My Perception of Nibong Tebal Half a Century Ago

Nibong Tebal was a cowboy town with a few streets surrounded by rubber estates and swamp lands. The River Krian was flowing from west to east on the southern part of the town. Two concrete bridges constructed by British colonial government were running parallel to each other across the River Krian. One was a railway bridge. The other one was meant for vehicles. It was built across the river linking the North-South federal highway. On either side of the bridge was a pedestrian walkway. It was a good pastime as well as a good exercise on those days for the local people to take an evening stroll on the bridge to enjoy the scenic view of the tranquil river water and to observe from far the quiet town of Nibong Tebal.
In those days, on the fifteenth of the first month of a lunar year, the Chinese equivalent of the Valentine Day, young people of both genders would converge on the pedestrian walkways of the bridge in the evening to get to know each other and to watch young ladies throwing mandarin oranges into the river in their bid ‘to fish for golden turtles’ [钓金龟婿], sincerely hoping that they would be married to their dreamed men.

Once in a while, the town folks would be astounded to hear that someone had jumped into River Krian from atop the bridge to commit suicide. Horrified stories about the water ghosts [水鬼] dwelling in the river were told umpteen times by the elders to their young ones to dissuade them from swimming in the river or playing by the riverside. According to a widespread belief, the person committing suicide was in fact a replacement ‘too unlucky’ to be targeted by a particular water ghost so that the ghost would in turn be relieved from the sufferings in the river and reborn in a better plane of existence. However, the kids were undeterred by such stories and they still liked to play around at the riverside under the bridges, catching fish or prawns with their bare hands and playing at the sand pitch to dig tunnels or to build castles of their own creations. Of course, before darkness descended over the river, the kids would be home at the dinner table.

The river had had a glorious past of being a major form of transportation for residents staying at the border towns of both states of Perak and Province Wellesley sixty years ago. As the two states were under different government administrations, smuggling activities across the river were deemed to be ‘the fastest and easiest way of acquiring Big Money’. It was no wonder that many people would venture into this exciting and yet lucrative business. As a result, Nibong Tebal had emerged as a fast growing town. Due to its strategic position at that time, it became the administration centre of Southern Province Wellesley. The Police Station, Post Office, District Office ,Session Court and Government Clinic were all located one-stop at the town proper. Two private bus companies were operating at the town to service the commuters at Nibong Tebal and its nearby villages and towns.

Life style at Nibong Tebal was rather simple. The only form of entertainment was either cinema going at the local theatre or chit-chatting among friends, young and old, at the open space coffee shops at the Pai Teik School Union basketball court in the evening.
Television in black and white only made its first debut in the year 1964. At that time a set of television was too costly to be affordable by an ordinary household. Moreover, the programs were still primitive and raw at the initial stages, and therefore, television viewing was still being sidelined.

Twice a year, Chinese opera shows would be performed for a number of days at one go to entertain the town folks in general and the Tua Pek Kong [大伯公], the guardian god of the town, in particular. It was a big event that most of the town folks would not like to miss. The kids were especially delighted as it was just like a carnival to them as they could patronize many eating and gaming stalls operating beside the opera stage in the vicinity of the temple ground.

Annual Basketball League for the Krian District was another big event of the year. The league was organized by the Pai Teik School Union for the basketball teams from the neighboring towns in the Krian district. It was a crowd puller. Every evening the basketball court would be packed back to back with spectators to cheer for the teams they supported. Idol worshiping among the lady fans was not uncommon too. The league would commence for weeks and it had become the major issue of conversation among the town folks during that period of time. Some of the players from Pai Teik Union were later selected to be Penang state basketball players, among others were Liew Guan Peng and Chan Kim Hock.

Town folks, young and old, could somehow recognize each other. They were so familiar with one another that they could even tell who a person was and where he lived. If the name of a child was not known, the folks could still recognize him as the son of so and so, or the son of a particular house or shop, the examples of which were Yee Ngoh Leng [一五龙, Ah Leng as a son of Yee Ngoh] ,Keat Lee Meng[ 吉利明,Ah Meng from the shop Keat Lee], Thye Loong Kia[泰隆子, the son from the shop Thye Loong ], Yee Hong Shun[义丰孙，the grandson from the shop Yee Hong ]. Any mischief or wrong doing of a kid would be made known spontaneously and instantly all over the town. Hence high profile thefts or robberies in the town were seldom committed by local people as they were too familiar with each other that it was not easy for any local offender to conceal his crime; just like a dog would not shit at its own doorstep could be a relevant analogy. This intimacy and closeness among the town folks were established over more than 100 years ever since their ancestors set foot at the town.

Whenever there was a person summoned by the heavenly father[天父] or a magistrate from the Hell[阎罗王], news would be spread to the whole town within a day or two through a paid messenger employed by the family of the deceased, either Ah Au Pek[阿欧伯] or Oo Keat Leng[黑吉灵], through the distributing of a pair of red candles to every household in the town. In the evening every household that received the candles would light them at the five foot path[五脚基].It was spectacular to watch the whole town being lighted up with candles; the children especially would not miss this rare opportunity to 'play with fire'. Each household would then donate a few dollars to the family of the deceased to subsidize the funeral expenses. This was a sort of ‘mutual fund’ on mutual trust, which would lessen the burden of the family of the deceased in their funeral expenses. This ritual was practiced then. I was not sure this practice would be carried on for how long.

