoh. I was among a total of twenty lay devotees, young and old, between the ages of 13 to 68, waiting earnestly for our turns to be shaved. One could not have imagined the mixed feeling that I had due to either anxiety,worry,excitement or...... as I could not anticipate whether the razor blade, Gillette Mach 3, would do its job well and not to hurt my ‘naked’ head, or would I look like Yul Brynner after the shaving was over. All these worries were rather excessive or immaterial as no one in our group was injured in the process. Neither could any one of us see his own face as there was not a single mirror hanging in the whole monastery.

The ordination ceremony for novice monks under the Short-Term Ordination Programme 2011 was conducted at the monastery. It was carried out on Sunday,17 December,2011. It was a solemn affair, carried out with precision to the very detail according to the scripts laid down by the Vinaya rules in the Theravadin tradition. The whole ritual was conducted in the Pali language. For a potential candidate to be qualified for Acceptance as a monk(bhikkhu) in the Sangha community, he must acquire the necessary robes,bowl and preceptor. Apart from this, he must also fulfill other requisites such as, he is not physically ill and deformed, or mentally retarded or disordered,or economically insolvent.

To make the ordination ceremony a success, thorough preparation was essential. All the participants had to report to the monastery two days earlier as it was intended for them to get acquainted to the life in the monastery,and to allow them ample time to learn to put on the robes and to learn to recite the verses in the Pali language.

Learning to wear the traditional robes was, for me, not an easy job with my advancing age. I was more like a small kid not knowing how to wear his own trousers. I needed others to help and guide me along. It was not surprising that I was always the last person in the group to put on the robes in a presentable manner.In the end,it took me two solid days of practice to acquire the skill.

Basically,the robes consist of two pieces of rectangular shaped yellow cloth. One smaller robe is put around the body with the two vertical edges folded or rolled together. Then it is tucked in and secured with a belt for it to function as the skirt-robe(a lot similar to the sarong a Malay traditional costume). For the larger outer robe, the edge is ‘thrown’ or flicked over the left shoulder and pinched under the left arm so that it will not slip off.

Learning to recite verses correctly in the Pali language was my other herculean task. We were told that in the Thai tradition any layman who is unable to memorise the verses in Pali would never be allowed to be ordained as a monk. Luckily, this ruling did not apply to us or else people like me with poor memory would not have a chance to monastic life.

After the ordination ceremony was over, I became a novice monk. However,I had to observe very carefully the Ten Precepts and the seventy-five Training Rules(sekhiya) and some other rules of the bhikkhu in my daily life. If I happened to break a precept or a rule,I had to confess immediately and repent to my preceptor monk. All these precepts and rules were there to protect and remind me about undesirable behaviour.

In fact, Vinaya rules and Dhamma are much like the two limbs of a human being; they compliment each other in sustaining and propagating Buddhism for many centuries to come.

‘When the Buddha was about to finally pass away and leave his followers, rather than appoint an individual to take his place he said this to his disciples:
“Whatever Dhamma and Vinaya I have pointed out and formulated for you, will be your Teacher when I am gone.”
For more than twenty-five centuries,the Dhamma and Vinaya have been quietly guiding the communities of Buddhist monks.’

Going on an alms round (Pindapata) has definitely formed an integral part of a bhikkhu’s morning activity as food intake is limited to the hours between dawn and noon. One has to take one’s food before noon as no food is to be consumed after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d6b9lqgSNs

People might have the misconception that going on an alms round is considered begging. Actually, it is not so; as the bhikkhu does not solicit anything but is ready mindfully to receive any alms that lay people may wish to share.

This daily dependence on alms food, in a way,reminds both the bhikkhus and the lay devotees of their interdependence and prevents the bhikku from becoming too isolated from the lay community.

As practising novice monks, we did go out for alms round for five consecutive mornings. We left the monastery bare-footed at 7.00 am in the morning.

We were divided into four groups. Each group went out separately to different destination, either to a food court or to a market place in Ipoh for alms round.
We came back before 8.30 am and had our daily meal after 9.00 am.

Beside alms round, our other daily routine were morning and evening meditation plus chanting, Dhamma talks and discussions, maintaining the cleanliness of the compound in the monastery.

On 23 December,2011, all of us disrobed and returned to our lives as lay people.
After we have gone through this Short-Term Ordination Programme,we have a better understanding and appreciation of the bhikkhu life in a monastery. Although all of us were not prepared to be bhikkus for a longer period, nevertheless we were encouraged by Venerable Master Shikaizhao(开照法师) to observe diligently the Five Precepts as laymen, and be mindful of our deeds, and to check if they contravene in any way the precepts we are holding. Any misdeed should be repented and corrected so that in the long run every one of us can become a better person.

Reference:The Bhikkhu’s Rules
-A Guide for Laypeople
Compiled and Explained By: Ian Anderson

2011-11-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

My Infamous ‘Gettysburg Address’

On 9 March,2002, I was invited to attend a farewell gathering at Convent Secondary School,Bukit Mertajam.In my farewell speech I was hoping to emulate President Abraham Lincon’s famous Gettysburg Address by making it short and to the point.

Gettysburg Address:"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
But, when I took over the rostrum, I could not help but to speak like General Lee, the defeated commander in the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, as I was among the sacrificed lambs in the transfer exercise manipulated by an inner circle of the Education Department where cronyism and nepotism took the realm of the day. In that particular exercise I had to vacate my post as the Senior Assistant to “beri laluan”[give way] for the wife of the District Educational Officer.
My speech was addressed in Malay language, the gist of which was as follows:
“Thank you for organizing this farewell gathering.
The news of my transfer came as a shock to me and a surprise to all of you. Nobody expected it to happen. Yet, it happened, too soon,and too sudden.
All the while I thought I would retire in this school as I did not anticipate change. Change did happen. I was wrong in my past perception which contradicts the Buddhist teaching of Impermanence; things or events keep on changing all the while. Realizing this is very crucial and useful. It will put us in a better footing to face any uncertainties and irregularities ahead. We should always remind ourselves to accept and accommodate changes. Once we can do that, there is no sea of turbulence that we cannot sail through.
I accepted my transfer,though not without pain, as just another phenomenon of the reality of life.
As a Chinese adage says, ‘Any feast under the sky will eventually come to an end’(天下无不散的筵席),implying that no matter for how long we gather, in the end, we still have to say good bye to one another. To me, feast can end, but our friendship will prevail.
Thank you.”

2011-10-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Customers’ Satisfaction

At around 10 o’clock in the morning on 3 August , 2009, I went to a local bank at Bandar Perda, Bukit Mertajam to collect a new Visa credit card. I was told to see a Malay officer who was not wearing a name tag at Counter No.3 on the ground floor. After collecting the card, I produced my old credit card for cancellation and to give him a letter of standing order to request the bank to transfer all the unsettled bills and reward points from the old Visa credit card to the newly acquired card. In addition, I wished to make a standing order for my utility bills to be auto debited.

The Malay officer told me it was not within his scope of work and it had to be handled by another officer, Miss Jeya, on the First Floor of the building. I followed instruction to climb up the staircase to the first floor to look for Miss Jeya who again referred me to another officer, Encik. Fausir, on the ground floor. Again, I walked down the steps to see Encik.Fausir who brought me to see the officer-in-charge who was “none other than the very same Malay officer at Counter 3”.

Knowing that I was back to the square one; I was very disgusted and my temper nearly exploded to see the officer who had just fooled me and ‘had taken me for a ride up and down the building’. My blood was boiling. To avoid things blowing out of proportion, I took deep breaths to regain my composure so as to keep my emotion under control and to queue up afresh behind two other “valued customers”.

Eventually,it took me more than one hour to get my things settled. In fact it could have taken me at the most half an hour if I was not made a damn old fool to walk up and down the building.

Walking out from the bank, a thought flashed through my mind:

“If the bank officers like to kick me like a football, I would recommend them to play ‘TOTAL FOOTBALL’ like what the Dutch players had employed with great success in the early seventies. It was a tactical theory of association football in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team.

In Total Football, a player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus retaining the team's intended organisational structure. In this fluid system, no outfield player is fixed in a nominal role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder and a defender. The only player fixed in a nominal position is the goalkeeper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK3RUt7BZWI

If each bank officer could adapt comfortably in multiple roles,like the tactics employed in Total Football,then the customers would be better served with higher efficiency.”

I have yet another experience of customers’ satisfaction to share.

On 31 May, 2008, I bought a Japanese imported model of Panasonic refrigerator from Seng Hock, a dealer at Queensbay Mall in Penang with a two-year extended warranty expiring on 20 July , 2013.

Unfortunately, one year later after the purchase, on 17 August 2009, the refrigerator started to give trouble. One compartment failed to function and the fruit kept in it became rotten.

Immediately I called to the dealer to complain and at the same time I wrote an email to Panasonic (M) Sdn. Bhd. Customers’ Care Centre. A technician was summoned that evening ‘to troubleshoot’ the fridge. He checked and made some minor adjustment on the refrigerator. The refrigerator functioned as normal after that but the problem recurred four days later. In addition, the motor of the fridge became very noisy the day after.Mr.Danny, the service manager of Panasonic Sdn. Bhd. in Penang, was informed of this problem and he sent a technician to fit a specially acquired new timer which was sent from Kuala Lumpur.

Three years later, on 19 April,2011, we complaint to the dealer at Queensbay Mall about yet another defect to the refrigerator. This time around, my wife noticed that there was an unusual patch of bubbled-like flaw of paint work on the lower middle portion of the front door of the Bottom Case of the fridge.

The dealer said that in his opinion under normal circumstances paint work was not covered in any extended warranty and he was not sure Panasonic Malaysia would entertain my complaint. Nevertheless he promised to bring up this case to the attention of Panasonic Malaysia.

Meanwhile, I emailed a similar complaint to the Customers’ Care Centre of Panasonic Malaysia for due attention.

Within a few days,a technician was sent by Panasonic Malaysia to check the flaw of the paint work and to take a photograph which was sent back to the Customers’ Care Centre.

Panasonic Malaysia did not respond for a long time after that.

I started to remind myself that I had no grounds to pursue the matter any further as my extended warranty did not extend to warranty the defect on the paint work of my fridge.

Surprisingly, after a lapse of three months, I was overwhelmed with joy and excitement when the familiar technician appeared at my doorsteps in the evening of 18 July, 2011. He came to replace the front door cover of the Bottom Case of my fredge. According to the technician, the new set of the cover was specially ordered and imported from Taiwan.

My wife and I were very grateful and thankful to Panasonic Malaysia for their excellent after-sale service. I had specially emailed to thank Panasonic Malaysia and to assure them that I would not turn to other brands for my future purchases when it comes to home appliances as the Panasonic brand name would be choice.

2011-03-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

‘裕昌’这幅招牌

一个褪色的老字号
曾经不离不弃地
在我家店门口挂了数十年
见证了
家族历史`事业的起`伏`兴`衰。

当年
父亲东筹西借
高渊开店卖洋货`布匹
从兴到衰
坐吃山空
失败告终。

长兄接手
"改道扬帆" 打白铁
克苦耐劳
辛勤工作
无怨无悔
双手养活一家三代人。

如今
‘裕昌’这块招牌
随着父`兄的离去
被置放于门后角落
孤灯只影
残度馀生。

"裕昌啊! 裕昌!
难道
你还有丝毫的妄想
期待刘氏后代子孙
再让你这块招牌
东山再起
重战江湖?"

2011-03-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

The Success Story of My Primary Schoolmate On 23 February,2011, we drove up Cameron Highlands, in a “Black Maria”, for a scenic tour of the highlands vegetable farm. Our drive up the highlands was one laced with mixed feelings of excitement and anxiousness as we trod gingerly along the bumpy and narrow winding road up the mountain. Helen, Leon’s wife, lamented regretfully that she should have stayed behind at a coffee shop, instead of coming along with us in a Land Rover and suffer the torment of the intense heat under the blazing sun and not to mention the bumpy ride.

True enough, Leon and I were thrown off our seats several times as the vehicle swayed from side to side as it made its way up the mountain. Our backs and buttocks ached. Kim Boon remarked jokingly that we should go for “alignment and tuning” at a massage parlour at the Brinchang town.

Our driver,Deng Zhang Quan[邓长权], was used to driving along the narrow stretch of the mountain trail as he had to go up the mountain daily to attend to his chores in his farm. He had little time to entertain our anxieties over our safety on the road. As an experienced driver, he could maneuver the blind corners and avoid oncoming vehicles with utmost skill and precision. The breathtaking journey to the vegetable farm took more than an hour. The farm was as vast as the eye could see. Cash crops liked tomatoes, spring onions and cabbage were grown in the farm. A number of Bangladeshi farmhands were seen working there. According to Deng, he had invested more than a million dollars over the years on this farming project. The expenditure includes: license to clear certain acreage of the virgin jungle, piping and generators for irrigation purposes, infrastructure for the green house and storeroom, immigrant labour cost and vehicles for transportation of the agricultural produce.

Deng’s success did not come easily. It took him over thirty years of blood, sweat and tears, to build up his agricultural business to what it is today.

Deng was born to a big family of fourteen siblings. His parents had to slog in a sugar cane plantation to feed all of them. They worked a hired plot of land just behind the Pai Teik Chinese Primary School of Nibong Tebal.

Deng did not pursue his secondary school education as he had to help his parents in the plantation. Later, he went to Pulau Pangkor to seek his fortune as an apprentice on a fishing boat. In the end he decided to settle down as a vegetable farmer in Cameron Highlands.

During the seventies and eighties, there were no such thing as immigrant workers to be hired to help at the farms. Well-to-do farmers could employ local Indians but not so for Deng. He had to toil the field all by himself with the help of his immediate family members.

Life as a vegetable farmer in Cameron Highlands in those days was not pleasant at all. The farmers had to toil from dawn to dusk,to clear the virgin jungles for farming. All their daily meals had to be taken in the farm on the mountain range. They only went home after sunset; it was a mundane lifestyle.

Entertainment for the inhabitants in Cameron Highlands at that time was rare and far in between. The number of Indians in Cameron Highlands who committed suicide was the highest in the country every year during that period. Although it was not proven, it could be attributed to boredom. The cheapest and most common form of entertainment for the Chinese farmers at that time was watching video tapes from Hong Kong production.

But Deng was no ordinary person like his counterparts in the neighbourhood. He did not waste his time watching video tapes. He wisely utilised much of his spare time reading Chinese literature to his command of the Chinese language. He wrote many short essays over the years and they were frequently featured in local Chinese newspapers. A collection of 100 poetry written by him for the Children were compiled and published in a book entitled ‘Paper Bird’ [纸鸟: 邓长权童诗100首]. Through sheer hard work and perseverance Deng has overcome his financial and academic shortcomings to become a successful entrepreneur in the agricultural industry as well as a renowned writer for the local Chinese media. Everyone especially the young can take a leaf out of Deng's book.

2011-02-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

Old Town Snake-King
The Hakka people used to label lazy bums who tried to evade work or their duty at all cost as “sa-wong”[蛇王,Snake-King] whereas in other communities the title “Snake-King” was a recognition bestowed on an expert snake catcher, especially if he could catch poisonous king cobras.

Recently I was shocked to hear from a good friend of mine, Mr.Henderson Tan, who is my ‘online encyclopedia’ regarding the history of my Old Town, Nibong Tebal. I was told that the ancestors of the King Cobras in the vicinity of my town were specially imported from India by the local British estate managers more than fifty years ago to hunt for rats at oil palm estates. They were thought to be effective pest control in the estates.
If what my friend had told me is true, I am rather curious as well as wonder whether the local species of cobra would ever ask the Indian species of cobra to “Pooh-lah! Hang balik India!” whenever they meet each other to argue over the matter of “cobra immigrants” or “pendatang Ular Tedung” in Malay. The Old Town of Nibong Tebal was surrounded by rubber estates, where some of them were later converted into oil palm estates. These estates were naturally infested with snakes, so these estates gave rise to a new occupation, snake catching ‘specialists’.These expert catchers would earn the tittle of ‘Snake Kings’. In the sixties and early seventies of the last century, Snake Kings of all races were found in abundance everywhere in Peninsular Malaysia. Newspapers at that time were never short of news of one snake king challenging another to see who would emerge as the ‘ultimate king of the kings’.

Hong Lim was our Old Town Snake King during that period. He was a resident of Old Market Road, Nibong Tebal. He caught snakes for his clients’ consumption. He would also sell the skin to be used as leather for making shoes, handbags, belts or outfits. He even made ointment with his own concoction to cure snake bites and skin diseases.

Believe it or not, the raw blood of cobra mixed with a liquor was served to men as a tonic drink. It claimed to be an aphrodisiac similar to Viagra. The flesh of poisonous snakes were kept in bottles filled with liquor for a period of time before it was used as a herbal tonic to cure rheumatism. I learned from another friend in Bukit Mertajam that an elderly lady who habitually ate a slice of raw gall bladder of a snake to preserve her youthful complexion. For Hong Lim,he would go out in the evenings with his assistant from one town to another with a police permit to set up a roadside stall to promote his home-made ointment and herbal tonic of liquor made of snakes. As if to attest to potency of his homemade brew, he displayed it along with live snakes. Being a devoted Buddhist ,his mother was very much against Hong Lim’s job of catching and killing snakes as a livelihood. Her advice “fell into deaf ears” as Hong Lim had had no other means to earn better money than catching snakes.

One evening the residence of the District Officer of Parit Buntar by the River Krian was disturbed by the presence of a cobra measuring twelve to fifteen foot long. All the occupants in the house were frightened and screaming hysterically ‘like fans at a Michael Jackson’s concert’. The District Officer, Mr. Abraham Lingkun, quickly summoned for a Police Inspector to catch the snake. The inspector duly arrived but declined to follow orders. He explained that he was trained like any other Police officers to maintain law and order, and definately not “to catch snakes!”

As luck would have it Hong Lim was busy selling his products near the bus station of Parit Buntar. The District Officer quickly ordered his driver to fetch Hong Lim to catch the cobra. Hong Lim, with the help of some others, wrestled with the snake for half an hour or so before they finally captured the beast.

The District Officer was very pleased and thankful to Hong Lim,and instantly he wrote him a letter of appreciation. Whether the District Officer rewarded Hong Lim monetarily, it was still as good as every body's guess.

However, Hong Lim was proud to possess this precious letter. He framed it and used it to promote his business. He would place it in a prominent place so that even a casual onlooker would not miss it. To a certain extent it did help to boost his sales. For all its worth the letter did considerably ward off harassment from the corrupt police officers (“mata-mata” for “duit kopi”).

As a Chinese adage states, “No one can be well and healthy for over a thousand days.”[人无千日好]. A minor mishap did happen to him while he was doing his business in Alor Setar. He was invited to catch a pair of king cobras in a rice mill. Although he was successful in his mission, one of his fingers was bitten by one of the beasts. He immediately cut off the poison-infected finger and asked his assistant to take him to the General Hospital for treatment.

A newspaper reporter from the Penang based English daily,The Straits Echo, came to know about it and published the news on the following day mentioning that “A renowned Snake King from the Old Town was bitten by a cobra but his own ointment did not help and he had to seek treatment at the General Hospital in Alor Setar.”

Hong Lim furious after reading the report. He went straight to Penang to see a famous lawyer, Mr. KS Lim, for legal advice whether he should sue the reporter for defamation.

Before the lawyer answered his question, Hong Lim was asked to produce a fifty-dollar note on the table. After keeping the note in the drawer, the lawyer answered briefly, “Sue? Of course, you can! But then, you wouldn’t be compensated much even if you won the case as the reporter didn’t mention your name.”

With the reply given, Hong Lim took heed of the hint from the lawyer and he did not pursue the matter any further. He went home ‘like a defeated dog with its tail tucked between its legs’. Nevertheless,he vowed he would try to catch more snakes within the shortest period to ‘redeem’ the fee that he had paid to the lawyer.

2011-02-09T03:15:00.000-08:00

An Annual Get-together Lunch On 5 February 2011, we had an annual get-together lunch for the ex-pupils of the Class of ’69 of the Technical Institute of Penang at Goh Swee Kee Restaurant 5, Sri Bahari Road, Off Penang Road.

This was the first time I took part in this lunch gathering although Tick Lay had told me about it without fail for the past two years. Seventeen of us who attended had two tables to ourselves. Many among us did not meet one another since we left the Technical Institute more than forty years ago. However, we shared the same yearning of catching up with one another with news after all these decades. As Kim Piaw puts it, “Even though we might have changed in physically, our friendship remains intact.”

The attendees of this function were deeply indebted to Herman Teoh and Lye Choon Sheng for their enthusiastic and untiring effort in organising this annual gathering and to the others who tried to contact and canvass for the rest of school mates to grace the event.

At the gathering,when I was initially introduced to some of the gentlemen, I couldn’t recognise who they were as they definitely looked nothing like what they did forty years ago! It was only after I dug down deep into the recesses of my memory and during our conversations that I was able to piece together who was who. If all of us who had not met before for a long time were to bump into one another in Penang Road, we would have most likely treated one another as total strangers. Even though Tick Lay and Seen Moun were room mates in the school hostel when they were in Form Five, could not recognise each other when they met at the gathering.

I supposed it was the same with Soek King who could not make out who I was although we were in the same class during our Sixth Form years. It could be that her busy working life had resulted her ‘memory card’ being re-formatted many times over the years that ‘some of the older files might have been deleted or chucked into the trash bin’.

One particular file which Soek King still retained had aroused the interest of everybody at the gathering. It was a love story that is worth mentioning here.

This love story started during our school year in 1968. The main actor, the ‘Romeo’ of our school, was staying in the hostel - in the room next to mine. At that time some of us were already aware that he had to take his medication to help him sleep. But then no one would have suspected that he had fallen in love unilaterally with his classmate, Juliet.

Persistently Romeo would find every opportunity to stick around Juliet in school just like ‘bees swarming around a hive’. But Juliet did not want to have any affair with Romeo then . She got very annoyed and upset to the extent that she told her friends that one day she would not hesitate to give Romeo a huge mirror for him “to take a long look at himself in the mirror”.

Whether one would consider it lucky for Romeo, or otherwise for Juliet, fate had charted the destiny of this love affair. As if with the divine intervention, both Romeo and Juliet went to the “same” university, took up the “same” course, attended the “same” church, taught in the “same” town in a Northern state of Peninsular Malaysia and finally got married and lived happily as a family. The story definitely had a fairy tale ending.

Our conversation hovered around topics such as ways of maintaining a healthy lifestyle; means of reducing stress; recommended reading and selected places of interest worthy of visit.

The two hours of lunch together was hardly enough for us to catch up with one another. So we adjourned to Coffee Island at Gurney Drive, for another round of conversation and a free flow of beer and coffee. We lingered for another couple of hours. All of us enjoyed the companionship, especially when we had a few “jokers” among us.

Before we bid farewell to one another, Lye Choon Sheng had made a proposal to have our next annual Chinese New Year gathering at Chiang Mai. Hopefully it would materialize with a better response from our school mates and their family members.

2010-12-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

Journey into the Golden Land of Less Travelled Never did I ever dream that I 'would want' to visit Myanmar, the Golden Land of Less Travelled.

Nevertheless it was a fact that I visited the country last December for eleven days.
It was indeed a remarkable trip.

It all started with the suggestion through a tele-conversation with a former school-mate, Lim Poh Aing. He sounded as if he would be going with some Burmese monks to Myanmar sometime in November 2010 and the whole idea of the trip intrigued me and I wanted to go with him on that tour. However,a few days later I got another phone call from an ex-colleague who invited me to join her Buddhist Vihara members to make a similar trip. The strange coincidence of the two proposed trips to the same country in a short span of time prompted me to decide decisively that- I ought to visit the country. It was as if it was ‘a divine intervention’.

At first I presumed I would not be spending too much money travelling in a country far less developed than Malaysia. I thought with RM 2000, it was more than sufficient to cover the whole trip for eleven days. Initially, in the month of August ,I was told to advance RM 3000 to join the trip organized by the Bukit Mertajam Buddhist Vihara. Any excess amount would be refunded. But, after ‘my neck was stuck out’ with the payment, I was asked to pay an additional RM300 as I was told that the tour would include three internal flights in Myanmar to cut down travelling time in the vast central region of the country. As I had already had my back to the wall with the Kuala Lumpur-Yangon flight ticket, I could not possibly back out of the tour although it had already exceeded my estimated budget for the trip.

When “rice has already turned into porridge” [米已煮成粥] , I informed my friends and acquaintances about the trip. Most of them reacted jokingly with an identical question, “Are you meeting the Lady?”

I knew whom they were referring to as I supposed they had read my blog on ‘The Lady by the Lake’ in which I had mentioned about Aung San Suu Kyi. Although I was unable to meet ‘the Lady of Myanmar’, I was fortunate enough to meet another lady, ‘the Lady from Thailand’, Dr.Pornthip, the famed forensic doctor in the Teoh Beng Hock’s inquest. When she appeared at Hu Pin Hotel near Lake Inle, to use the wash room, everybody was rushing to take a photograph with her just like any other crazy fans going after their favourite artist.Our twenty-one members strong tour group, comprised of three married couples and a few cliques of friends, of which I was 'an outsider' only acquainted with two ladies as they were my ex-colleagues.On 7 December, 2010, we took an AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur to Yangon. At the Yangon International Airport, we were greeted by our ‘special’ tour guide, Venerable Shi Hong Hai[释宏海法师], a forty-seven year old Myanmar Mahayana monk who is a Burmese of Chinese descend. He is of the seventh generation Chinese in Myanmar. He became a novice monk when he was fourteen years old. At present, he is the Abbot of Guang Yin Monastery[观音寺] at Bago, Rangoon. Ven. Shi Hong Hai is a friendly, easy-going and very accommodating person; qualities tailored to be an excellent tour leader. Although he was an amateur in the tourist industry, he had planned a seemingly flawless itinerary for our trip. For eleven days we had travelled on all the major forms of transportation ranging from air planes, buses, boats and even bullock carts to cover most of the major cities of the country,such as Yangon, Heho, Taunggyi , Mandalay,Bagan and Naypyidaw. We went on a pilgrimage to a number of famous and magnificent Golden Pagoda Temples and historical temples ruins in and around these cities.

We flew from Yangon to Heho to take a boat ride at Lake Inle to visit, at the lake-shores, the cottage industries where hand-woven silks, cigars and handicrafts were made. We had a chance of a life time to see sea gulls at a close range and feeding them ‘murukku’ (a type of Indian snack). We were exhilarated throwing it in the air for the birds to catch. Surprisingly, the birds could catch the the food we hurled at them with pinpoint accuracy. From Heho we flew to Mandalay, the final capital of Myanmar’s Konbaung Dynasty before the country was annexed by the British. The city takes its name from Mandalay Hill. Apparently,Mandalay is ,in my opinion, a more prosperous city than Yangon. It was at this city that I managed to contact my family members through emails after three days of incommunicado.

The National Kandawgyi Gardens is within the district of Mandalay. The moment we entered the gardens we were amazed and dumbfounded by its beauty and well-maintained landscape. We were like curious children entering a Disneyland. It was drizzling in the morning when we arrived at the gardens. But that did not prevent us from appreciating the beauty and serenity of the scenic view there. Needless to say, our cameras were clicking away non-stop to capture the scene for memory.

The rain was in fact a blessing in disguise as we were able to watch with shouts of joys and astonishment at the momentary appearance of a rainbow over the skyline of the garden. I overheard somebody remarked , “If there was no rain, there wouldn’t be any rainbow.” From Mandalay we took another flight to Bagan to witness a landscape dotted with thousands of ancient temples as far as the eye could see. It was just like entering a jungle of pagodas[塔林]. That evening we took a river cruise to watch the spectacular sunset view over Irrawaddy River. Luck was still with us the following day when we were able to witness the mesmerizing sunset over the distant mountains at Naypyitaw, the new capital of Myanmar.

At dawn the next day the sun seemed to wake up earlier to send us off with a breathtaking view of sunrise as we travelled on the expressway from Naypyitaw to Yangon to stay for another night before we bade farewell to this Golden Land of Less Travelled.

On the whole the trip was a unique and remarkable experience despite the fact a member of our group fell ill in Taunggyi,on the third day of our trip. He was suspected of having had food-poisoning and inflammation on the gall bladder. Two days into his ordeal, he fell in the hotel bathroom and had to be immediately admitted to a private hospital in Mandalay. As he was too weak to continue with the tour, it was decided to inform his children to come to Myanmar to bring him back to Malaysia. Meanwhile, we were very deeply indebted to three of our group members who volunteered to stay behind to look after him in the hospital and accompany him on his flight from Mandalay to Yangon and to make sure he safely board the plane in Yangon with his two children. Because of the sacrifice of the three members, the rest of us could continue with our itinerary uninterrupted. As Mr.Tan Ai Keng, a member of our tour group, aptly surmised at the end of the tour, “Despite all the ups and downs, we managed to bring the tour to a full circle, thanks to the Blessing of the Triple Gems and the competent leadership of Ven. Shi Hong Hai.”

2010-12-19T12:57:00.000-08:00

My First Impression on my Myanmar Visit

For days
I wandered
through this Golden Land，
By planes and coaches，
By boats and bullock cart.
To witness
the raw lives of an ancient people. Not for a moment，
was I not confused and puzzled with
the contradicting realities that abound.
In this vast land with lakes and rivers aplenty,
which is further adored and nurtured
by the Mother River Irrawaddy. Yet,
it’s a land of
wretched lives.
At every sanctum
where tourist throng
One too many women and children
shabbily dressed and unshod,
begging for mercy and money,
in unmistakable English “Hello, no money.”
Time and again,
I wonder,
in this country with incalculable riches
with a myriad of éclat of the past,
the renowned Rangoon rice, logs and cheroot.
As yet,
her people has to implore piteously for
a meager comestible. Who should take the rap?
Her people or the military junta
or the Super Powers
with its economic sanctions?

Pompous reasons
do not erase the fact
Gentle Burmese
Suffer immensely
in the land deluge
with richness.

2010-11-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

An Eulogy concerning the Reunion of MSS NT 1969 et al [This is the “long essay as promised” by our friend, H’ng Siew Sim relating the events before and after the reunion gathering at the Penang Copthorne Hotel on October 24,2010]

June 2008 was the time of sowing the seed to the culmination of the Weekend of 23/24th October. Little was I to know of the success of the event that followed. For this I have to give great acknowledgement to:

A. Shirley Loo nee Koay
B. Liew Sin Kong
C. Chin Phaik Hooi Many thanks for organising,updating and collating information and researching the venue for the reunion. As with all planning, even the best can go wrong! Sorry Shirley….

Email from Shirley Koay:
Sent: 19 August 2010 12:17:25

"SORRY EVERYBODY ....... THE DATES SHOULD BE

23,24,25 OCT 2010"

as the email sent earlier on by her on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:54:40 PM
on the subject: MSS1969 gathering was:

Dear friends,

It's almost 41 years since we left Methodist Secondary School,Nibong Tebal.

Some of us have kept in touch through the years or have recently met up.

Our dear 'old' friend,opposite the school, who used to be up the 'pak kieh' tree
has always been very keen to meet up with EVERYBODY whenever she is in
this part of the world. It would be great if we can achieve this goal this year!

So in this modern technology age, we hope to be able to reach out to all our friends
far and near.

A 3D/2N gathering is being planned. We hope everyone will make a special effort
to attend. To those who know of others who are not in the link, we hope
you will help us to contact.

Details are as follows :
Date : 30,31Oct,1Nov
Venue : Pantai Sri Motel, Tanjong Bungah,Penang.
Cost : RM 50 per person per night

Since it would be a time for us to catch up with each other, no programs have been
planned except to have a lunch with our teachers on Sunday 31oct.

Lunch with teachers will be at Coptone Hotel
cost --- approximately RM30

Please feel free to give any comments or suggestions.

We would appreciate a reply before 30sept.
Please reply by email or contact :

Liew Sin Kong
Chin Phaik Hooi
Shirley Koay

We look forward to seeing all of you.

cheerio!

The planning went on for over 2 years to coincide with my next return visit on 22/10/2010. This was how accommodating my school mates were; great patience and consideration.

Email sent out by me to the others was:

Subject: MSS 1969

"Dear all,
It is less than 2 months before our proposed Grand Reunion. I am so looking forward to it. I have a mail from Ah Nia saying that she isn't able to make it with the present schedule of hers. I am so sorry to hear that and hope to catch up with her if we can coordinate our timetable.
I arrive at KLIA on 22nd October at 1400. My usual 'Ahmed' is away and so I shall make my way to my sister's place in PJ. I have mailed those in KL area much earlier to see if it is possible to hitch a lift to PG on that day or the next and the request is still on. Plan 'B' is that I take a night train to arrive in BM on Saturday 23rd morning. I shall be in PG until 5th November when I leave for Kl to fly back on 8th.
I do hope to see many of you and spend time reminiscing of the good old times of yore. I count myself very fortunate to have this opportunity to still have contacts with fellow pupils after ahem! 40 years.
I have changed in the physical sense but at heart I am much the same ie wild and mad. I challenge you to prove me wrong....... I bet I can still shin up most trees without grazing my knees, pick the best 'pak kiah' from the furthest branch before you could open a durian!!!!!!!
So much of this silly talk. I must now get on with planning my itinerary and gathering things to put in my suitcase. Generally, it is all food bar a pair of knickers and a toothbrush. I come back with a nearly empty suitcase which my family try their damnest to fill up and failed miserably. I try to avoid full luggage but can't help the outgoing trip as I have a big family to cater for.
With that in mind I bid you all au revoir and hasta la vista!
Much love, Siew Sim.