The town underwent drastic changes after the communal violence erupted in November 1967 in Penang due to the devaluation of currency and later the racial riot of the May 13 incident of 1969. Many Chinese families from nearby Malay villages like Sungai Acheh, Sungai Bakau ,Bagan Tiang and many other villages shifted to Nibong Tebal. Housing estates sprang up like mushrooms in the outskirts of the town. Population increased by leaps and bounds since then. As a result, the intimacy and closeness among the town folks were diluted day by day in proportional to the inflow of residents from outside.

This is what and how I perceived my home town half a century ago.

Attitude Regarding Work

A few words of comment by a colleague of mine had changed my attitude regarding work.

This was how it happened.
Mr. Liew Fook Sin was a colleague of mine at Convent School in the year 1992. At the end of that year both of us were in the school timetable committee to prepare a fresh timetable for the coming school year.

At first I thought of preparing a working timetable for the morning session in the shortest possible time without regard to its ‘user friendliness’ either to the teachers or to the pupils. I presumed as long as the timetable could be ready for use when the school reopen, then my job was done. But, Fook Sin insisted that it would be better if we could spend a bit more time and effort, to come up with a better quality timetable so that all the teachers and pupils would enjoy the benefits of a pleasant and less stressful timetable for the rest of the year.

“A few more days of extra effort by us would bring joys to others for the rest of the year” was what Fook Sin meant which has changed my attitude with regard to work.

Since then, I would not take it lightly in my preparation of timetable. This attitude can also be applied to other forms of work and in other walks of life. Quite often our working attitudes not only affect ourselves alone; they may affect others too.

One good example which I read from a reader’s column which appeared on page 3 of Sin Chew Jit Poh(星洲日报） dated October 21, 2008. The writer had a daughter to whom I gave a fictitious name of Patty. Patty was studying at a local university at Selangor. She and a few of her course mates were renting a house near the campus. One day their house was broken in by burglars pretending to be workers mending their leaking roof. A total of three units of their computer notebooks together with other items like purses and hand phones were stolen. Patty and her housemates made a police report at a nearby police station. They were told by the police that the incident was not the first of its kind to occur in the neighborhood. Many reports had already been made before that. The police assured them that they would go to their house for further investigation. The girls waited at home for one whole day without any sign of a policeman.

Another thing that caught the eyes of Patty was the brand name and the serial number of her notebook that was stolen were wrongly recorded in her police report. She asked the policeman for explanation and rectification. She was told that it did not matter any more whether the brand name or serial number of the notebook was correctly stated in the report or not since it was already lost, implying that there was a slim chance that it would be recovered later.

A week later, Patty came back to Penang to apply for a replacement of her lost identity card at an Identity Card Department. She was fined RM100 for losing her identity card. The officer explained to her that according to the police report she made, all the items were reported lost(hilang) and not stolen(curi).Hence she had to be fined for the negligence of losing the card. The officer further mentioned that if the items were stolen, then the police would have to come to the house to investigate as it was considered a criminal case. Now Patty understood the reason why the police failed to appear at their doorstep on the appointed day and time.

Again, this boiled down to the problem of attitude regarding work. The policeman preparing the report for Patty most probably preferred to take the easy way out for not having to open a file by stating the items were lost through negligence. However, if Patty insisted that her belongings were stolen, then a file had to be open atomically for investigation by an investigation officer with the ranking of a police inspector. It was of little wonder that Patty received the police report that all the items were ‘stated’ lost and not stolen. In this case, Patty not only paid the price of losing her valuables, she also paid the penalty for her legal document being stolen as well.

This goes to show that the attitude of a person regarding his work is of paramount importance as it might have affected others directly or indirectly.

Long Walk to Freedom

 

After reading a post on my blog, ‘A trip to Sungai Lembing in Pahang’, in which I mentioned that “Sungai Lembing is now a sunset town suitable for folks like me in the sunset years,” my younger daughter was quite concerned about my outlook in life after my retirement. She did not want me to be pessimistic for my remaining years. She bought me a book, 'Long Walk to Freedom'. This book has been an international bestseller. It is an autobiography written by Mr. Nelson Mandela who was the first elected President of the Democratic South Africa in the year 1994 at the age of 76. She hoped I could learn from Nelson Mandela and be inspired by the book written by him.

To me, Mr. Nelson Mandela’s command of English is excellent. Practically for every page of the book I read through, I had come across a number of words which I had to refer to the dictionary. I had to keep a Little Oxford Dictionary by my side to look up the meanings of the vocabulary which I was unfamiliar with. At first I promised my daughter I would finish reading the book within a month. In the end it took me four months to do so. Mr. Nelson Mandela was the longest serving political prisoner. He was in prison for twenty seven and a half years. He sacrificed his own freedom and personal comfort as well as his family’s well being to fight against the unjust system of apartheid introduced by the White minority government of South Africa. His family, especially his wife, Winnie, suffered frequent intimidations and numerous prosecutions while he was in prison. He was even deprived the right to attend the funeral of his mother and his eldest son.