PS: Be with you from 23rd to 25th October,2010"

Email from Shirley Koay to me :

"wow wow!!!!! hope your mail can stir some ripples if not create a storm!

i've been checking facebook and there's been no takers except the 5.

well.... we'll do with the small group and can still bring the roof down and get kicked
out ..... hahaha!

will let you know if and when i get in touch with Sue.

be seeing you. Love to all S "

Overloading the cyberspace with ideas and detective work to seek out fellow pupils of 1969 we managed to locate all but a few. For reasons best known to them they had remained illusive/shy to reconnect. But BEWARE the scouts are always on the lookout for you!

Sadly we have lost a few to the other side. They were:
1. Ng Soo Choo
2. Khor Seow Lek (fondly known as Kang Chooi Goo)
3. Teng Chang Hua
4. Teoh Yang Hoi

Was it really nearly 41 years since we left school to venture out into this wide world of ours to seek our future and fortune? And haven’t we done well!!!!!!!! The best I took away from this occasion was the contentment with life of those who were at the Sunday Lunch along with our other MSS pupils and teachers.This attitude is the essence of our well being for which no amount of money can buy. We weren’t doing too badly with our health either. Grey/ receding hair and other distinguishing features just go to show our true nature- like good vintage wine. Not for consumption but for laying down to mature slowly.
I am sure we all have many stories to tell of our formative years. The ups and downs but those challenges only enhanced our character and for that I am personally grateful although some were painful at the time. I have too many people to thank for my provenance .BUT I must and will mention my devoted and late Mother who was instrumental in the happy state I am now in.

Can’t imagine that ‘pak kia’ climbing monkey girl could end up in UK with a Psychiatric history, ahem! qualilfication, my post graduate general nursing fortunately kept me on an even keel. For my sins I still play at working in the Accident and Emergency department until something better comes along. Any offers?????
I digress.

What a wonderful and memorable occasion we had on Sunday 24th. I didn’t think anyone of us could envisage such a delightful and happy day we all had. Personally I thought the teachers were gobsmacked to be invited. Weren’t we a happy and grateful bunch?? To prove it here is an insert of an appreciative letter;
Re: PENANG GATHERING ON 24TH OCTOBER 2010
12/11/2010

Hello everyone,

It was such a pleasure to meet all of you again after so many years. Thank you all for remembering us and inviting us to your gathering. I think we spent more time catching up than on the food.

Seeing you all brought back memories of when we were young teachers facing students of all kinds; the eager, the reluctant, the mischievous, the cheerful, the rebellious, oh so many that make up a class. I don't know whether you enjoyed being in my classes, but I really enjoyed teaching you both in the classroom as well as outside, especially the guides. Thank you all for being my students then.

It is good that you made the effort to keep in contact and I look forward to hearing from you all.

Thank you Kim Beng for the photos - they'll be treasured.

Love to all,
Ms Yee

The location was excellent for view and accommodation for our big crowd of 45. The pictures taken by our happy snappy photographer the darling Chan Kim Beng was evidence to this point. This pictoral memorabilia will be treasured forever.

"Hi Kim Beng,

You are a darling to take all those candid shots.
The happy moments captured in camera for eternity.
We will always look at them with fond memories.

Thanks again. God bless "
Pek Sim

Foodwise it was as good as it comes with mass catering but I doubt if anyone of us were sincerely interested in that. This was no criticism of Hotel Copthorne. The staff did a brilliant job of looking after us so pleasantly and to assist us in our cake cutting and the toast with the Port that I brought (smuggled)! According to Sin Kong, the happiest person that day was Kim Boon whose birthday happened to be the same day. I believe he was interrogated for factual evidence which resulted in a few red faces! Sin Kong was responsible for that, possibly others too. This show of power is the other face of our ‘chicken heart’ friend!

I had many thanks for the forethought of bringing the Port for the toast. It was so kind of you all and I thank you so much. I guess I had 1st class and personal tuition from my long suffering husband, Peter, on such matters. Incidentally, he was left holding the fort in my absence, chicken-sitting, house-sitting and at times catering for our thoughtful children who in their loving nature came home to see him during my absence!
I had great apprehension as to the viability of making and transporting the cake to the event. My skill in sugar-flower making was not the best but I made what I hope will give Shirley a curl on her lips whenever she happens to look at it. I could but apologise for the imperfection of the icing. In my credit I don’t think there was ever a cake that had travelled so far and triggered so much conversation amongst my friends and family here in UK and in M’sia.

My sympathy went to our fellow diners who had to put up with our hilarity and lethal level of sound. They must think we were a bunch of nut cases that Tanjong Rambutan is not large enough to house! So my apologies to them and the staff if we had upset anyone, although unintentionally.

So much to say and yet so confused as to what to put down in words. Not only was I lost for words I lost weight too. I was so deliciously happy that I survived very well on fresh air, happy faces and tales of yore. This brought me to the night before.

6 rooms were booked for Saturday night ( I was heartbroken to miss the second night stay). Pek Sim and I shared one, Shirley, Su Hung and Phaik Hooi two, Sin Kong and Lee Choo three, Song Hooi four, Kim Beng five and Beng Tuan six.
That day and evening we had a lot of toing and froing of friends. Khor Hoe Soon made an enormous effort to spend a few hours with us. Unfortunately that young man had to work in the morning, aarrrh. Om Prakash joined us too. Guess whose room we all ended up in?????
It was surprising that we weren’t thrown out of the establishment for the noise we made. You could just imagine the chitter chatter that went with looking at photos of our young days. I believe only the girls brought their collection. This set Sin Kong in the mode of photographing missing ones to add to his blog and facebook to be shared by the savvy IT geeks which I am not yet. Promise Sir I will do so!!

I had a chance visit from Margaret Goh when she was visiting her daughter in Oxford this year in July. She kindly sent me a photo that was taken with her. So it was quite a talking point as only Su Hung was the only one to recognise her having seen her recently. In real life she looked very young. I would like to know which elixir of life was she taking because I could do with some! She now resides in Melbourne, Australia and I did my level best to tempt her to join us which she could have done. I gave her snippets of news with promises of the rest when we see her. Alas, to no avail! So my friends we just had to carry on with our attempts to put names and events to the photos that were in the various albums.

In the midst of all this I requested a knife and plate from the Housekeeper to be sent to Room 1118. This odd request must have sent an alarm bell going. In due course the request was granted but it came accompanied by two members of staff. There would only be one guess as to what they were thinking………
As it was autumn in UK, it was the time of harvest. So I brought along a few homegrown apples to tickle the taste buds of the mates present. Not the sweetest apples but flavoursome and juicy. To cap the good life I lead I had with me a few fresh walnuts from my garden. Could I find a suitable tool to crack them? Like Heck! I just hadn’t the nerve to request any further gadget for fear of being on the street for the night! But survival instinct will overcome. I remembered watching someone accessing the nut. I proceeded to do so. One holds two nuts between the palms of the hands and squeeze until one cracks. The skinned kernels were consumed with trepidation and all survived to tell the tale the next day. Needless to say I didn’t crack that many nuts with my increasing sore palms. Boys, you are allowed to cross your legs as a means of showing your chivalry!!

It wasn’t surprising that we were as late as 1am before disbanding. Pek Sim and I went on until 2am or so as we did spend some time together in UK back in 1971/72

This reunion didn’t stop at Hotel Copthorne. I proceeded to travel south to Johor Bharu in the company of Kim Beng ( I took a liberty and hitched a ride)
There I troubled Ah Nia to get the southern contingent to meet up. She succeeded in recruiting Guan Peng, Dr Siva, Mr Maniam and Betty Liang (Bak Ti). It was a jolly evening with lots of reminiscenes and relaying the events of Sunday past. I hadn’t seen the girls since leaving school (possibly Ah Nia in ’72). I felt so priviledged to have such an opportunity to meet so many on this short trip to M’sia. As usual I disgraced myself with my exuberance.

Email from Guan Peng:

Hi everyone,

Beng Tuan, thanks very much for updating us on your great reunion at Copthorne Hotel. Wish I had been there to join in the fun.

You know what, our small group of Old Boys and Girls of MSSNT in Johor Bahru did manage to cheer ourself up when Siew Sim paid us a surprise visit. We had an enjoyable dinner at the New Lucky Restaurant last night. Apart from Siew Sim and myself, the others who attended were Betty Liang( came and return to S'pore the same evening), Kang Ah Nia, Dr Siva and his elder brother, Mr Maniam (yes, the discipline teacher who is now a permanent resident in JB). And our thoughtful Siew Sim has not forgotten us, the southerners. She brought for us fruitcake, all the way from UK. Very good, its moist and not too sweet.

It is quite remarkable that some of us could still remember the full name of some ex 69 mates who have never join any of the past reunions. And Mr Maniam has such good memories of the naughty ones and those quiet and low profile ones that you wonder whether they did really come from MSSNT.

As usual, time flies when you are enjoying each others company and having a good time.

Beng Tuan, thanks for the information on the Sabah trip in June next year. Keeping my finger crossed.

To all my friends who have been keeping the spirit of Batch 69 MSSNT going, WELL DONE !.

Thank you.

Warmest Regards,
LGP

Luck would have it that our friend Lau Beh made himself available to take me out to breakfast before I flew back to UK. I believe he was sorely tempted to make the Sunday Reunion if not for a very pressing engagement. I gave him a good ticking off for not accessing his inbox. He now admitted he is IT illiterate which beggars belief that he gave us his email address at all! He would like to join us in the future but the message will need to be via the earpiece.

Very soon after my return I had an email out of the blue from a Cathy Carnell. She is the Khoh Ah Chia that Kim Boon’s successful detective work accomplished. This connection looked strong. So watch this space. Now that I had time to reflect, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to you all for this irreplacable visit. With my fondest memories of you all I can but hope that it won’t be too long to my seeing you again.

My voicebox took a good bashing with my incessant rabbiting on topics from the ridiculous to the sublime. I sincerely apologised if I contribute to anyone’s deafness! Just like the saying; you can take Siew Sim out of Nibong Tebal but you can’t take Nibong Tebal out of her!

2010-11-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

My Stay at Pangkor Laut Resort

It had never occurred to me that the day would come for me to set foot on Pangkor Laut Resort.
Eight years ago,while I was having a course in Pangkor Island, we would take time off to walk along the beach in the evening before dinner to look across the sea, at a distant island. I was amazed to see a succession of yellow lighted bulbs lining the wooden houses which were built on stilts above the sea water at the waterfront. It was the Sea Villas which was the signature feature of the resort.

My classmate told me that it was a restrictive area known as Pangkor Laut Resort and it was owned by YTL Hotels & Resorts , built exclusively for the rich and famous to stay in luxurious suites. At that time it was inconceivable for us to even dream about staying there.

Recently,my elder daughter chanced upon an offer from AF Travel Sdn Bhd of a holiday package for a three-day two-night’s stay for Malaysian residents.The offer came with different tiers of accommodation rates; the cheapest one was RM 800 per person with a twin sharing unit at the Garden Villas of the resort and the packages came with full board meals in selected restaurants. Under normal circumstances it would be rather expensive for ordinary people like us to stay in the resort．With the RM 800 we had paid, it would only pay for a person to have FOUR meals at the restort without accommodation.

We reached the front office of the resort, opposite of Lumut Jetty at one on Sunday, 14 November 2010. Upon registration, we were served with a welcoming drink while our luggage was being handled by the staff. It was to be transported straight to our apartments at the resort . We were then ferried by a speed-boat to the resort jetty. The ride took twenty five minutes。Waiting at the jetty to greet us were the Rooms Division manager，Mr。Von Go and his staff. After a short briefing by Mr. Von Go at the Reception, we were ushered to our apartment units at the Garden Villas before we adjourned for our lunch at the Royal Bay Beach Club. In the evening we went for a swim at the pool and had our dinner at UNCLE LIM’S KITCHEN at 8.00 pm. Next morning, after our breakfast at the Feast Village, we went for a dip at the Emerald Bay.

Emerald Bay is “a beautiful half- mile long beach with emerald clear waters”. ‘It is surrounded by 300 acres of tranquil tropical rain forest with white sandy beaches.’ I could see very few tourists and not a single motor boat within the vicinity of the bay. One would feel the quietness, peacefulness and serenity either resting at the beach reading books, or immersing in the water under the tropical sun when the bay was not infested with tourists or motor boats. It was no wonder people would prefer to pay more for the exclusiveness of the surroundings.
At noon,we had lunch at the Chapman’s Bar at Emerald Bay before we retired in our room for a nap. That evening we headed to the pool site to enjoy a session of water spa. In the evening, we once again opted to have our second dinner of our stay at UNCLE LIM’S KITCHEN.
On the third day morning we check-out at 11.30 am and reached home four hours later. It is quite true that “Dining at Pangkor Laut is a culinary adventure across cultures.” The four restaurants that we patronised, namely, Feast Village, Royal Bay Beach Club, Chapman’s Bar and Uncle Lim’s Kitchen, provided us with either Western or Eastern dishes of excellent quality; I would say it was “ a class of itself, second to none.”
You would not be surprised that many of the staff have worked here for a long time, with Uncle Lim being the longest serving staff, who has worked here since the inception of the resort twenty five years ago. He is still holding the staff registration number of ‘0001’. It seems there are more than twenty people who has worked here for more than twenty years and Mr.Megeswaran of the Chapman’s Bar being one of them. Even our Malay friend, Mr.Sham, a van driver for the shuttle service, has been working in the island for more than eight years, driving eight hours a day, along the narrow trails of this small island. The high staff retention rate of this resort speaks volumes of how much the employees cherish their job. I believe this is due to the fact that they are well paid and their welfare are well taken care of by the management.

Indeed, I share the sentiment of one of the tourists in his customer review that, “ I can’t wait to come back again!”. And this is especially so if I can get someone “to sponsor” for the trip when there is a holiday package for Malaysian residents.

2010-11-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

Lizard Living in a ‘Shangrila Suite’

[This is a fiｃtitious story told by a lizard from the book, BEYOND THE BLUE GATE,written by Teo Soh Lung.Any resemblance　to a real life incident is merely a coincidence.]　 I’m a lizard. Other lizards prefer to call me Richard. I’m living in a cell used to incarcerate a political prisoner. As the cell is much bigger in size and better equipped than the other cells, it is commonly known to the prisoners and warders as a ‘Shangrila Suite’.

As I am now getting older, it is rather hard for me to recall ‘how’ and ‘when’ I started to live in this suite. Anyway I like this place very much as I consider it to be my territory that no other lizards should trespass at. It has never occurred to me that I am staying in a jail as I am relatively free to leave the cell at any time I like without being bothered by the prison guards. On the other hand, I could see that every political prisoner staying here was always plagued with the same worrisome question of “How soon shall I leave this bloody place?”; a question which even the Almighty God might not be able to give a definite and satisfactory answer. The fear of indefinite detention leading to a lingering incarceration has always troubled the souls and mind of the political prisoners as they may be kept in prison for any length of time at the discretion of the Minister of Home Affairs, and detention under Internal Security Act［ISA] could not be challenged in an open court. In the case of Singapore, there were many professionals like Dr.Poh Soo Kai and Dr. Lim Hock Siew and journalist Said Zahari were detained for more than 16 years, with Chia Thye Poh holding the record of 32-years of imprisonment which was equivalent to more than two life sentences. Moreover I feel it is safer to live in a cell as I am protected by the prison guards. Rarely do I have to confront a notorious human being, especially a naughty boy who would be out to kill me for fun with his catapult as I was told in my grandmother’s story.

Once in every decade or so, the ruling government would launch an operation to “round up” her political foes in an effort “to nip in the bud” whereby promising individuals with the zeal to reform would be framed to be either communist sympathizers or Marxist conspirators. They are hauled up and thrown into jails ‘to be turned over’. Among the captures, one would be sent to my suite as my roommate.

This time around, my new roommate was Terry. She was a lawyer, detained, released and re-detained. The Internal Security Department [ISD] regarded her as a “terrible” woman, being defiant, truculent and combative as she always criticised the administration and made “unnecessary demands” that other prisoners dared not do. She was considered by the ISD as hard-cored, never wanted to repent for what she had done. But,to me, I found Terry to be a pleasant woman, easy to get along with. She would talk and joke with me for hours at times, telling me things that she would never revealed to her case officer in their weekly meetings.

As the cell was lighted ‘round the clock’ with florescent tube, it was difficult for any inmate of the cell to tell whether it was day or night. Initially,Terry had the difficulty sleeping under the broad ‘florescent light’. For days she could hardly sleep. As time went on, she adapted herself to a new way of life – She would sleep when her eyes were tired, whether it be day or night and she would not lie in bed if she could not sleep. Hence, when she was awake, she would indulge in non-stop reading of a censored copy of a three-day-old newspaper, The Straits Times, until she got so tired that she would doze off in her sleep for hours .

In a way I was much fortunate than Terry. Whenever I wanted to sleep, I would hide in the darkness behind the florescent tube.

Believe it or not; I thrived on Terry which she herself was not aware of. Before she joined me in the cell, I could only ate the ‘skinny’ mosquitoes as they could hardly find blood to suck at. After Terry came in, I could feed on the ‘fatty’ mosquitoes who had gotten their nutrient from her.

Among other skills of survival that Terry had to learn in the cell was the ‘art of mosquito killing’. The buzzing sound of mosquitoes and the itchiness of mosquito bites irritated Terry to make her restless and wide awake throughout the lonely nights. To combat the mosquitoes,Terry had to learn the ‘technical know-how’ to kill them. Many a times, the mosquitoes escaped through the gaps between her fingers. Later on, through repeated trials and errors, Terry was smart enough to place a tissue paper on her palm to net the escaping mosquitoes during her deadly strikes.

Time seemed to pass slowly in the cell like a crawling snail. For Terry to survive in prison without boredom, a routine was necessary. Mornings began with exercises in the yard followed by breakfast. After breakfast, she would read or listen to BBC news on her walkman and sleep or write letters occasionally.

To keep her occupied throughout the day, Terry took to drawing little insects and creatures found in the cell. She tried to draw ants in great details by placing them in a plastic box and looked at them from all angles and sides. She observed their habits at meal times and at leisure.

Meditation was another pastime which she had learnt from a book. As time went on,with her daily practice in meditation, she was able to ignore her cramped feet and enter into a dream-like state of mind.

Occasionally, she would vent her frustrations by singing at the top of her voice.

Looking at the prison life of Terry, I can’t help but to have a deep respect for her ability to endure the hardship in the solitary confinement .

In retrospect, I consider myself to be lucky not to be born as a human being. Unlike the human beings who always pay a lip service to the 'human rights' issue, we, in the realm of lizards,never talk about lizard's rights; yet we don’t violate the rights of other lizard to live its own life freely and independently.

2010-11-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

Twelve Hours on the road

As I was about to doze off for a routine afternoon nap on May 30, 2007, a telephone call at around 2.00 pm interrupted my sleep. It was from my younger daughter EL requesting me to fetch her back from Kuala Lumpur.

I smelt a rat as it was abnormal for her to do that. Under normal circumstances she would not want us to travel to Kuala Lumpur as she does not want us to strain our mind and body to tread the unfamiliar routes in the city. She prefers coming home once a month by bus to visit us.

I knew there was an urgency that compelled her to make such a request. She said she had sprained her right ankle one week ago. I sensed it was serious. Without inquiring further, I immediately woke my sleeping wife to ask her to get ready to go down to Kuala Lumpur to fetch our daughter.

At around 2.30 pm, we left the house. In the car we did not talk much as both of us were worried about our daughter. On the long journey we had to stop at a few rest places for fuel and stay alert with cups of coffee. I had to do all the driving as my wife could only be an ‘attentive navigator’ but not a ‘co-pilot’ as her knee problem has made her lose her confidence to take the wheel.

To keep me alert, I tried to imagine myself as a Formula 1 driver called ‘Michael Shoemaker’, the distant relative of the famed F1 champion, Michael Schumacher. I tried to maintain the car at the speed of 110 km per hour; at times exceeding it hoping to make the trip to Kuala Lumpur in the shortest possible time.

At Tapah rest place we stopped for half an hour to buy some doughnuts and two cups of cappuccino while at the same time allowing the engine of the car to cool down.

My daughter,EL, was never interested in sports during her school days. Surprisingly, after she started working, she took up mountaineering. One year ago, she was instructed by her company to organise a trip to Sabah to climb Mount Kinabalu as their team building project. Of all the fifty participants, she was the only lady together with seven other men who managed to scale the mountain.

As usual, on the morning of May 20, 2007, EL went hiking at a nearby hill. Accidentally, she missed her step as she tried to sidestep a huge protruding root of a tree and she sprained right ankle. She took her injury lightly as her examining doctor reassured her that it was just a minor injury. EL took the doctor’s words as the gospel truth. The following day she went to work as usual. But her ankle became swollen like an elephant‘s leg and the pain intensified as days went by. Her colleagues advised her to come back home to rest and to seek medical treatment. After ten days of bearing the pain by herself, she could conceal the agony no more and informed us.

By the time we reached Subang Jaya it was almost seven o’clock in the evening. As we were not familiar with the direction leading to EL’s place, we had to make repeated telephone calls to her to guide us. Actually, down in my heart I expected her to come out in her car to lead us to her place. I was wondering why she only gave instructions to her mother through phone call. Little did I know, she was seriously injured.

When we were at her doorstep, the instant we saw her hopping with her left leg to open the door we knew that we had to ferry her home immediately for medical treatment.

On our way back to Bukit Mertajam we stopped at Sungai Buloh rest area for Kentucky fried chicken for dinner as we did not want to waste time to eat out in Subang Jaya.

Long hours of driving without anyone taking over the wheel, made me exhausted until I almost could not keep my eyes open. I had to resort to asking my wife to pinch my left ear now and then to keep me alert. When that drastic action did not work I had no choice but to stop near the Sungai Perak petrol kiosk to rest for a while. Luckily, with a mere ten minutes of meditation, I was transformed person with a fresh mind and renewed energy; ready to drive through the remaining journey to reach Alma, Bukit Mertajam at around 1.30 am the following morning.

As if our tough luck was not enough, I was caught driving with an expired license at a road block in front of Taman Impian, Alma, Bukit Mertajam. I was served with a compound for the offence. As a Chinese adage says, “Misfortune never happens once” [祸不单行].

By the time we reached home it was already two o’clock in the morning. Looking back, it baffles me how I managed to drive for twelve hours continuously to make a round trip to Kuala Lumpur and I doubt I shall ever repeat the same feat again.

2010-10-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Gathering at Penang Copthorne Hotel

When I was small I used to be with my late mother while she was having a conversation with a visiting relative. Many a time they would remind each other that “to meet one more time is just another time”[“见一次就是一次。”] At that time I was too young to comprehend and appreciate the wisdom of the saying. As age is catching up, I slowly assimilate this time-tested, inherent truth of the saying. As we are approaching the sunset years of our lives, there is no guarantee that we would live to meet up with our friends for yet another time[没人能担保下次我们还能再见面]. Whether we like it or not, some of them might have already faded from this world long before we had the chance to meet up with them.

Whether it is ‘all wise men think alike’ or ‘all fools never differ’, Siew Sim coincidentally shares the same passion as my mum as she always makes it a point to travel all the way from England to visit friends and relatives in Malaysia bi-annually. It was through her consistent and tireless efforts over the years that I was finally able to meet my ex-classmates in 2008 , after a span of forty years of separation. Since then, we have never stopped to have a series of classmate gatherings at different locations and occasions. Recently Shirley Koay was instrumental in organising a two-night bungalow stay in Penang for our former classmates from the Methodist Secondary School ,Nibong Tebal with the hope of reminiscing and “replaying” ‘the video clip of the happy moments we had shared during a trip to Batu Ferringgi after our Form Five Examinations in 1969’. After checking the rates offered by a number of hotels by the seaside, she finally picked Copthorne Hotel. Six rooms were booked for those of us who would like to stay in on the evening of Saturday, October 23, 2010.
On the following day a buffet lunch was held on the ground floor of the hotel with forty four people in attendance. The participants were mostly students from the Classes of 1969 and 1970 with some teachers as the invited guests. Credit has to be given to Jeng Woon whose efforts saw the increase of participants by two folds.

The participants were from different places in Peninsular Malaysia. Some had travelled from afar, like Siew Sim from England and Kim Beng from the Middle East. All arrived carrying with them the same joyous mood and yearning to meet one another. The highlights of the lunch were a toast of wine and a cake cutting ceremony to commemorate the ‘Reunion Lunch’ of the big family of Methodist Secondary School of Nibong Tebal.

Incidentally, Kim Boon shared the lime light to join in the cake cutting ceremony to celebrate his birthday. Meng Kiang and I were sceptical that that it was Kim Boon’s birthday and thought that he played a joke on us. After ‘double-checking’ his identity card for verification just like a policeman would do to a traffic offender, we congratulated and wished him “Happy Birthday” once again. He admitted that he was over-excited and over-joyed as well on the eve of the buffet lunch that he could not sleep well. He could not thank his lucky stars enough that with a mere thirty dollars he chipped in for the lunch, he was able not only join in a reunion lunch and also celebrate his birthday with a big applauding crowd in a hotel.

After the lunch, all the guests adjourned to the poolside for a photographic session and further chit-chat until four o’clock in the evening when we bid our good-byes.

It could not be denied that most people who attended the lunch had enjoyed the companionship more than the food.

As Rajendran put it, “It was good to get together again and see old friends and teachers. I hadn't seen Miss Yee ,Mr Khor, Mr Lip and my friend Ming Hook for more than forty years.”

In a texted message to me from Chew Ee after the event, she succinctly noted, “The gathering’s awesome!! We had lots of fun and joy.”

Mr. Richard Lye, a former teacher of the school, in his emailed feedback, echoed almost the same message, “It was wonderful; the gathering of old faces was more important than the food. I could have not imagined how much these old pupils of mine have grown. Some are ‘kong kongs’[公公] and ‘Ah mahs’[婆婆]. Looking back, how time flies and how many more times shall we meet again,so it is important that we should meet more often. Just like what the Four Degree singers said ‘ When will we meet again’.”

To the question, “When will we meet again ?”
I think it is better to leave it to Shirley Koay to answer, as she is an accomplished ‘Organising Chairperson’ who would not give a second thought of throwing her subordinate into a pool to the point of drowning him if he dares to defy her orders.

2010-10-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

Zhou Enlai
周恩来

‘Zhou Enlai –The Last Perfect Revolutionary’ is a book written by Gao Wenqian which focuses on the complicated, interweaving love-hate relationship between Chairman Mao Zedong[毛泽东] and Premier Zhou Enlai after the Communist Party assumed power in China in 1949. Zhou “lived those years in the shadow of Chairman Mao, performing tireless, like a compliant, docile daughter-in-law, the tasks that his master assigned to him.” [page 63]

Mao and Zhou led a complementary working relationship. Zhou was seen to be “a smooth operator who knew how to handle people; he also had a knack for organization and a good eye for detail.Whereas Mao was a man of immense talent, but he could not run the entire show by himself. He needed Zhou Enlai to perform the task”.[page 88]

Throughout the decades to come and until the waning days of Zhou, Mao was plagued by this paradoxical relationship. He had to keep Zhou at bay to prevent him from ever again gaining the upper hand; at the same time he had to depend on Zhou to run the day-to-day affair of governing the country.

Mao Zedong was a man known to be of jealous, unpredictable and vindictive in nature. He harboured bitter grudges against all those who had either criticized him or out-performed him.

Starting in the late 1950s, Mao launched his program of reform under the title of ‘Three Red Banners’, with the aim of transforming the Chinese society. But it turned into a mass starvation of an estimated twenty million Chinese peasants. Liu Shaoqi [刘少奇],Mao’s heir apparent, came to his rescue by devising an economic readjustment to remedy the blunders made by Mao. However,Mao himself would never admit it as a failure.

In the spring and summer of 1966, a huge tidal wave of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution[文化大革命] swept China under the pretext of preserving the purity of Chinese Socialism. In effect it was a social movement engineered by Mao to take revenge and purge Liu Shaoqi [刘少奇]，Deng Xiaoping [邓小平], Peng Zhen [彭真] and all the other old cadres who were closely associated with Liu.

Although Zhou concurred with the economic policy expounded by Liu, he took a different view to protect himself and safeguard his position as the premier of China. He had to toe the line and support Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution which had created “great chaos under heaven”[天下大乱].

By doing this, Zhou had perfected the art of walking the political tightrope. By avoiding direct confrontation with the Chairman, he could survive the political onslaught and rendered himself the means to protect the other victims of the Cultural Revolution.The following were the steps he took. ‘Some were allowed to leave their homes temporarily; others were sent to People’s Liberation Army hospital 301 on “sick leave”;others still were sent out of town to “recuperate”; and some were provided with public security guards, who were stationed in front of their homes with orders to persuade the marauding Red Guards to spare them.’[page 135]

In reality, Zhou Enlai was fully aware of the double role he was playing in the Cultural Revolution. On one hand, he knew Mao was dragging the country toward unprecedented chaos and disaster and yet he had to be submissive to the Chairman. On the other hand, his personal conscience urged him to do whatever he could to save the country and the people. Somehow he was trying to achieve a psychological balance between what was rapidly becoming two diametrically opposing commitments.

In later years, Zhou came under considerable fire for being too submissive and exhibiting an excessive desire to please Chairman Mao. His critics insisted that Zhou encouraged Mao in his madness by yielding to the Chairman time after time and that by following him, he too was responsible for the disaster that befell China.

When Deng Xiaoping was examining the role Zhou Enlai had played in the Cultural Revolution, he noted: “Without the premier, the Cultural Revolution would have been much worse. And without the premier the Cultural Revolution wouldn’t have dragged on for such a long time.”[ page162]

For Zhou Enlai, he had long realized that if he antagonized Chairman Mao, it would be a form of political suicide. He believed that as long as he remained in the inner circle of the power that be, his presence could make some difference. Someone had to hold the fort and maintain a semblance of order while turbulence spread throughout the country. As long as he remained as the premier, he still had the chance to chart the course which the country would be heading. Indeed, in January 1975, in a decisive speech to the Fourth National People’s Congress, Zhou outlined a new directive known as “Four Modernizations” as a blue print for Deng Xiaoping to implement. From 1978 onwards, Deng emerged as China’s paramount leader. He moved China towards the goals of wealth and power which were all along Zhou Enlai‘s dream and that of most of the China’s Communist Party leaders.

Today the world may remember Deng as the architect of Modern China but we may not be aware that it was Zhou who had lent Deng a helping hand.

2010-09-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

Old Town Gamblers

Years ago while I was standing by a roadside at the old town, I saw a man walking to a telephone booth knocking furiously at the box hoping that coins would fall out from the box, like striking a jackpot from a slot machine. His desperate effort was in vain as expected as people nowadays seldom use public phone as mobile phones are already reining the day. Even if a person opted to use a public phone, he would prefer to use a telephone card instead.

Zooming at the man from a distance as he walked away I was shocked to know that he was once the ‘idol of the town’ as he had been a prominent basketball captain of the Paik Teik School Union which was invincible in many tournaments in the Krian District for a couple of years in the seventies.

On another occasion, I saw him present as an ‘uninvited guest’ at a wake to get a free meal as his dinner. This character is non other than the compulsive gambler, Ah Poh. Over the past umpteen years he had exploited all avenues to borrow or swindle money from friends and foes alike to fuel his gambling spree instead of leading a decent life. I was told he even went overboard by becoming a Police informer,“Je Goh Kia”[二五仔]. With this bad reputation most town folks preferred to keep him at an arm’s length, making him a lone ranger that people despised.

The fate of my former classmate was no better than Ah Poh. He was another compulsive gambler who superstitiously adopted the Christian name,Winson , hoping that the name would bring him better gambling luck as “Win” means “to win” and “son’ still carries the meaning of “to win” in Chinese when it is pronounced in Mandarin as “胜”. So the Chinese equivalent of Winson is 连胜[Lian-sheng]. Before Winson indulged in full-time gambling, he was a very promising sale personnel working for a well-established public listed company in the eighties. He used to travel back to the old town from Kuala Lumpur giving lifts to friends and relatives who wanted to ‘balik kampung’.
According to a friend who had frequently travelled with him, Winson truly lived up to his Christian name when he first tried his luck at Genting. Luck was with him just like a shadow attached to a body under the broad daylight. Everyday in that particular month he won money by the thousands. Within a month he had accumulated over eighty thousand dollars. This easy money that he made at Genting prompted him to resign from his job to become professional gambler. However, “no flower would blossom for a hundred days”[花无百日红]。 He did not realise the ancient wisdom of the Chinese adage, “输钱总是赢钱起” , which means “for a gambler to go bankrupt, he is always given the chance to win money at its initial stage”.

Later on ‘the wheel of fortune’ turned against him. In one instance, he lost all his chips until he had not even money left to get down from Genting. He tried to hitch a ride but to no avail. In the end he had to walk all the way down from Genting to get back to Kuala Lumpur.

Another of my childhood friend was Kun. He was a sales manager of a wholesaler of beers in town. To promote the sale of liquor, it was natural for him to mix with friends and entertain clients in the evenings. Hence his social networking was very extensive. Among the friends he mixed were Police Inspectors of all races. He took pride of his friends and always boasted to others that they were his ‘best friends whom he could rely on’.

One evening Kun was gambling with his friends in a secluded cottage near a pig farm. The Police raided the place. The gamblers fled helter-skelter. Kun and my one other friend were caught as they were too slow and clumsy to react to this sudden commotion. Actually the Police was more interested in the money on the gambling table than rounding up the gamblers. They went all out to snatch the money found on the table before they pretended to catch a few ‘lame ducks’ from the dispersing crowd. On seeing that the Inspector was one of his drinking buddies, Kun waved his hand excitedly and yelled to him, “Wei, Ooi, it is me, Ah Kun!” The Inspector Ooi retorted, “I’ve caught even you.” Poor Kun and my other friend had to stay over-night at the Police lock-up.