Seldom have I read a book so touching that tears rolled down my cheeks when Mandela narrated in court that he was prepared to face guillotine in his fight for the justice and freedom of his people. He did not give up his struggles even at the adverse conditions especially when he was incarcerated at Robben Island for a long period of time. He would persistently devise strategies and ways to fight the establishment even when he was confined within the four walls of the prison. He never gave up. He utilized his prison life to the optimum use. Prison was made a ‘university’ for him and other prisoners to aspire for higher degrees or better qualifications by correspondence courses; he and his fellow prisoners conducted political and economics lectures for other inmates. He became the spokesman cum lawyer for his fellow prisoners and fought for their rights from time to time. He never bowed to the enemy of the people. Neither did he compromise the interest of the people for his personal gain. He has earned the respects of friends and foes alike.
On the other hand, he would not forgo his daily hourly physical exercises as he realized that health was of vital importance for his ‘long walk to freedom’. He even planted vegetables in the prison compound as a pastime.

If Nelson Mandela could make the best use of his prison life, I see no reason why I cannot make better use of my retirement life to enrich myself in every aspect of life.
After reading through the memoir of Nelson Mandela once, I have a standing ovation for him deep from my heart. I wish I could have an audience with him and to see for myself the real situations on the ground at South Africa after the abolition of apartheid rule.

It is encouraging to read how Mandela has fought for decades to liberate his country from the reign of the White minority government, to end the rule of apartheid and to establish a just and democratic nation. On the other hand, it is rather sad to see that there still remain nations whose heads are hypocrites. Outwardly they supported economic sanctions against South Africa for the implementation of apartheid rule, but back in their own countries they still practice one form or another of the apartheid rule in the name of affirmative actions. It is such a pity that we can’t find ‘Nelson Mandela’ in their souls and minds. Hopefully these people will have a chance to read 'Long Walk to Freedom'; and hopefully the book will transform each of them to another ‘Nelson Mandela’.

Related Stories:

(1) Timeless Lesson from Bapu Gandhi
http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2010/08/timeless-lesson-from-bapu-gandhi-there.html
(2) The Lady by the Lake 
http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2009/05/lady-by-lake-after-reading-book-perfect.html 
(3)Zhou Enlai (周恩来)
http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2010/10/chou-enlai-chou-enlai-last-perfect.html
(4) A Visit to Sungai Lembing
http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2008/06/trip-to-sungai-lembing-in-pahang17508.html

The Oldest Water Treatment Plant in Malaysia

Time flies.

It had been 30 over years since my last picnics with my varsity maids at the Botanic Gardens of Penang and the hike up of Penang Hill from the Moon Gate entrance with my secondary school mates. Since then I has never set foot at the Botanic Gardens until last Saturday on November 15, 2008, when I attended a guided walk at Botanic Gardens organized by the Friends of the Penang Botanic Gardens Society.

The main attractions of the guided walk, according to my closed friend, Mr. Low Chan Huat, was to visit the oldest water treatment plant in Malaysia and to be at a close proximity with the Waterfall of Penang as these two places are restricted areas since the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation (1962-1966).

We were told by the organizer to assemble at Botanika Outreach, the society office, opposite the Moon Gate before 8.45 am and started to walk up to the treatment plant at 9.10 am. About 30 persons participated in this guided walk. Mr. Clamen guided us in this walk.

It took us a leisure walk of 20 minutes up the slope in the Botanic Gardens to reach the Waterfall Treatment Plant. It was built 200 years ago at 1804 by the British colonial government. The treatment plant is nestled on a hillside, 70.88 metres above sea level, overlooking the Penang Botanic Gardens. It is blessed with a refreshing waterfall with a drop of approximately 30 metres. The main source of water for the Waterfall Treatment Plant is Sungai Air Terjun which flows downhill from Penang Hill.

We were met by the person in charge of water treatment at the PBA office. He explained to us how raw water from the waterfall was treated and kept in the reservoir before it was pipelined for the household use.

An oval shaped reservoir was built adjacent to the treatment plant in 1892. It was reconstructed in 1950 by an English engineer, J Mac Ritchie. It has a capacity of 22 million liters of water supplying to 10 thousand people in the neighborhood of Georgetown including Penang General Hospital, Pulau Pikus, Jesselton Road, Western Road and Brown Road.

From the treatment plant we walked up hundred of staircases to take a closer look at the waterfall of Penang. One would marvel to see the water running down from atop the hill unceasingly over the last few hundreds of years. Those who had brought the cameras would loose no chance and waste no time to snap photographs of the waterfall for remembrance. Though I did bring my camera; I was no better of than those who did not bring as my camera became handicapped as its battery ran low. I could not even snap a single shot out of it. Luckily I had a closed friend with me to be my photographer. He snatched a few photographs for me; otherwise I would have to make another trip next round if I insisted to have a photograph with the waterfall as my background. We stayed there for half an hour or so to enjoy the ‘better than air-con’ cooling air and the soothing environment while at the same time not forgetting to take a sip of hot coffee provided by my dear friend.