The next morning they were brought before a magistrate, with a set of cards and a mere ten ringgit Malaysia was produced as concrete evidence of their crime. Both pleaded guilty and each had to pay a fine of RM 200.

Yet another of my friend was Ken, a petty hawker who was living from hand to mouth. One evening he was strolling along the Old Market Road . On the abandoned jetty by the riverside of River Krian he saw a group of boys squatting. This aroused his curiosity. He approached the boys. On reaching the spot, he heard the sounds,“toong!” “toong!” “toong!” “toong!”. All of a sudden, the boys jumped into the river. Scattering on the ground were cards and some money of about twenty to thirty dollars. Ken was overjoyed to see the money and he wondered why did the boys jump into the river. As he was about to reap his good fortune by scooping up the money, he found his arms were rudely pulled behind by two Policemen who mistakenly arrested him. My poor friend had to swallow the sorrow just like ‘a dumb person tasting a bitter pill’[哑子吃黄连]. That night Ken had to sleep with the bugs and mosquitoes on the cold floor behind the iron bars.

On the next morning, he was escorted to the Magistrate court together with some other gamblers who were rounded up on the previous night. The magistrate, Mr.Abraham Ali Katuk, passed a uniform verdict of RM 200 fine for each and every gambler who admitted to his guilt.
When it was the turn of my friend to face the magistrate, he pleaded, “Your Honour, My Lord, can I pay by instalments?”

On hearing that, Mr.Abraham Ali Katuk chuckled and then burst into laughter until he fell off from the bench and rolling on the floor as he took it as the ‘joke of the century’. After regaining his composure, out of sympathy for my friend, the magistrate dismissed him with a fine of ninety per cent discount. Ken was able to leave the court after his neighbour, Ah Tom, helped him to settle the fine of RM 20.

From then on, my friend, Ken, vowed not to look at people gambling, especially at ‘those boys who would jump into the river’ before he knew what was happening.

2010-09-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Old Town Chinese Medical Hall

On the adjacent side of High Road,a stone’s throw away from my house, was a Chinese Medical Hall where I used to spend many of my ‘happy hours’ during my primary school years, especially during the year-end long vacation stretching over a period of five to seven weeks.

The medical hall was a shop-house at the corner of the t-junction of High Road and Lorong Pintu Sepuloh. It had a five-foot way in front and along side of the the shop. The five-foot way offered us a good avenue to play various games including hide-and-seek ,high jump with a rope as a ‘high jump pole’. We also played indoor games like Chinese chess and ping-pong in the house.

I always hung around the shop for the whole day except when it was time for lunch or dinner. On those days parents were too busy with their chores to care about the whereabouts of their children as long as they came back during mealtimes.

On Sundays we always woke up early to tune in to the physical exercise programme that Beijing Central People‘s Broadcating Station(CHINA NATIONAL RADIO) [北京中央人民广播电台] broadcast at 6.30 am, local time.

We performed the exercise on the road and along the five-foot way. If time permitted, we would jog to Pai Teik Primary School or cycle to Changkat Hill.

In the early sixties, it was a luxury for a household in town to subscribe to a newspaper as most of the town folks could hardly afford it. But for the medical hall, it was a different story. Every morning the medical hall had a copy of Chinese daily, Sin Chew Jit Poh [星洲日报], delivered to its doorstep. On Sunday mornings, children would wait anxiously for the delivery of the newspaper. They would rush and scramble for it, for one particular page with the section called ‘The Students’ Corner’[ 学生园地]。It featured short essays written by primary school pupils in the country.Being the children of the medical hall,they held the ‘trump card’ and had the ‘upper hand’ over me. They took turns to read the column. I had to wait till each and everyone of them had finished quenching their thirst of reading the column before it was handed to me. At times the youngest brother of the family would purposely ‘glue on to the paper indefinitely’ or ‘sleep on it with eyes wide-open’ just to test my patience. That was an initial social lesson that I had to learn to cope with.

The proprietor of this medical hall was a first generation Hakka immigrant from China with the surname of Chong. To respect him as one of the few Chinese physicians in the town,we addressed him as “Xin Sang” [先生]. Mr. Chong was a quiet, polite and soft-spoken man. He was not much of a talker but he was a good listener, synonymous with a doctor listening to his patient while diagnosing. He earned the respect of all those people who came into contact with him.

He was a very thrifty and disciplined man. He never ate out. The breakfast prepared was a bowl of oatmeal mixed with one or two teaspoons of cream milk for every one in the family. He lived a life of a puritan although he was an atheist . Whenever my late father ran short of cash to pay the rent or to purchase goods during those difficult years he would look up for Mr Chong.

Mr.Chong’s business was considered good as he did all his business transactions in cash terms only. Rarely did I see any patient entering the shop asking for a discount for the medicine Mr.Chong dispensed.

Although Mr.Chong was financially sound, he was very meticulous with the money he spent. To get better discounts and good offers, he would buy goods and essential items in bulk and paying cash.

To save money he cut his children's hair himself. The success story of Mr.Chong as a self-made barber spurred my late father to emulate. He bought a set of barber’s kit and used us as guinea-pigs. We became the instant laughing stock in the neighbourhood as our haircut became the forerunner of the Beatles.

The other children would ridicule us as “Coconut-head” [椰壳头].

Since then my late father stopped emulating Mr Chong. Later on we would use the abandoned barber’s kit as our plaything.

Mr.Chong had five sons and a daughter. I was quite close to the second youngest son, Ah Ming, who was a year older than me. We played together and seldom quarreled. Once in a while we would go out together to the riverbank of River Krian beside the bridge to build sand castles or the‘Great Wall of China’; or to a clear stream on the other side of River Krian to catch fish which Ah Ming’s father allowed him to keep in an improvised aquarium. Every evening I would go to his house to watch him change the water in the aquarium. Sometimes he allowed me to partake in the process. On every alternate day I would follow him to a muddy drain at Kalidonia Road to scoop with a wire loop, tiny earthworms to feed the fish he reared.

Ah Chau was Mr.Chong's second son. He was six years older than me. At the age of thirteen, he had to help his father to look after the shop in the morning while his father was busily preparing lunch for the family. In the afternoon he attended school at the Methodist Private Secondary School. I remembered when I was at Standard Three, I was lagging behind in my English lessons in school as I did not know how to read the textbook. I approached Ah Chau for help. He took pains to check the pronunciation of each word from a bilingual English-Chinese dictionary and I would try to translate the pronunciation of the English words with Chinese characters. It took us quite some time with a few sessions to complete a short chapter. By the time I had done with the first chapter, my English teacher would have already covered a few chapters ahead. I could never keep up with my teacher in school so I finally gave up learning the subject.

In a way, the memory of the Chinese Medical Hall and the family members involved are deep-rooted in my heart and whenever I reminisce of my childhood years, they come into my mind. In another perspective, I consider myself to be lucky not to be born in this new era whence the only ‘entertainment’ a poor child has after school is just a succession of tuition classes of all sorts.

2010-08-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

Timeless Lesson from Bapu Gandhi

There was a chapter in my primary school History lesson highlighting Mahatma Gandhi as the 'sacred hero' of India [印度圣雄甘地]. At that time it never occurred to me that a short,skinny and half-naked fellow carrying a long stick, could emerge as the icon of the struggle for the Independence of India. Fifty years later, reading the book ‘The Life of Mahatma Gandhi’ written by Loise Fischer, I am more than convinced that he deserves such a recognition.

Bapu Gandhi was indeed a great man with credibility,integrity and sincerity. Though he was small in size, he stood tall among men. He has travelled the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent and the people of India respected him like a godly figure to the point of kneeling before him to kiss his toes and even kissing the dust of his footsteps he trod past.

For more than thirty years, Bapu Gandhi tirelessly led numerous non-violent and non-cooperation movements against the British Empire. Many a time he was charged with the seditious act and thrown into prison which he gladly accepted without the slightest complaint. He had spent a total of 2,089 days in Indian prisons and 249 days in South African prisons. Bapu Gandhi loved it in jail: “I have been quite happy and making up for arrears in sleep (which he missed outside the jail),” he wrote to his follower, Miss Madeleine Slade. To him going to prison was part and parcel of the Indian politics as it was a basic part of his doctrine of non-co-operation to arouse the nation for liberation.

In the subsequent years prior to the Independence of India, the Muslims in India encountered considerable difficulty in joining the government service as their education was usually inferior to that of Hindus, Parsis and Christians. The Muslim urban middle class looked to their leader, Mr. Jinnah, to get them British government jobs, and he did so by persuading the authorities to establish quotas for Muslims irrespective of qualifications. However, Bapu Gandhi was against it as he maintained that meritocracy should not give way to quotas based on religious affiliation. He argued that, “For administration to be efficient it must be in the hands of the fittest. There should certainly be no favoritism. If we want five engineers we must not take one from each community but we must take the fittest five even if they were all Mussulmans or all Parsis. ..... The educationally backward communities will have a right to favoured treatment in the matter of education at the hands of the national government... But those who aspire to occupy responsible posts in the government of the country can only do so if they pass the required test.”

Unfortunately, up to this very day, there are people who are still against meritocracy, among them there is a prominent figure, who goes to the extent 'to label those who pushed for meritocracy as being as racists as those who defended Malay rights.'

Luckily we have other pragmatic and open-minded leaders like Dato’ Zaid Ibrahim, who shares the opinion of Bapu Gandhi:
“If by open competition and transparent policies the net effect is that some Malays still need extra help and support, then of course a responsible government will have to step in; to provide the incentives and the safety net to bridge the gap.”

One great achievement of Bapu Gandhi was his social revolution to lead the movement for the emancipation of untouchables by abolishing the Caste system as he regarded the system as a cruel inequality imposed by Indians on other Indians in India. To him all Indians should be treated equally.
He said, “if it was proved to me that it (Caste System) is an essential part of Hinduism I for one would declare myself an open rebel against Hinduism itself.”

No man who cared more for popularity than principle would have made such a public statement like Bapu Gandhi. Bapu took the risk of losing the support of the majority of the Indians who were Hindus. Regardless of the consequence, he made the stance against the caste system in order to purify his religion.

Unlike Bapu Gandhi, most of the politicians around us like to sing tunes that soothe the ears and hearts of the masses they represent. These politicians are cunning hypocrites; they are not that ‘dumb and stupid’ as to commit political suicides by following the deeds of Bapu Gandhi.

Albert Einstein once wrote about Bapu Gandhi: “He had demonstrated that a powerful human following can be assembled not only through the canning game of the usual political manoeuvres and trickeries but through the cogent examples of a morally superior conduct of life. In our time of utter moral decadence he was the only statesman to stand for a higher human relationship in our political sphere.”

Bapu Gandhi had reminded the people that ‘rights’ should go hand-in-hand with ‘duties’. It was not right for one to demand for his rights but conveniently or intentionally forget about his duties to others.

If only those who live off the generosity of others and do nothing in return could take heed the advice of the late U.S. President, John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address to the nation, “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”[“别问国家能为你做什么,问问你自己能为国家做什么."], or to adhere to the true spirit of the slogan of the People’s Republic of China during the years of early fifties , “To serve the people”[为人民服务], they ought to be ashamed of their unjustified demand of rights as they should understand that “In this world there is no such thing as a free lunch!”.[天下没有白吃的午餐!]。

On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot with three bullets while he was walking to a platform from which he was to address a prayer meeting. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment of 550,000,000 rupees to Pakistan. Godse resented Bapu Gandhi’s insistence that the Hindu refugees be evacuated from the mosques in Delhi. He was bitter because no demands were made on the Muslims. In striving to restore religious harmony, Bapu Gandhi paid with his own life which he had no regret as he had expected it. He had once mentioned forty years before the assassination, “Death is the appointed end of all life. To die by the hand of a brother, rather than by disease or in such other way, cannot be for me a matter of sorrow. And if, even in such a case, I am free from the thought of anger or hatred against my assailant, I know that that will redound to my eternal welfare, and even the assailant will later on realize my perfect innocence.”

Bapu Gandhi had sacrificed his life in an effort to promote religious tolerance in his country. In retrospect, we need to ask ourselves, or our political leaders for that matter, what we have not done in the past, and what we are striving to do in the future. Is it not our mission to promote and improve our inter-racial and inter-religious harmony in the true spirit of 1Malaysia? Or is it just a gimmick, and nothing else?

2010-05-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

Raft House on Lake Kenyir I went to Lake Kenyir on April 29,2010 with my niece and her family members.

The journey to Lake Kenyir via the East-West Highway from Butterworth was eight hours. On the way we stopped at Gerik and Besut for refreshment.

We stayed at a raft house floating on the Lake Kenyir about 500 metres away from a private jetty. The basic amenities provided in the raft house included an uninterrupted flow of piped water from a mountain stream connected through an under-water piping, and a daily twelve-hour of electricity provided by a diesel generator in the evening.
Surprisingly,there wasn’t any mosquito biting us during our three days’ stay at the raft house. I supposed it would take a mosquito with the stamina of a marathon runner to fly over the lake. And most probably before the mosquito could land on the body of any one of us, it would be too exhausted to have fallen prey to the fish awaiting in the lake with their mouths wide open.

Actually we were totally unaware that the trip was organised solely for the twenty odd people of enthusiastic and vibrant anglers. We knew it later on when we were about to reach our destination.

The organiser of the trip was Mr.Lam. He is the family friend of Mike, my nephew-in-law. He allowed us to join the group as non-participating guests. We were the earliest group to arrive at the raft house. The other two groups reached the place at different times,one at 11 pm in the evening and the other at 3 am in the next morning. One could imagine our sleep was disrupted intermittently throughout the night by the talking of those late comers. On the following morning, after the breakfast was over, Mr. Lam made arrangement for the anglers to go out fishing in the boats provided.
Subsequently, Ah Keat, the son of Mr. Lam, took us for a boat ride in the Lake Kenyir. In the lake we could see grey coloured branches protruding from the water. They were once tree trunks before water was introduced into this area. He brought us to a nearby waterfall where the children had a great time enjoying in the pond.
For the children,even the simplest things like boating or immersing in a pond beneath a waterfall,would fill them with a sense of joy beyond the comprehension of the others, especially the elders.

As we all know,Lake Kenyir is the largest man-made lake in Southeast Asia, spanning 260,000 hectares. It is also Malaysia's largest rock filled hydroelectric dam. When the area was flooded, most of the hills were above the water level, thus creating about 340 man-made islands.
It is a popular retreat for nature lovers as it is surrounded by lush tropical rain forest. It is also an angler’s haven as the lake is home to hundreds of species of freshwater fish like Baung, Toman, Kelisa, Lampam and Kelah. In the evening Mr.Lam took us for another boat ride in the lake intending to demonstrate to us his superb fishing skill. On its course to the fishing spot he stopped at another raft house to buy some small fish from a Malay friend to use as baits. These baits are crucial and invaluable to the anglers just like the players in a tennis court waiting anxiously for somebody to get the tennis balls to start the game.
This was the first time I came to know that a small fish is used as a bait to angle a big fish although it is a long established fact that "big fish eats small fish" [大鱼吃小鱼]。

However, luck was not with Mr.Lam then as a three-kilogram fish escaped from his line with the hook attached to its mouth. Jokingly, Mr.Lam was telling us, “The fish has got to visit a dentist!”

As night fell, we had to return to the raft house for dinner.
It is a marvellous experience to stay in a raft house floating in a serene and peaceful lake. The only shortcoming is the noise produced by the generator throughout the night.

Nowadays it is not easy to find a place where one could lead a life temporarily cut off from the outside world, enjoying being alone with the nature doing nothing except watching the moon climbing up lazily from behind the distant hills, casting a golden beam upon the tranquil lake. This lake will be registered in my mind for quite sometime as I hope to come back again for jungle trekking and exploration of other caves and waterfalls.

2010-04-05T05:21:00.000-07:00

Family Trip to Yogyakarta

By chance I visited a city which has many variation to its name to match the diverse faiths the people adhere to.

The city, for a brief period of time, was the capital of Indonesia after it gained its independence from the Dutch in 1949. It is known as Yogyakarta, Yogya, Jogjakarta or Jogja. As if those names are not enough, the senior citizens in Indonesia call it Ngayogyakarta. Interestingly, you can call the city by any of those names, the world would still know which city you are referring to.

In the city one would find the remains of Buddhist and Hindu temples that have a millennium of history behind them. It is a testimony that the Javanese was once under the influence of the great religions of India. Although the contemporary religions of the Javanese are Islam and Christianity, nevertheless the Buddhist and Hindu temples are still in good shape to attract foreign tourists. The listing of Candi Borobudur and Candi Prambanan as the world heritage by the UNESCO recently also add to the importance of these places of worship.

I visited Yogyakarta on 25 March, 2010 and the trip was planned eight months ago by my nephew, Yang ,who booked the AirAsia flights from Kuala Lumpur to Yogyakarta as well as the connecting flights from Penang.

I was glad to join this family trip as it offered a rare opportunity for me to meet up my immediate family members as most of them were busy with their work schedules in different places.

We spent four days and three nights together touring briefly a few places in Yogyakarta including Candi Prambanan, Candi Borobudur,Museum Kraton and Taman Sari. We spent one evening of our stay to let the ladies go window shopping along the Malioboro Street, the busiest street in the city centre.Unfortunately, our visit to the Museum Pura Pakualaman did not materialise as it was closed on Friday when we visited the place. Travelling around the city of Yogyakarta was not a problem for us as Yang had rented a four-wheeler and engaged a local driver to show us around the city. As we had reached Yogyakarta early in the morning of March 25,2010, at 8.30 am of the local time in Indonesia, it was too early to check in the hotel we booked. We decided to go to the Merapi Mountain National Park which took us about one hour’s drive from the airport. Sweating profusely, we trekked up a one-kilometre jungle trail hoping to have a closer view of the Merapi Mountain; only to be disappointed to find out at the end of the trail we had to climb up another three- storey observatory tower to view the Merapi Mountain from afar. Even that was not possible as the peak of the mountain was covered with layers of silvery clouds. Neither did we have any luck on the following afternoon when we paid a visit to Prambanan Temple (Candi Prambanan). It started to rain heavily when we entered the first Candi where the statue of the Holy Cow was located. We were trapped there by heavy down pour for almost an hour so that we could not have sufficient time to visit all the other temples in the vicinity. To cut short the visit, we took a tram to go round the compound. The small kids were too delighted to ride on the tram than to visit the historical temples.

Visit to Borobudur was the main tourist attraction that no one could afford to miss. It was on our itinerary on the third day of our trip. As a foreigner, everyone of us had to pay US$15 as the entrance fee. Borobudur is the biggest Buddhist temple in the eighth century built by King Samaratungga of the Old Mataram kingdom. It took almost one hundred years for the construction to be completed. It was constructed as a ten-terraces building with 1460 relief panels and 504 Buddha effigies in its complex. All the relief panels in Borobudur temple reflect the Buddha’s teaching. For this reason, the temple functioned as educating medium for those who wanted to learn Buddhism.

Although our tour guide was a Muslim, he could relate vividly the history and teaching of the Buddha as he patiently guided us up the staircases of the Borobudur temple.

For the whole trip of Yogyakarta, we were very thankful to have a very dedicated driver who would bring us to some of the best restaurants to have a taste of the local cuisine. The menu was usually of sweet-sour and deep fried fish which was not too spicy. It was also cooked in a variety of other ways. Steamed fish was not found in the menu of any of the restaurants in the city. Believe it or not, one meal at such a restaurant was much cheaper than the cost of the burgers that we had in a McDonald outlet in the city. Another interesting feature was the number of Chinese that we met in any restaurant was far more than those we saw on the streets in the city for any single day.
The hotel we stayed was ten-minute drive from the Adisucipto International Airport. Though it might be ranked as one star, two stars or none at all, the hotel was well kept and beautifully decorated. The service of the staff was exceptional and commendable. Housekeeping was done every day without fail. Breakfast was served at anytime in the morning upon the request of the guest. Throughout my four-day stay at the hotel, I was not bitten by a mosquito; a wonder that you and I would find hard to believe. This prompted my friend, Tommy Sawyer, to postulate that the female mosquitoes, like their counterparts of the Indonesian young ladies, could have “seek employment in the foreign lands”. On the whole the trip was a resounding success. For this, I have to give credit to and thank Yang and his wife, Angeline for taking the trouble and their precious time to plan the trip meticulously.

2010-03-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

Home-cooked Food

My late mother had the wisdom to tell me to get a wife who would devote her full time to take care of my family. I was deeply touched by what she had told my late sister that as long as I was well taken care of by my wife, she would be pleased and contented. True enough, my children and I have never had to worry what to eat for the next meal.

My wife loves watching cooking shows and she never misses any cooking show on TV. Needless to say, whenever she has the time, she will be glued to her arm-chair for hours watching cooking programs on Astro, paid TV channels. These programs update her with new cooking skill as well as provide her with new recipes. She would then put into practice what she had learnt from the programs. Whenever we are at home, she never fails to cook a meal for us unless she is unwell. She would make sure every meal was ‘hot and fresh from the oven and wok’.

Just as she would update her skill with new recipes, she would improve her skill at using better cooking utensils available,as a Chinese saying put in this way, ‘工欲善其事必先利其器' [ meaning that a good tool would help to do a better job].Thirty years ago she invested on a few sets of expensive AMC cooking wares through installments.

Her purchase made many of our friends and relatives to comment that it was an unneccessary and extravagent purchase.

As my second daughter was away from home to study and later to work in Kuala Lumpur since 2002, she seldom has the chance to taste home-cooked food prepared by my wife. Whenever she came home, my wife would try to prepare dishes that my daughter could never have eating out.

Lately, her knee problem does not permit her to stand for too long in the kitchen. But, out of love and affection for her second daughter coming back during the Chinese New Year festival, she endured the agony of knee pain due to prolong standing, to prepare a few more Hakka dishes for my daughter to bring back to Kuala Lumpur. She bore the pain quietly without letting her daughter know.

Even our Indonesia housekeeper,Fitri, whom we employed forthnightly to do the house-keeping is treated equally with the dishes she enjoys. My wife would find out from Fitri what she likes to eat before my wife goes to the market. Our housekeeper likes the home-cooked food prepared by my wife, especially the soup which my wife boils for hours to make it taste better. According to Fitri, we are the only family in the area that serve her with home-cooked meals. Other families she works for would simply buy packets of chicken rice for her to eat.

I am already pampered with eating the home-cooked food prepared by my wife. I dread to imagine the day I have to prepare it by myself unless I take up cooking soon.

2010-01-25T02:36:00.000-08:00

Buffet Lunch at Penang Cititel

It was great and auspicious to start the new year, 2010 with a grand feast, especially with those ‘young girls and boys’ of the sixties. It was heart warming to see my dear friends, especially the ‘girls’, with an excellent appetite eating like ‘a hungry tiger swallowing a helpless goat’[饿虎吞羊] to welcome the upcoming lunar year of the Golden Tiger. Some were totally lost in the conversation that they had completely forgotten about the food on the table.

I was in a joyous mood,however, I did not say much. I remained as introvert as the time I was during my schooldays and I also did not feel like eating. It was no wonder that I was told by our 'Black Beauty' during the buffet lunch that she was not aware I was in her class in those days. Shirley jokingly commented that I could not eat and might later not able to sleep a wink because of the "beautiful girls". She could be right.

The buffet lunch was held at Cititel Hotel in Penang Island on January 16, 2010, with sixteen people in attendance; Mr. Ng Huang Leng was the only teacher invited. The thought of having a gathering sprouted when our former classmate, Kee Siew Gek, who came back from Sydney,Australia, for a short visit to her mother on January 15, 2010. Incidentally, this date coincided with the arrival of another classmate of ours, Lim Seng Kwang, who came back from Kota Kinabalu for holidays. The plan for the meeting was done a month ago through email. In the end, all of us decided to have a buffet lunch at a hotel in Penang. Phaik Hooi was instrumental in the booking of the venue. It was learnt that Penang Cititel Hotel was the only hotel in the Island offering fifty percent discount of its buffet lunch to the senior citizens.

At the luncheon many new faces had emerged after more than forty years of seperation.We did not see one another over the years even though we were residing in the same state of Penang, or within the same country of Malaysia. For instance, I have not met those classmates from Bukit Pancur who were in the same class with me in the Remove Class and Form One A in the Methodist Secondary School of Nibong Tebal. These classmates of mine are staying in the same state as me in Penang with Teoh Phaik Lian and Tan Siew Choo residing in Penang Island while Loh Meng Kiang is staying at Nibong Tebal.

Meng Kiang was especially overjoyed with this meeting that he even arranged some other programmes for Seng Kwang days after the buffet lunch was over. Seng Kwang and I were invited on the subsequent Wednesday to have seafood feast, Thai traditional massage and sauna in Bukit Tambun. In the evening we met some other classmates including Tan Way Joo in Sungai Bakap to savour Teochew porridge. Three days later, Meng Kiang arranged for us to go to Taiping in the evening to touch the wild boars hoping that all of us would have the ‘Lucky Strike’. One classic saying from our dear friend, Meng Kiang, was that "A successful person is one who not only makes himself happy, but also all those around him happy too." In a way he is considered ‘successful’ as we were 'very happy' to be the beneficiaries of his generosity.

It is also worth mentioning that Hooi Su Hung and Teh Kim Gaik came all the way from Kuala Lumpur.Unlike some other classmates who were indifferent to the emails sent out to them, they took all the trouble in terms of time and money to take a bus straight to Penang and then travel back home after the lunch was over. 'Time seems to have stood still, or to have forgotten our dear friend, Bro.Khor Hoe Soon' as he still looks like a young man in his late twenties. In order not to embarrass myself, I tried not to sit beside him or stand next to him as he would make me look more like his father than his ex-classmate. The lunch was supposed to end at 3.00 pm. Amidst the chat and jokes,we lost track of time and it was well past three that we realised the time. Seeing that all the other guests had already left the restaurant, we had to bide farewell to one another hoping we would meet again at some other time in the near future.

2009-12-28T07:06:00.001-08:00

The Crucial Year of 1421
History would never lie whereas a historian might do that. A historian might set aside his conscience, or even throw it out of the window, just to distort history to serve the power-that-be. Of course, there were those who would be truthful to historical facts. One typical example was a Chinese historian named Si Ma Qian [司马迁].He was a renowned scholar during the Han Dynasty of China.He wrote a magnificent volume of the 'Historical Records' [史记,Shi-Ji].

He chose to defiant the wishes of the emperor in order to be truthful to the historical facts that he was put in jail and castrated(Castration as an alternative to the death penalty).

In school our history lesson taught us how Christopher Colombus[ 哥伦布] founded the America continent while Ferdinand Magellen[麦哲伦] was proclaimed as the first person to circumnavigate the globe. But,with the emergence of new findings of the research by Mr.Gavin Menzies as published in his book entitled '1421' in 2003, what we had learnt earlier in school about Colombus and Magellen would have to be unlearnt, or to be thrown into the ash heap of history. In his book, Gavin Menzies maintained that it was the Chinese who were the pioneers to perform the feats that were attributed to Colombus,Magellan and the others.

Like the great historian Si Ma Qian, Gavin Menzies stood firmly on the ground of the Truth rather than siding his fellow Europeans to distort historical facts. As a British retired submarine captain,he had a deep knowledge of seamanship,cartography and astro-navigation.He did an extensive cum intensive study of the treasure fleets led by Admiral Zheng He(郑和)during the Ming dynasty of the fifteenth century.In his research he had 'visited over nine hundred museums' all over the world and consulted many distinguished experts related to the fields.It took him fourteen long years to write the book. It was noted in his book that:

"On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China to "proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas." When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor, Zhu Di,had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long,self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan." Through a wealth of physical evidence such as Chinese porcelain,silk,votive offerings,artifacts,carved stones left by the Chinese admirals as monuments to their achievements;the ship wrecks on the coasts of Africa,America,Australia and New Zealand; the sound of cockcrows in Peru which were typical of Asiatic hens;the DNA of the diseases found on the aborigines of the African and American continents as compared to those of the Chinese;the style of the clothing they wore which were similar to the long robe worn by the Chinese;the crops transplanted and animals that were transported from China to different parts of the world; Gavin Menzies established and concluded that Zheng He and his subordinates had circumnavigated the globe by at least half a century earlier than their European counterparts.

In fact Gavin Menzies has suggested Colombo, Magellan and many others from the West might not be able to make the 'same discoveries' had it not for the copies of the maps charted by the Chinese which they carried with them when they set off on their own journeys into the 'unknown'. In other words,it was Zheng He and his fleets that had paced the way for the western powers to colonise the world in the later part of history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzFq0Ivwz9g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BLWXBJGX0I&feature=related

2009-12-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

On Board The Star Cruise Libra

"Go cruising!!"

This was suggested by my elder daughter last October. She felt that a cruise holiday should be the most suitable for my wife as she will have more freedom to decide upon the amount and type of activities she wants to partake in, bearing in mind that my wife has a nagging knee problem.
She offered to pay for our trip.

Having decided upon to go on the Super Star Cruise in November 2009, I tried to contact the local tour & travel agencies in Bukit Mertajam and Penang. Unfortunately, most of them did not cater for cruise holidays as it was not popular among the locals, other than the rich gamblers. Some of my friends felt that it was boring to go on a cruise as it was like confining oneself in the vicinity of a resort for days. But, I felt otherwise as we yearned to have a yearly family gathering whereby we could have a 'marathon' chat for days on board a cruise liner. We can chat over a restaurant table for six times a day if we choose to. Besides, we will be pampered and waited upon.

On the other hand, the Europeans are very fond of go on a cruise. Besides participating in the daily programmes organised by the crew, they would still have the leisure to read books and make notes by the poolside deck, and enjoy sunbathing at the same time. I had met a Scottish gentleman at Island Plaza in Penang weeks before I went on my cruise. He assured me cruising was by far his best means of traveling, and he would do it a few times a year to different destinations.

The Super Star Cruise Libra provides a relaxed, resort-style cruise. It is a ten-decked cruise built with cabins at different decks with different categories and at different rates, and six meals a day are served in three different restaurants to cater for the needs of the passengers from different countries and different ethnic groups. It provides varied and flexible daily activities for the participants. Its non-intrusive services of the highest standard are most welcomed by holiday seekers in general.

The cruise is fully air-conditioned and smoking is strictly prohibited except in the open space on the uppermost deck. Services are prompt and swift with just a tinkle of the phone. Instructions on all the do's and don'ts are clearly specified and stated on the walls and doors of the cruise.

We embarked on the cruise at Port Klang on November 22, 2009 at around 4 pm. We surrendered our passports at the counter and were issued with access cards which doubled as 'charged cards' for all transactions done on board the cruise.

One and a half hour after the cruise left the port to enter international waters, the captain, through the PA system, wished all the would be gamblers on board "good luck" as the two casinos were open for them to try their hands on the game of chance. I climbed up to the uppermost deck to have my maiden view of the Straits of Malacca.

Standing on the deck overlooking the Straits of Malacca as the cruise was charting its course in the high seas heading for the Phuket Island, I could not help but thinking of the greatness of my mother boarding a cargo vessel travelling along the Straits of Malacca and venturing across the South China Seas to go back to China to pay a last and final visit to my lonely, ailing old paternal grandmother over forty years ago.

At that time, my mother travelled on a cargo vessel back to China, sleeping on a fold-able canvas bed at night on the walkway among the cargoes, part of which she had to dispense to her friends and relatives in China. The voyage took her ten to fourteen days to reach Swatow [汕头]. My mother could not endure the lengthening waves and the deepening troughs that she fell sick most of the time during the long and lonely voyage. She recalled that she dreaded she might not survive the journey to see my grandmother and her beloved brother.

Sixty years ago, due to old age and ill health my grandmother was left alone in China to stay with a cousin brother when my mother and my eldest brother came to Malaya in the year 1948. It was pitiful that my grandmother could not be with us since then. My mother was always worried and concerned about my grandmother living alone in China. It seemed that she was blind later on and was not well-taken care of by the family of my cousin brother, especially at the time when my father could not afford to send money back to subsidise her living expenses.

In the year 1959 my mother kept on urging and nagging my father to go back to China to pay a final visit to my grandmother. I could understand the predicament of my father as his financial standing could not permit him to do so. My father's business went bankrupt in the year prior to that. My mother said if my father did not make an effort to do so, he would never live to see his mother again. My mother reiterated that even to the extent of going around 'begging' from friends and relatives it had to be done, as time was running out for them to make the journey back to their homeland to see my grandmother.

Hence my father had no other alternatives, but to visit friends and relatives from Perlis to Kuala Lumpur promoting 'courier service', looking for people who were willing to remit kerosene tins of pork oil or baggage of used clothes, or monies to be sent back to relatives in China. By doing so, my father would get commissions or 'angpau' which would be utilised as 'water leg'[shui-jiao,水脚]，the fare for the round trip by cargo vessel from Penang to Swatow.

Three years later my mother followed my father's footsteps to go back to China. The voyage was a major challenge to my mother as she was illiterate and advanced in age. Handling of cargoes and document papers had to be done by my father when she embarked at Penang port, and by my maternal uncle when she reached China at Swatow. She could not converse with others, including the immigration and custom officers, in other dialects other than in her own mother tongue of Hakka. Imagine the trauma my mother had to go through for days in the open seas with no one to talk to and 'no book to read' as the Europeans did. Nevertheless , her seemingly impossible mission was accomplished. She finally met my paternal grandmother who died years later.

The lesson I learnt from my mother: it is 'never too late', 'never too often or too far' to visit one's parents when they are still alive! However, it would be 'crying over spilt milk' when they are no more around.

2009-11-14T02:46:00.000-08:00

The Sage Who Never Speaks

As I see it, meditation is easy to learn but hard to master.