By 11.00 am we had to say goodbye to the waterfall as it was time for the activity to come to an end.

A Glimpse at the Land of Lightning

Talks had been going on over the past six years to visit the ‘Land of Lightning’, Kelantan Darul Naim, but to no avail until the last Deepavali holidays.

Believe it or not, the trip has its origin associated with Pantai Cahaya Bulan [Beach of Moonlight], formerly known as Pantai Cinta Berahi, literally meant to be the Beach of Passionate Love. Twenty over years ago, two young girls were strolling along the golden beach of Pantai Cinta Berahi one evening during the sunset hours. They were met with their white horse princes and fell in love at the first sight. They got married within months and later came back to Penang. Both ladies ended up as teachers at the Berapit Secondary School. Every now and then, during the festive seasons, they would go back to visit their relatives in Kelantan. We, as the colleagues of theirs, were half jokingly wanted to follow them back to Kelantan hoping to have a free food, free accommodation vacation. We proposed to go in a bus load year after year. The proposals only ended on the lips service. It did not materialize until recently on October 25, 2008 when we organized a 3 Days 2 nights trip to Kota Bharu.

This time we were determined to make the trip a success. As soon as Mr.Chee Choo Beng had worked up the cost of bus fare and accommodation for each person to be in the range of RM160, he was appointed unanimously as treasurer to start collecting a minimum sum of RM 100 per head as deposit. At first we intended to cater a luxurious bus with 26 seats. The response turned out to be overwhelming that 39 people were in the booking list. Hence, we had to get a bus with 42 seats. The members were all from colleagues and ex-colleagues of Berapit Secondary School, the friends of the teachers of the school and their family members. The group members comprised young and old, with the majority of them ladies. The afternoon supervisor of the school could not join us as his hands and legs were tied to his junior. However, he gave us his moral support by sending his father as his representative.

Two weeks before the trip, Madam Lim Gim Seok, who was a local resident of Kota Bharu with a good networking there, had to do all the contacts to arrange for the places of interest for us to visit. She mobilized her extended family members to do the necessary arrangement like the booking of apartments, checking of places to be visited and drawing of maps leading to those places. Finally, Madam Lim herself had to make numerous phone calls to those persons in charge to confirm the dates and times for our visits. It was due to her diligent and untiring efforts that made the trip a fruitful and enjoyable one.

We started our journey from Bukit Mertajam at around 5.30 am on October 25, 2008. God was with us all the while as the weather was fine throughout our journey to the Islamic city of Kota Bharu. The whole journey took us less than 6 hours. On the way we stopped at Grik to have our breakfast at around 8 am. By the time we reached Kota Bharu, it was almost 1 pm in the afternoon.

After lunch we went to visit a batik craft industry. Most members in the group were very keen to have a hand on in the painting of batik. Each individual or group paid RM20 to paint on a piece of cloth which could be brought back as a souvenir.

Among other handicraft cottage industries that we had visited were kite making and silver craft. A thin, elderly Malay man did a demonstration to show us the art of making kites. He had won the third place in the national kite making competition held last year during the Visit Malaysia Year of 2007. At the silver craft centre the ladies were fascinated with the silverware that they overstayed the time allocated for the visit. They were more interested in buying silver crafts like ear-rings, necklaces and other ornaments than learning the trade itself. Most of the gentlemen were merely the onlookers; they either had their purses shrinking to pay the bills for their wives or their backs pain after prolong standing while waiting for the ladies to strike their best deals. Besides visiting the handicraft industries, we visited a few temples at Tumpat and Bachok. It was a surprise for us as well as the other visitors to note that there were many huge and magnificent Buddhist statues being built on the land of the Islamic state of Kelantan. Apparently there was no restriction or hindrance on the part of the state government of Kelantan for the non-Muslims to practice the religions of their own choices. According to a young Malay trader we met at Siti Khadijah Market at Kota Bharu the following day; he was of the opinion that he too had no objection to the practices of non-Muslims as he believed that all religions share the universal values and advocate the practice of good virtues. Another prominent change in the Siamese temples that we visited was its non-sectarian feature. It has become a hybrid of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. This was evidently shown in the building of 102 metre tall Amitabha Buddha statue erected in the compound of a Siamese temple at Bachok. Food and drinks at Kota Bharu were generally more expensive than that at Bukit Mertajam. However, for a change it was worthwhile to try out the specialties of Kelantan like nasi lauk, nasi dagang, nasi kerabu, nasi tumpang, ayam percik, laksa and laksam, kuih akok, buah tanjung, jala emas, cendol pulut tupai and many other mouth-watering dishes.

On the morning before we departed Kota Bharu, we stopped at Siti Khadijah Market to have a shopping spree. Visitors could find everything from vegetables, local snacks to fresh tropical fruits. A unique feature here was that the majority of traders were women. Bukit Bunga was the final stop for us to buy the local products from Kelantan and Southern Thailand. We arrived home safe and sound at about 8.00 pm in the evening. Everybody was tired but happy to be home after this fascinating and memorable trip.

“When do you want to put my hands back for me?”


This story is adapted from a story written in Chinese emailed by a primary school classmate of mine, Khor Boon Seah. The story written in Chinese is shown at the foot note below.


On a remote outskirt of a town in California, there was a four year old girl with the name of Anna. Her father was a truck driver. He had bought a new truck which he liked very much. Everyday he would spend some time to do anything and everything to make sure that it was always clean, shiny and beautiful.

One day, Anna sneaked into the garage to play without her father’s knowledge. On the floor laid a screw driver. She used it as a pen to draw a picture of her own imagination on the truck body, thus adding scratches to the shining metallic painted surface.

At that moment her father happened to pass by. He was very furious to see his truck being tempered with. He gave Anna a few tight slaps and then tied her hands with a wire which he found in the garage. The other end of the wire was then hung to a beam on the roof of the garage. Anna was left to stand in the garage as a punishment.

Anna’s father had totally forgotten the matter until he came back from town four hours later. When he saw the girl, it was found that her hands had already become stiff and numb due to prolong hours of poor blood circulation. Her father got panic.
He quickly rushed her to the nearest hospital for treatment. Unfortunately her hands had to be amputated to save her life.

Anna was too young to be aware of what had happened to her hands then. She cried as she could not endure the pain due to the surgery. It never crossed her mind regarding the repercussions of not having a pair of normal hands when she was going to grow up as a young lady. Her father was extremely sorry for the misstep of punishment he had taken on her child.

Half a year later, Anna’s father sent his truck to a workshop for re-spray. The truck looked entirely new when it came back from the workshop. Anna was overjoyed to see the seemingly new truck. She said to her father, “Daddy! Daddy! Your truck looks pretty; it’s the same as a new one!”

In the next minute, she raised both her arms to show her father, while at the same time she asked, “But, when do you want to put my hands back for me?”

Anna’s question came as a fatal blow to her father. It was as if a big hammer was striking at his head, coupling with a dagger pierced through his heart. He could not bear the guilt that had persistently haunted him for the past few months. Instantly and without hesitation, he committed suicide with a pistol shot directly at his own head. Bang! He died in front of his poor child.

Many people seem to get their priorities wrongly set. Just like Anna’s father who was so engrossed with his treasured truck even at the expense of his child’s hands. He could use money to buy back a new truck if he wanted,but he knew fully well that he could never buy back Anna’s hands with any amount of money.

Whatever money that one can buy can never be comparable to things that money cannot acquire. Love is a typical example that money cannot buy. It has to be nurtured tenderly and cultivated perpetually over a long period of time. So, each and every one of us should not be stingy to show our love to our dear ones.



Foot note:

在美國的加州有一個小女孩大約是 4 歲
她的父親有一台大卡車，她的父親非常喜歡那台卡車
總是為那台車做全套的保養，以保持卡車的美觀
一天，小女孩拿著硬物在他父親的卡車鈑金上劃下了無數的刮痕 !!
她的父親盛怒之下，用鐵絲把小女孩的手綁起來
然後吊著小女孩的手，讓她站在車庫罰站
當父親想起小女兒在車庫罰站時，已經是 4個小時過後了！
趕到車庫時，小女孩的手已經被鐵絲綁的血液不通!
父親送她到急診室時，已經需要截去小女孩的手掌了
因為，手掌部分的組織已經都壞死，如不截去手掌 ...
她生命是非常危險，甚至可能會危害到小女孩的生命 ...
所以小女孩就這樣失去了她的一雙手掌了 !
但是她不懂..... 她不懂到底是發生了什麼事在她的身上 ....
而她的父親也因為這樣感到萬分的愧疚 !
過了約半年後
小女孩的父親的卡車進廠重新烤漆，又像全新的一樣!!
當他把卡車開回家後，小女孩看著重新烤漆過的卡車
對著她的父親說
“爸爸! 你的卡車好漂亮唷！看起來就像是新卡車”
這時小女孩無邪的伸出了她那截斷的雙手，對她的父親說
“ 但是你什麼時候要把我的手還給我?”
你們知道當那位父親聽到小女孩問他的問題時，發生了什麼事嗎 ?
那位父親在小女孩的面前 ..... 舉槍自殺 .......
很多人分不清 .....到底什麼是重要的？
只會無知迷失在自我的喜好當中 ........
就如有些人會去 慈濟幫忙掃街，但家事從來不管 .......
有些人會花很多錢去建廟，但對自己的親人如鐵公雞 .....
有些人在外面和言悅色，但對自己的卻家人暴躁如雷 ......
這就是說 那個父親不知是車子重要，或是女兒重要呢？
而遺憾的事..... 世間到處充滿了這些事 .....
而且就在你我之間 ....
只要是金錢可以買到的；
都比不上無價的可貴，
請不要吝嗇，多給家人一點愛！

An Excellent Perodua Automobile Technician


On the morning of December 21, 2005, I met with a minor accident.