I have learnt various methods of meditation from different masters over umpteen years without success. I am rather embarrassed to tell people that I have practised meditation, and practised it on and off for many years as 'I am still knocking on the door' without being able to gain full admission into the hall of the meditation proper.

Some might wonder, "What is meditation?" and "Why meditate at all?"

To the these questions,Paul Brunton has this to say in his book, A Search of Secret Egypt[page 146]:

"We have lost the old art of being alone and do not know what to do with ourselves in solitude. We do not know how to make ourselves happy out of our inner resources,and so we must pay entertainers or other persons to make us temporarily happy. We are not only unable to be alone, but less able to sit still. Yet, if we could keep the body in the posture for a time and use our mind in the right manner, we might win a deep wisdom worth having,and draw a deep peace into our hearts"

I first heard of the name Ramana mentioned many years ago by a former colleague,Mr.Hooi Weng Chee. I came to know he has been practising meditation through either books written by Ramana himself, or the books written by others about Ramana's method. At that time I did not pay much attention to all of it as I did not know who Ramana was and much less heard his name mentioned by anyone else.

Last August,Mr.Hooi advised me through a tele-conversation to read the book, 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle, which he claimed has helped him tremendously in his practice of meditation.

In yet another conversation a few days later, Mr. Hooi recommanded two books written by Paul Brunton, 'A Search in Secret India' and 'A Search in Secret Egypt' which he mentioned to be absorbing.

Paul Brunton was a British journalist. He came to India in the early 1930's in search of the Truth behind the ancient mysteries. This journey led him to many yogis and fakirs, but he was singularly unimpressed by any of them until he was guided mysteriously by an unknown force to see Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Sage of Arunachala. In the book written by him, A Search in Secret India, Paul Brunton recounted the story of his retreat at the foot of Arunachala, and his extraordinary experiences in the company of Maharshi.

Sri Ramana Maharshi was born in 1879. In his seventeenth year he attained enlightenment through a remarkable experience, as if undergoing death of the physical body while remaining in full consciousness. Following this transformation, he left his home and was drawn irresistibly to the sacred hill of Arunachala, where his ashram was formed.

Unlike other sages before him, he did not proclaim or propagate a new religion to recruit followers. He never tried to preach to anybody. It was the people themselves who came to him on their own free will to learn meditation from him.

Mr. Hooi adopts the Self Enquiry method of meditation as expounded by Baghavan Sri Ramana Maharishi. It is through reading the book A Search in Secret India during 1960's that he came to know and be interested in the teachings of Ramana. Although Mr.Hooi never had any personal contact with Sri Ramana Maharshi,he believed Maharshi would guide him along the way in his practice of meditation as Maharshi had said to the devotees before his death, "I am not going away. Where could I go?". On another occasion, he did mention, "If you remember Bhagavan, Bhagavan will remember you" ; "Even if you let go of Bhagavan, Bhagavan will never let go of you."

Ramana had led a simple life at Arunachala. He never left the foothill of the Holy Hill of Beacon all his life.

Rarely did he speak. He spoke only when it was absolutely necessary. Most of the time he was seen to be seated for hours in stillness like in a trance. That was the reason he was renowned as 'the Sage Who Never Speaks'.

2009-10-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

Tales From an Old Town Dwellers

~~I wish to extend my profound thanks to four of my beloved friends for the contribution of their stories as well as the corrections made for this write-up.~~

Dawn retreated to give way to the reign of the morning sun. School lessons convened early in the morning with the Physical Education of the Standard Five A of the Methodist Primary School of Nibong Tebal of the year 1963 in the school field. While the girls were playing happily and screaming excitedly in the play field,they saw their class teacher’s girl friend was having a Physical Education lesson in the vicinity,enjoying her PE class with her secondary schoolmates. Some of the naughty ones among the girls were shouting out her name and yelling aloud, “ Mr.Rice is calling you!”

Back in the class, after the Physical Education was over, the whole class had to stand on the chair for a whole period, a punishment pursued by Mr. Rice Yatim.

The bell rang. This time round it was the recess time for the upper primary pupils at the Pai Teik Chinese Primary School. Tom Lawyer and Jimmy Cutter were of the Standard Five pupils in the year 1962. They had planned and rehearsed mentally a means to cheat the school canteen operator. Tom Lawyer was holding a ten cent coin rushing in the direction of the canteen with Jimmy Cutter followed closely behind him. On reaching the canteen counter, Jimmy purposely gave Tom a push to set him off balance. Tom fell forward and before he could regain his balance, he skilfully aimed and threw the ten cent coin right into the coin box of the canteen operator. Tom pretended to be very angry with Jimmy and quarrelled fiercely with him for the loss of his precious ten cent coin!! To put the matter to rest, the canteen operator finally refunded Tom with a twenty cent coin ,the amount which Tom claimed to have accidentally been thrown into the coin box! With that money Tom and Jimmy bought two bowls of curry noodles. Needless to say the noodles tasted extra delicious!

School was over for the morning session of the Pai Teik Chinese Primary School after half past twelve in the afternoon. After taking lunch at home, I walked swiftly to the Coffin Street as two of my classmates were staying there as opposite neighbours. They were Tom Lawyer and Cari Brown. Both Tom and I had to wait patiently for Cari to finish off his chores of helping his maternal uncle in the preparation for the evening’s business of hawker food before he could have his own leisure time with us. After Cari had finished his ‘homework’, we got down to our serious business of ‘outwitting the elders’. We had a set of SOPs(Standard Operating Procedures) to comply to. Firstly we made a preliminary survey of the prospective shops to be patronised. Any shop with the least surveillance due to shortage of man power would be our prime target. We then entered the shop, and distracted the shop assistant by asking him to show us the various items from hither and thither. While the poor shop assistant was attending to one of us, the other two would lose no opportunity to slip into their pockets whatever items that could be easily pocketed unnoticed. I for one could not remember what we had stolen. The thrill was more on the act itself rather than the value or the usefulness of the items stolen; the thrill of the kids outwitting the the adults! I have to offer my apologies now and repent for what I had done then.

Ah Tai was my primary schoolmate. He was a decent boy, always smartly attired. His hair was always neatly combed,and not a strand out of place with the aid of hair gel like ‘Tancho’ or ‘Brylcreem’. But, when I last saw him twenty years ago, he was just entirely 'another person' in attire as well as in appearance. I was told that he was not of his normal self. I did not know what had happened to him then.

Lately, I just learnt from another friend the reason for his drastic change in personality.

About thirty over years ago, he was interested in a girl staying in a neighbouring town. He was of a timid type and hence he asked his cousin brother, Ah Ping, to chaperone him during his initial dates with the girl.Finally, there was a marriage ceremony . Unfortunately,the bridegroom was not Ah Tai! It was Ah Ping instead. Ah Tai got very furious with Ah Ping for betraying the trust he had given him. He was chasing after Ah Ping with a ‘parang’ up and down the town like a magnet being attracted to a steel rod. Since then Ah Tai has not been himself; something went askew in his mind,and he had to keep on contemplating over and over again the same question of “Who am I?”

Another pitiful figure in the town was my primary school teacher whom the pupils used to refer to as Lau Chang[老张] . He was a very thrifty person. Any penny that entered his pocket could hardly find its way out. With the money he saved over the years and the gratuity he got after his retirement he was ready to venture into the business of financing & leasing. On the first day of its operation and within an hour or so, all his monies were loan out to the local big time gamblers, each acting as a guarantor for another. It was merely like 'an hungry tiger borrowing a big fat pig from a farm.' as stated in a Chinese proverb of ‘lao hu jie zhu’ [老虎借猪]. No way could he recover the monies from these hardcore gamblers. The heartbreak and the disappointment of his failed business , coupled with the loss of his hard earned money must have taken a toll on him , as he did not survive long after that, leaving behind a widow to take care of their children.
Night fell as darkness slowly enveloped this quiet town of Nibong Tebal. Most residents opted to be dream chasers in the slumberland. There were scores of cinema viewers watching old film in the Southern Talkies. Ah Guan, Ah Beng and a few others who were supposed to be doing their revision at home were found to be idling their time at the open space of the basketball court at Pai Teik School Union. They then adjourned for a stroll from one end of the town to other, patrolling the town on behalf of the policemen.This had prompted their Mathematics teacher with the nicked name of ‘White Crab’ to remark, “I believe some of you should be able to give me the exact measurement of the roads in the town after having measured them so regularly.” Believe it or not, the shadows that were casted by these night walkers were sufficient to make the tar roads look darker the next morning.

2009-08-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

The Sounds of Silence

“Hello darkness, my old friend,

I’ve come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone,

neath the halo of a street lamp,

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of

A neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said i,you do not know

Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you,

Take my arms that I might reach you.

But my words like silent raindrops fell,

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon God they made.

And the sign flashed out its warning,

In the words that it was forming.

And the signs said, the words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls.

And whispered in the sounds of silence.”

Do you recognize the lyrics of this song?
Watch the video clips below to see how it is sung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-S90Uch2as&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=debgoWX1tLU&feature=related

This song was written in February 1964 by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the assassination of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Simon conceived the song as a way of capturing the emotional trauma felt by many Americans.

Basically, this song tells the truth about how people are slowly losing their ability at communicating to one another and they are becoming isolated and silence is slowly “growing like a cancer".

On another front, the writer of the article, Listen Carefully to Sounds of Silence by Narayani Ganesh, looks at the 'Sounds of Silence' from a different perspective. He quoted one typical example as follow:

“US president George Bush, in his much publicized address to a joint session of Congress, declared, “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make - either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists”. This leaves no space for a large number of ‘nations’ and individuals who oppose terrorism but want to distance themselves from Washington’s war plans as well.
The significance of silence is often underestimated. Silence does not necessary mean ignorance or even concurrence. It could well mean a desire to distance oneself from the situation in order to get a clearer view of the larger picture. Silence provides a chance to reflect and understand, so that greater comprehension and a wider, liberating perspective can help douse the flames of anger and revenge rather than fan and spread them, leading to more violence and unhappiness.”

So, one should not blame those countries which preferred not to take sides but to remain silence as silence speaks volumes.

“Silence is certainly useful as a valuable tool that can help sharpen the mind; to help us reflect in solitude and take stock. Christian scriptures often describe silence as ‘an aid to the practice of good’ since an unguarded tongue dissipates the soul, distracting the mind from concentration and comprehension – or to put it in spiritual terminology, from prayer and meditation.”

It is always a privilege for a person to remain in solitude in a room for certain hours of a day, to read and to reflect, to meditate or to take a nap without being disturbed by the outside world. It is certainly a joy to do so as ‘Silence is Golden’!

Silence Poem

What you can do:

You can criticise silence,

You can ignore silence.

What you cannot do:

You cannot sit even one fleeting minute

In silence.

Yet one day

It is you and you alone

Who will marry silence

And become inseparably one

With silence-sky.

Excerpt from

The Wings Of Light, Part 14 by Sri Chinmoy.

2009-07-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

To ‘Tengku’, I say "thank you!"

‘Tengku’ [东姑] was my playmate during my pre-school and school going age. He was my backdoor neighbor whose father was a shoemaker.

The nickname of ‘Tengku’ was derived from another nickname given by his father.

It was a common practice among the Chinese people passing down from generation to generation to give a kid a nickname which resembles that of an animal hoping that the kid would grow up effortlessly and healthily just like any other animal in the wild which was left to find its own food for survival.

The Tengku’ was given a nickname of ‘Niu Ku’[牛牯] by his father in the Hakka dialect meaning ‘male cow or bull’. I was not spared from this fate of the naming of a nickname by my father. I was called ‘Zhu Ko Xin’ [猪哥诚] carrying the meaning of ‘male pig named as Xin’.

Those elders in the neighbourhood of Nibong Tebal of the Hakka clan would always ridicule us with these nicknames until we grew up to enter the secondary schools.

In those years when we were kids, we used to play at the open space of the Pai Teik School Union [培德校友会] in the evening. More often than not, we did forget the time to go back for dinner. Occasionally, we would hear Tengku’s father raising his voice to yell at him from a distance, “Niu Ku, come back for dinner!”

Those friends who were around there heard the name of “Niu Ku” mentioned. They would conveniently ‘confer’ him with the title-ship of the ‘Tengku’.

Since then, ‘Tengku’ became his ‘brand’ name.

The ‘Tengku’ was a friendly, generous and trustworthy boy. He had a good collection of playthings which he was very willing to share with me during our play time when I was in his house. Together both of us would play for hours the games like the ‘snakes and ladders’, different kinds of chess and card games.

Sometimes he would show me his collection of stamps, coins and cigarette packs.

Other outdoor games which we played together were basketball, marbles, 'hide-and seek'.

Though I was two years older than him, I could not ‘out-play’ him with the advantage of age during the game as he was a better and smarter player.

Once in a while we would quarrel over a ‘suspected foul play’ or who should rightfully emerge as the ultimate winner of a game. If our quarrel persisted without any compromise or conclusion, the elder sisters of the ‘Tengku’ or his father had to intervene to send me home.
I still remember once we had a heated argument over who should be the mightiest of all the comics’ heroes that we knew of. We would take sides on the figures like the Superman, the Spiderman, the Batman and many others. Neither of us would want to give in to the other side and in the end a quarrel short of a fight ensued. In the end I was sent home again!

Come to think of it. We were very naïve and stupid to argue seriously over the comics’ figures which were fictitious and non-existent as no conclusion would ever be drawn from this fruitless argument.

But, do not blame the children then. Even the adults at present are still arguing endlessly over which religion is supposed to be the best of all the religions on this Earth. I personally believe that everyone has the liberty to seek his own path to be with the Supreme.
I had to admit that the ‘Tengku’ could afford to lose me as a friend. On the other hand I could not afford not to be his friend. The ‘trump card’ he was holding was the Chinese comics’ books he bought regularly, which I had to borrow from him to read. Losing him as a friend would mean an end to my access to his comics’ books. I could not forgo enjoy reading the comics he had bought.

Those were the days when we were having a great time together. I would never forget those years when we were together ‘learning to play’ as well as ‘playing to learn’. To ‘Tengku’, I would like to say “thank you” from the bottom of my heart!

2009-07-18T02:18:00.000-07:00

A Raft to the Other Shore of Good Governance

It’s a pity that we are yet to find, or rather we are quite reluctant to use it after we have found, a raft to bring us to the other shore of good governance. The following story from the ancient wisdom of the Indian scriptures could be a raft to bring us to the other shore of good governance if we are willing to use it.
Would you like to comment on the story?

Please do it.

Once a king went to a saint and bowed at his feet. The saint smiled and asked, “Can you give me your entire kingdom?” The king agreed happily and with full ceremony crowned the saint. The new king ordered the prince to be beaten up by the servants and the queens were made maidservants while the maids were made the queens. The old king was asked to take the place of adviser while the advisers were sent out among the public. The prisoners were asked to be sentries and the sentries were put in jail. Everything was upside down. Everyone protested to the previous king but he was helpless.

After a few days the saint called the king and handed over the crown saying, “Enough. Now you play with your toys and let me play with my God.” When the king insisted on knowing why the saint had behaved as he did, the saint replied: “The prince was in the habit of beating his servants, your queens ill-treated the maids, the maids were jealous of the queens’ easy lifestyle, the advisers were not paying any heed to the public demands and you were expecting only praise from your advisers. So I made everyone step into each other’s shoes. A king should always realize what each person in his kingdom is going through. God has given you this responsibility. Rule for the public not for yourself. Work selflessly, without expectation, without desires, and let the Higher Power take care of the rewards.”

The above story is adopted from ‘Get Rid of Desires, Realise Your Self’ by Asaramji Bapu, one of the articles in the book, THE BEST OF SPEAKING TREE Volume 2

2009-07-15T02:51:00.000-07:00

The Beautiful Part of the 'JUKEBOX' Story

Last Friday on the 10th of July, my wife and I attended a wedding dinner at Ipoh. It was the wedding of my wife’s maternal niece, Leow Ai Yuin and Mr. Ng Keem Ming, the eldest son of a veteran lawyer at Ipoh, Mr.Ng Yook Woon.

What really impressed me was the special arrangement made by the bride’s father, Mr. Leow Yong Seang. He took the trouble to hire a bus to ferry all the relatives from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh and to book ten units of apartments in the Tower Regency Hotel at Ipoh to house all of them for a night after the dinner was over.

All those attending the dinner were told to assemble at the hotel lobby at 6.15 pm before proceeding to the Mun Choong Restaurant [中和園民眾酒樓] in a bus so as to minimize the problems of transport and parking, especially for those relatives who came to Ipoh using their own transport.

Besides arranging a seemingly full scale attendance of his relatives to the wedding dinner of his daughter at Ipoh, Mr.Leow took this very opportunity to galvanize the bonding of the extended members of the Leow family through a 'family day’ programme organized on the following day after the dinner.
A day trip to visit their grandparent’s home at Kuala Kangsar was conducted after the whole bus load of not less than 40 people ‘invaded’ a coffee shop at Ipoh to taste the famous Hakka noodles as their breakfast.