On that day I was driving to Penang Island using my daughter’s Myvi car. After squeezing through the bottled neck of Penang Bridge Toll, a lorry suddenly emerged from behind to knock off the right hand side-mirror of our car. The plastic support holding the mirror casing broke. The mirror casing was left dangling, knocking against the door intermittently as the car moved. As a car without a side mirror made driving unsafe, I had to get it replaced as soon as possible.

I made a phone call to my brother- in- law who was in the automobile spare parts business in Kuala Lumpur to send me a set of mirror .The set of mirror was sent to a spare parts shop at Butterworth which I collected on December 24, 2005. After picking up the mirror, my daughter and I rushed to the Perodua Automobile Service Centre at Seberang Jaya. By the time we reached there, it was already 1.36 pm. We thought we could get the mirror fixed after 2.00 pm when the technicians resumed work. We did not realize until much later that it was a Saturday afternoon and the working hours for the day had ended at 12.30 noon. If we could not get the mirror fixed on that day itself we would have to wait for a few more days until the following Tuesday on December 27, 2005, when the Christmas holidays were over. Luckily, at that time there remained a few technicians at the service centre. They were busy with their stock checking. A technician by the name of Mohamad approached us. We told him our problem. He studied our case carefully and offered to help. He fixed our old mirror in silver paint casing to a new black plastic support. In this way it had saved us RM 50 for the cost of repainting the new mirror casing, from black colour to silver. Of course, it was more tedious and time consuming to do that than to fix an entirely new set of mirror. It took him almost one and a half hours to complete the task.

After the job was done, I tried to show my appreciation of his work by giving him a token sum of money. He refused to accept the money by reiterating in Malay language that “saya hanya mahu tolong sahaja.” [“I just wanted to help you”].

It was very kind of Mr. Mohamad to help us at that very appropriate moment. Otherwise, we had to wait for a few more days to make another trip all the way from Bukit Mertajam to Seberang Jaya to get the job done.

Mr. Mohamad is an exemplar to be laudable by many others including myself, for his work ethics which is very rare, and which I would say is on the brink of extinction in this very century. The fact that he was willing to attend to our car readily and voluntarily was a clear-cut testimony that he performed his work professionally and he treated his clients compassionately and equally irrespective of race, colour or creed. Rarely could one find a subordinate like him who would stretch extra hours on his own free will without being supervised. By trying to fix the old mirror with silver body paint to a new mirror support of black in colour, he helped us to save the cost of additional paint work by RM 50. In order to do that he needed extra effort, extra time. This showed that he would rather sacrifice his time so as to provide the best service he could render to his client. Frankly speaking and sorry to acknowledge that I cannot recall how he looks like now. Nevertheless, his good deeds and attitude will forever be treasured deep in my heart. The only way I can show my heartfelt thank to him is to post it on my blog to show the world that in Malaysia we still have a proud son whose name is Mr. Mohamad.

Email, email, I ‘write’ you

All along I did not want to cash-deposit using ATM machine as I did not trust its reliability. I usually did it over the bank counter. But, on one fine afternoon of 1st February of 2001, at around 3.45 pm, I decided to give it a try with the sum of RM 625 which I was supposed to bank in for my school. This money was the special fees collected by the school from the afternoon session and had to be banked in to the Maybank branch at Jalan Danby, Bukit Mertajam on the same day itself.

Half way through the transaction, after I had slotted in 3 pieces of 50 dollar notes, the machine was suddenly off line; dark clouds surged through the screen with the visibility of all facts and figures came to a naught. This could be due to electricity temporary cut off for a while or for other reasons which I could not comprehend. Immediately, I checked with a cashier over the counter. It was shown to me that the money I slotted into the machine to be off record, that was to say, no record of the RM 150 being deposited into my school account.

I lodged a report with a bank officer, Madam Faridah Osman, who promised me verbally to pursue the matter with the authority concerned in Penang. According to her, the machine would only be opened for collection and verification of cash transacted once a week by the officers from Penang Island. That was to say I had to keep my fingers crossed for at least another week to know whether the money would come back to my pocket or not.

On returning to school I reported the matter to my headmistress at Convent School, Miss Patima, who upon hearing it, just kept quiet with expressionless look, without suggesting any remedy to compensate me in case I could not refund the money that I lost through my dispensing of the official duty. I was quite disheartened with her non-committal silence.


That evening I decided to document my complaint via an email to Madam Siti Khadijah Talip, the Customer Service Officer of the Maybank Credit & Customer Services Section, to inform her about the happening that I underwent that afternoon. I printed out two copies of the email I sent out; one copy I kept while the other one I gave to Madam Faridah Osman the following day to make her aware that I had informed an officer at Maybank headquarters. It seemed to be a good idea to let a third party know about this matter; just like a referee is so vital during a boxing match for the execution of fair judgements. Her initial reaction, after going through the print out of my email, was to deny that she had promised me to pursue the matter. I refuted that it was exactly what she meant when I reported the matter to her. If the officer to whom I lodged the complaint would not take up the case, I could not imagine who else under the sun would do it for me under similar circumstance. To my argument, she kept mum.

In the meantime, Madam Siti Khadijah bt Talip replied my email, assuring me that she would look into the matter and would try to resolve it in the soonest possible time.

True enough, within a few days, the school received a phone call to collect a cheque of RM 150 from the bank which was later refunded to me. I did not have to wait for a week as mentioned by Madam Faridah Osman. The email could have done the magic. It might have compelled Madam Faridah Osman to take up my case seriously and swiftly as she was aware that she might be monitored by a CCTV from Kuala Lumpur.

Another good example which I like to cite about the efficiency of email writing was the Income Tax Refund. In the year 2005, the tax payers in general were informed through the media by the Income Tax Department that one month after the date due for the submitting of the self assessment of Income Tax Returns, they would be able to get the refund for the tax that they had overpaid for that particular assessment year. Having waited for one full year, there was still no indication at all that I would be refunded. As I did not wish to wait for another millennium to get the money back, I wrote an email on April 25, 2006, to the Income Tax Department. In the email reply by the Income Tax Department on June 15, 2006, I was informed to see Madam Zabaidah bt Mohamed Said at the branch office of the Income Tax Department at Bukit Mertajam. After going through my files, Madam Zabaidah noted that I would get the refund within a week or two. On July 11, 2006, I finally got a cheque for the refund, not for one year, but for two consecutive years, that is, the Assessment Years of 2003 and 2004. If I had not written the email, I would not know how long it would take for the money to find its way back to my bank account.

There was another instance that email did help me to recover my money from an insurance company which double charged me the annual premium on the health care plan for one particular year. I was charged twice on my credit card for two successive months. I emailed the bank issuing the credit card and the carbon copy forwarded to the insurance company. The matter was rectified.

Email writing has worked wonders for me. It will do the same for others. It is more efficient to email than to send postal mails. One can send the instant message to any person at any corner of the world within a split second. The same message can also be emailed to many others with just a click on the mouse.


As I am not good at conversing with people, email writing will do the talking for me instead. It helped me to solve many of my problems. In particular, it had assisted me to recover the money that was due to me. I would say email writing was my ‘money saver’.

That was the marvels of email writing which I always like to employ time and again to make things worked in my favour.


Emails, emails, I like you.

Emails, emails, I ‘write’ you. I like to write out the goodness of email writing to share with more people hoping that many will join me in the use of email writing as a tool to settle daily problems, be it complex or trivial.

Email will not fail you if you don’t fail to use email.

The Final Story I Heard From My Taiko

I went to visit my taiko [my eldest brother] early in the morning on 11th December of 2007. We had a short chat. He told me a story he read from newspaper. That evening he departed after a severe heart attack at around 11 pm. The story he narrated that morning became the final story I heard from him. Below is the story I wish to share with you.

"Once upon a time, there was a miser by the name Chee Lo Pak. He wanted to buy a pair of wooden sandals [木屐, Muji] for himself.

He went to a stall in the town to try out several pairs of the wooden sandals and found one pair to be very fitting and comfortable. However, on finding out from the vendor that all the sandals are of the same price irrespective of their sizes, he changed his mind like a flash. He thought it would be more economical and to his advantage as a buyer to get a bigger and longer pair of sandals.

After a bitter round of bargaining of prices with the vendor, he paid the money and put on the sandals immediately.

As the sandals were bigger in size, the wooden portions were protruding from his heels by inches. It looked awkward to others. But to him it was considered a good buy.

On the way home he met an old friend who invited him to have a chat at a nearby eating stall. His friend gave him a treat with some dumplings and steamed buns and a pot of Chinese tea. They had a good chat while enjoying the food.

Time flied as the minute hand made several rotations. When it was time for them to depart, there remained some food uneaten. Our friend, Chee Lo Pak, under the pretext of not wanting to waste the food unnecessary, readily wrapped up the food with a piece of paper to bring home for his son to consume. This again would save him some money on that day’s expenditure.

After walking for some distance, he felt uncomfortable with his stomach. He needed to ease himself. He wasted no time to look for a nearby toilet to answer nature’s call. He squatted in the toilet to do his business. As his sandals were protruding, substantial amount of his shit fell on the tail ends of his sandals.

He contemplated that it would be a waste just to ward off the shit from his sandals. He might as well use it to feed the fish in the pond behind his house.

He carefully scooped the shit that had stuck on his sandals with his fingers and placed it on another piece of paper, and wrapped it up properly before putting it into his pocket.

Now, he had two packets of ‘foods’ in his pocket. He walked home gracefully, humming softly to himself in a lively mood.

On reaching home, he threw one packet of food into the fish pond before he entered his house. He left the other packet on the dining table, anticipating his son to be back for lunch very soon.

In the end, it turned out to be the fish were enjoying the delicious food once in a life time while his son was very annoying and cursing his father for creating such a mischief on him."

The moral value of this story, in my opinion, is to impart the message that no matter how much we plan for our future, the ultimate end results may not turn up to be what we expected [人算不如天算].