At Kuala Kangsar, all of us were taken for a sightseeing tour of a few prominent places including the Istana Hulu and the Masjid Ubudiah before we stopped over at the ancestor’s house of the Leow family.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH1zpmQUUO8]

Another round of reminiscence by the family members was in progress at the premise of the house.

Later in the day, we adjourned to a Chinese seafood restaurant at Sungai Siput for an eight-course luncheon before we called it a day at around 4 pm.

All the expenditure of the food and lodging for the two-day-one-night stay at Ipoh was paid by Mr. Leow who believed that the relationship of the extended family members should be maintained and strengthened by getting together more often. To achieve this objective, he had occasionally organized an eating spree to build up the close rapport among the members of his extended family.

Mr. Leow Yong Seang is a man of ‘all seasons’; he could play like a kid with the children at one moment and talk over serious matters with the elders in the next. With him around the atmosphere of a family gathering can become very jovial. He was just like a walking ‘juke-box’, providing beautiful and soothing music and songs to suit the needs of the listeners of all ages.

Undoubtedly,Mr. Leow’s success in business is not a coincidence. He is a visionary man. Through his hard work and wise decisions over the years, he has established himself as a leading entrepreneur in the footwear industry in the country. Currently he is the managing director of the Jukebox Shoes Franchise which offers fashionable shoes at affordable prices to the common people and is now available in over 40 stores throughout Malaysia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnBnh2WtVMw

http://www.jukebox.com.my/images/index.swf

2009-06-28T01:45:00.000-07:00

Yin Oi Tong 仁爱堂

Tides and waves of history had swept away the cinema theatres as I had mentioned in my earlier write-up on my blog entitled Xin Ba Lai. The same fate might have happened to the traditional Chinese medical halls. The moving out of the Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂], a two-century-old traditional Chinese medical hall from George Town to Paya Terubong due to dwindling profits served to highlight the plight of the trade. This news was published on June 2009 by several local Chinese and English dailies and it had prompted calls by some non-government organizations to preserve its present premises as a museum on the trade.
Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] has been operated in George Town of Penang for 214 years old. It was founded by a Chinese immigrant, the late Mr. Koo Suk Chuan[古石泉]. Its business covered the manufacturing, the processing and the distributing of the Chinese herbs and medicines in this region to Singapore, southern Thailand, Medan and Sumatera.
Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] has occupied the present site of the three shop lots, each three-storey high, at 82A-C, Penang Street for the last 124 years. Business was good then especially when Penang Island was made a free port in 1872 as it had become a shopping haven for the tourists from all over the world. Imported goods were cheap then as they were tax free. I still remember I used to come home from Penang in 1968 with a bottle of cod liver oil sold to a local traditional Chinese medical hall at Nibong Tebal, the profit of which was enough to cover my bus fare from Nibong Tebal to Butterworth. It was of little wonder that people at that time liked to go to Penang for a shopping spree.

When the free port status was removed by the Federal Government of Malaysia in 1970s, the business and the livelihood of the people of Penang Island was badly affected as the island had lost its glamour as a tourist attraction.

The business in George Town was further deteriorated, like rubbing salt into the wound[伤口上撒盐], as many families occupying the pre-war houses in George Town area were uprooted and relocated elsewhere after the Rent Control Act 1966 was repelled in 1997. Due to this further decline of the population staying in George Town, the business volume of Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] was shrinking considerably from year to year until the tenant found it difficult to sustain its business and had decided to move out of the building which is owned by the Cheah Kongsi [谢氏福侯公公司] by June 30,2009.

According to the Executive Member of the Penang State Government, Mr. Chow Kon Yeow, it would be a big loss if the medical hall has to move out of the building. “It’s a waste that a living heritage has to become history and a memory,” he said.

Mr. Chong Yit Leong, the proprietor of Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂], shared a similar view. He was willing to stay on as the core tenant and help to transform part of the buildings into a museum if all the parties concerned have agreed to preserve the heritage.

“We’re willing to donate our artifacts to the museum,” he said. Mr. Chong Jit Leong is indeed a generous, compassionate and easy going man. I have known him since 2000. At that time he was instrumental in the formation of the Amitabha Buddhist Society of the Penang State. He was later elected unanimously as the Chairman of the society. I had the privilege to participate in some of the activities organized by the society; the most prominent one being the Dharma Propagating Assembly of Master Jing Kong[净空法师弘法大会] held at Kek Lok Si Temple of Penang[槟城极乐寺] on September 9 & 10, 2000.

Would you believe if I tell you that I had known 'Yin Oi Tong' [仁爱堂] for almost half a century?

About fifty years ago I followed my father to Penang Island. He brought me to the Yin Oi Tong Medical Hall to make a remittance of some amount of money back to China for my paternal grandmother and my maternal uncle to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year. At that time I was rather puzzled with the ‘dual function’ of the medical hall; to sell Chinese herbs as well as to remit money. Later on I came to understand that Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] had played an important and special role as an unofficial banking and financial institution for the commoners like my father and many others who would like to remit money back to their relatives in China.

To my mind, no matter what would happen to Yin Oi Tong [仁爱堂] in future, it had already achieved its historical mission and established itself as a trademark of integrity, credibility and reliability in the hearts and minds of the older generations of the Chinese immigrants.

2009-06-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

Xin Ba Lai
新峇来

Struggling, elbowing, pushing,pulling,squeezing and bulldozing through the crowd of the would be passengers to board a bus from Nibong Tebal to Xin Ba Lai was not an uncommon scene during those days of the sixties. Those would be passengers were mostly the cinema maniacs intending to enjoy a show at a cinema theatre at Xin Ba Lai.

If the enthusiasm and energy of those folk were to be directed at rugby training, Nibong Tebal could have emerged as a world-class rugby team on those days to beat the All Blacks Rugby Team from New Zeeland.

(Please watch this video clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4LNjNXt1yM)

Unfortunately I was among ‘those would be rugby players’ of Nibong Tebal mentioned.

For your information, people living around the Krian District usually acknowledge Parit Buntar as Xin Ba Lai[新峇来]. It was formerly named as 'Xin Heng Kang' [新兴港] by the Chinese residents living there. Later on a new Police station was built in Parit Buntar. So, the residents in this region conveniently renamed the place as Xin Ba Lai [ New Police Station, ‘Xin’ literally means ‘New’ in Teochew dialect, ‘Ba Lai’ denotes the Police Station]. As Parit Buntar occupied a strategic position at the northern part of Perak, it was chosen to be the administration centre of the Krian District. The bus terminal of Parit Buntar had become the transit for the neighbouring towns of Nibong Tebal, Tanjong Piandang, Kuala Kurau, Bagan Serai and Taiping.

Two new theatres, the Cathay and the Capitol cinema theatres, were built at a walking distance from the bus station. The theatres were keen competitors for the viewers in the region.

Once in a while either one of the theatres would be screening a prime show on a Chinese opera film. Chinese residents of Nibong Tebal would be flocking to Parit Buntar by public transport to watch the day shows, especially during the weekends. My mother and her friend would bring along their children to join the crowd.

During those years of the sixties, Huangmei[黄梅调]opera films were in the main stream of the Mandarin film industry; they were very popular among the woman folk. I was equally crazy about the shows that I always followed my mother or my sister to watch the shows at the theatres in Parit Buntar. At times we even crossed the River Krian by ferry from Parit Buntar to Bandar Bharu to watch a film show at Li Hwa Theatre. Sometimes, when we had missed a ferry trip, we had to pay extra money to cross the river by boat so that we did not miss any portion of the main show.
The ferry service was provided free for the public. The ferry was pulled by a steel cable on both ends at the river banks. The service was terminated after the tragic accident occurred on September 13, 1972. Twenty seven people were drowned when the ferry capsized. Later on, a concrete bridge was built across the river to replace the ferry service.
Cinema show business was hard hit and came to an abrupt end in the late eighties or the early nineties with the invention of Video Cassette Recorder(VCR) and later the VCD and DVD players. Any viewer could watch any film show at anytime, for any amount of times, at home with his family members at a relatively low cost; the cost of buying a copy of VCD or DVD.

As a result of which, Cathay Theatre at Parit Buntar and Li Hwa Theatre at Bandar Bharu had turned into "birds' houses" rearing swallows to get bird nests for sale while Capitol Theatre had been converted to a food court. The old town of Parit Buntar has lost some of its lustre after the existing bus terminal and the market in the town had been relocated elsewhere. Luckily the development is on the periphery of the town. The emergence of a new township on the south and the fast development of the housing schemes and shop lots on the north near the location of the Engineering Campus of the Science University of Malaysia, still pivot the old town as the centre point of the development of Parit Buntar as a whole.

2009-06-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

The River Mouth of the Sungai Kurau

On June 6, 2009 I went to Kuala Kurau with my wife.

I went there only once before on an ‘official duty’ as I did not have any relative or friend living at the fishing village and it is out of the way from the main trunk road from Butterworth to Ipoh; it could be more than ten kilometers away from Bagan Serai of Perak.

I remembered distinctively my last and only visit to the place was more than 40 years ago when I followed my eldest brother to Kuala Kurau on a ‘working holiday’ to help my brother to fix and repair drain pipes for the roof drainage system in the Yu Chai Chinese Primary School [育才小学]. I was more like an apprentice helping my brother to carry the working tools and drain pipes by boarding two buses successively from Nibong Tebal to Kuala Kurau with Parit Buntar as the transit station.

At the work site I was very impressed and marveled with the school building of the Yu Chai Chinese Primary School. It was a double-story concrete building which was very rare in those days. Whereas for my school, the Paik Teik Chinese Primary School of Nibong Tebal was housed at the old buildings of the abandoned estate hospital built for the estate workers in the rubber plantations of Nibong Tebal during the British colonial times. The school buildings of both places spoke volumes that the Chinese residents of Kuala Kurau were very supportive of their mother-tongued education and they were much better off than their counterparts in Nibong Tebal in terms of their financial incomes.

Other than this, I have a very vague impression of Kuala Kurau.

I only heard from the elders that the residents of Kuala Kurau and Tanjong Piandang were historically not on a friendly term. They had numerous clashes and disputes over the fishing interest at the sea in those days. I was told that the fishermen at Kuala Kurau were mostly Hokkiens whereas those fishermen staying at Tanjong Piandang were of the Teochew origin. They would engage in heated arguments and scold one another in Teochew or Hokkien dialects as ‘Kak Tao Gu or Kuo Lau Tu’[角头牛，古楼猪 literally means,Tanjong Piandang Bulls, Kuala Kurau Pigs].

I still remember in those days of forty years ago when the Pai Teik School Union was hosting the Annual Basketball League, Tanjong Piandang and Kuala Kurau would send their basketball teams to participate in the game. Those notorious town folk of Nibong Tebal would not miss any opportunity to instigate and induce both the team-members for a fight every time when they were the opposing teams in a match. Some of them would be yelling with words like ‘Kak Tao Gu’[角头牛], while the others would be responding with ‘Kuo Lau Tu’[古楼猪]. Sometimes, it would end up with the supporters of both teams fighting one another instead of the players. In the end the Police had to be called to disperse the crowd.

Nowadays, I am not sure whether one could still instigate them for a fight like what was happening forty years ago.

Kuala Kurau is a small town located by the river mouth of the River Kurau. River Kurau was named thus as it was once found to have an abundance of ‘ikan kurau’[threat fin fish]. A Chinese temple was newly built on the river bank of the River Kurau. A new bridge for motorbikes and bicycles runs across the river not far away from the temple.Old folk gathered around the temple ground under a tree to chat and to while away their 'precious' time.

The Pantai Kuala Kurau Road is the main road in the town with all the government agencies including the Police Station, the Post Office, the Fishery Department located on either side of the road.

As we were unfamiliar with the town itself, we had to take cups of coffee at a coffee shop to check with the owner where we could buy salted fish and dried salted prawns.
Travelling along the road we could see fishermen drying their salted fish under the hot sun.
At the other end of the Pantai Kuala Kurau Road, just before leaving the town for Tanjong Piandang, we managed to buy some fish, crabs and salted fish from a fisherman. This time around we could not get dried salted prawns due to the bad weather for the past few days.

2009-06-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

Years at the Convent
The title of this write-up might have prompted you to think that I could be a nun in a Convent. Or you might have thought that I was once a girl studying in a convent school. Actually I was a man teacher at the Convent Secondary School of Bukit Mertajam for a decade or so.

To be frank, I was transferred from the Bukit Mertajam High School to the Bukit Mertajam Convent Secondary School for my ‘alleged involvement’ in the boycotting of the programs organized by the school for the teachers during Saturday in the name of the ‘Professional Day’[Hari Profesional] as directed by the Ministry of Education. Like every other member of the Union, it was my obligation and also my right to support the boycott organized by our union, the NUTP (National Union of Teaching Profession).

In the BM High School there were about twenty odd teachers boycotting the program of the ‘Professional Day’ held on the Saturday, March 16, 1991. Those who had boycotted were blacklisted and they were ‘rounded-up’ to have a meeting ‘without coffee’ with the school administrators and they got a proper ‘shelling of M16’ from the administrators of the school. Subsequently, one by one was transferred OUT from the school under a ‘special operation’ devised by Mr. Tan, the Senior Assistant of the school, aimed at ‘sha ji jing hou’(杀鸡儆猴) [literally it means ‘to slaughter a chicken in front of the monkeys so as to frighten them’].

I was transferred to the Convent Secondary School of Bukit Mertajam on April 16, 1991 when a Mathematics teacher of the school,Mrs.Foo, opted for early retirement. I was informed of the transfer through a telephone call from En. Mohamed Ali from the Penang State Educational Department on April 11, 1991.

Years later I was told by Mr. Tan, the Senior Assistant who had become a principal in a secondary school. He informed me that my transfer to the Convent school was out of good faith of his so that I could be able to look after my kid who was studying at the Convent Primary School which is sharing the same compound with the secondary school. The truth was: none of my children had ever studied in the Convent Primary School. In fact all my children had studied at the Kim Sen Chinese Primary School adjacent to the school he mentioned.

For a decade I had served with six headmistresses at the Convent Secondary School of Bukit Mertajam. I had maintained a good and cordial working relationship with all the headmistresses with the exception of the last one who had made sure that I was ‘out of sight, out of mind’ after a year when she had turned from a novice to the master of the Art of 'fingered' administration via ‘finger pointing’ and ‘finger directing’.

Most of the headmistresses I served under were pragmatic in approach. They did not go for glamorous paper work or to hold unnecessary meetings just for the sake of meetings. As long as the school was run smoothly they would not exert unnecessary pressures on the staff. On the other hand the school would not run topsy-turvy even though there was no headmistress around for weeks or months; every member of the staff would be doing his or her work as if he or she was under the supervision of a virtual supervisor.

Of course, different headmistresses had a different style of doing work.

Madam Jenny Sak would inform me before hand where and when she would go for meetings or courses so that I was able to tell the others if they were looking for her. She would also brief me about the meetings and courses that she had attended so that I was aware of what was expected from her and from the school after those meetings and courses that she had attended.
Miss Oh was a soft spoken headmistress earning the respect of all of the staff as well as the pupils. Nobody had ever seen her raising her voice or losing her temper. Once, I was told by Mr. Chee, a teacher in the school, that Miss Oh was unperturbed and not annoyed at all even though a parent had banged the table in her office.

She would never retain any teacher asking for transfer of school. She believed that if a person wanted to leave the school, he or she had every right to do so.

Though Miss Oh was staying in Penang, she was among the earliest to be in school for work. She usually reached the school around 7 am. Once entering her office she would work till she went back home in the evening. In between she would never miss her teaching lessons.
Puan Hajjah Meriah was another ‘Iron Lady’ in the making. After the demise of her husband, she had to take care of the rice mill business in the evening besides supervising the school in the morning. She was a very understanding and compassionate headmistress. After knowing that Miss Ooi had to attend to her ailing father, she was excused from the invigilation of the SPM examinations for the successive years.

It was Puan Hajjah's genius 'invention' to have '3-in-1' meeting, incorporating curriculum, co-curriculum and staff meetings all at one sitting with three separate written minutes for these meetings. This was a cost and time effective measure which was a win-win strategy welcomed by all the staff.

Most teachers preferred to stay put in the Convent Secondary School of Bukit Mertajam. There were a number of teachers who only taught in this school throughout their teaching career.

Even new teachers preferred to teach in this school as discipline problems in the school were very rare and minor compared to other schools. Once, a new teacher reported for duty at the beginning of the year. I gave her a teaching timetable. After glancing through it, she said she could not teach the subjects offered in the timetable. I told her that in that case she had no choice but to go back to the District Educational Office to ask for transfer to another school. On hearing that, she hesitated for a while, and duly accepted the timetable teaching the subjects which were not her options. That year itself I had made a record of preparing the teaching timetable only once and it was to be used throughout the whole year without any alterations. Normally I had to revise the timetable several times a year.

I was very much attached to the Convent Secondary School of Bukit Mertajam. It was like a second home to me. The only thing was that I was not blessed to be in the same school until I retired. Nevertheless, I have no regrets as it was the school that I had served the longest during my entire teaching career.