Could there be any other hidden moral values which my taiko wished to highlight? I am not sure. Maybe you can enlighten me on this, why not?

A Tale of Two Schools: Two Defiant Subordinates

Scene One: At Convent School

Miss Patima was a lecturer at a teacher's training college on the outskirts of Bukit Mertajam before she was promoted to be the Principal of my school early in the year 2001. She did not have any administrative experience at all before assuming the post.

Like the other Principals before her, I had arranged 6 periods per week of a lesser important subject for her to teach, that is, Form 3 Moral Education ,knowing fully well that she would be more preoccupied with school administrative work.

On the first day she reported to the school, she already wanted me to change her timetable. She hoped to teach 2 periods of Malay Language from each of the 3 classes in Form 4. Those 6 periods had to be blocked so that in case she could not enter a class on any particular day, the other teacher who was sharing the class with her had to enter on her behalf.

I told her that it was not possible to get the timetable changed instantly as it would involve changing the timetable for the rest of the teaching staff. Anybody with the slightest knowledge of preparing a school timetable would be aware of this. It took me about 72 solid hours to prepare a reasonable timetable and I usually did it outside my school hours. I told her that I could only do it during the next round of reshuffling of the timetable. This was how I defied my boss on the first day itself.

Later, I did change the timetable to meet her request. However, the other teachers sharing the classes with her privately complained to me that it was unfair to them. Most of the time the Principal would be out of the school to attend meetings. They had to enter the classes on her behalf. When it came to examinations, the Principal needn't have to mark any scripts as she was just ‘a minority shareholder’ in the classes she taught.


Once, while I was teaching in a class, the Principal sent for me. She directed me to attend the open ceremony of MSSPP [Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Pulau Pinang] Sports Meet at Bertam, a distance of about 40 km from the school. According to her, she had totally forgotten about the event. She said she would be late if she was to travel there by car, and it would be faster for me to go there by motorbike. I told her that I only rode the motorbike within the town area and for any long distance travel I still had to use a car. If she could not make it on time, neither could I do so unless I was the Seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher in the making. This made her sore again.

This repeated defiance could be the reason for my sudden and surprise transfer to Berapit School as Afternoon Supervisor by the year end of 2001. It was a second shock to me as well as to others following the 911 incident three months ago.

Later, during a farewell gathering given to me by the school, she openly denied in her speech that she had a hand in my transfer from the school. Only her God and my Gods would know the truth.


Scene Two: At Berapit School


Whist Miss Patima had me as a defiant subordinate in the Convent School; I too had a defiant subordinate in my new school at Berapit.

He was Mr. Sehari. He was teaching the subject of Living Skills at Form 2 level. He made life difficult for me in monitoring him as he would punch card at his whims and fancies; sometimes he punched, sometimes not. To keep track on his existence in school, I had to go down daily to the workshop to check on him. If he was absent, I would instruct my assistant to prepare a relief timetable to relieve him.

Sometimes, when a relief timetable was already prepared for him, he would appear from somewhere. This again would upset the original relief timetable as it had to be redone afresh.

On many occasions he would leave the school for outside activities organized by either the District Educational Office or the State Educational Department without informing the school. I had to make phone calls to ascertain his whereabouts and what he was doing.

Another headache he posed was that he was reluctant to produce medical chits for his medical leave. It would take him weeks to hand them to the office after he had been repeatedly chased after by me and the school clerk.

The climax occurred when my school was hosting a State Inter-School Basketball Competition. All the matches were scheduled in the afternoon. Some brilliant teachers of mine took the advantage of skipping lessons by sending their pupils down to the basketball courts to watch the matches. They would be enjoying themselves elsewhere with a remote control.

After receiving numerous complaints from discipline masters, I had to come out with a circular for all the teachers, to warn them not to allow students to watch the basketball matches during lesson time.

Mr. Sehari still defied the order. He kept on sending his pupils to the basketball courts to watch the matches. I was cornered with no alternative but to issue him a show-cause letter. This was done with the consent of my Principal. The hero did not bother to reply my letter. Instead, he went on to circulate copies of his poison letter to certain quarters, a copy of which was given to my Principal, accusing me to be an anti-Melayu element, targeting at him in particular.

With this hard core defiant subordinate around the school whom I had no way to turn him around, I decided to throw the towel as the Afternoon Supervisor and got my transfer to another school in the following year as an ordinary teacher whereas this defiant subordinate was undeterred at all and still remained as solid as a statue in the same school until his retirement recently.

In either case, whether I was a defiant subordinate in one school or a duty-bound supervisor in another school, in the end I was fated to leave both schools.

The ‘Water Villages’ of Penang Island

On the 7th September, 2008, I attended the Damn Shiok Media Workshop on website publishing organized by the SUARAM Penang. As part of the activities, the participants were told to write a news story based on the observation made in the neighborhood.

From the location at our workshop, we walked across Weld Quay to take a look at the Clan Jetties.

A Clan Jetty is actually a village built on stilts by some pioneer Chinese immigrants. Each jetty comprises of row of houses on stilts joined by wooden walkways over the water. These ‘water villages’, set up more than a century ago, house the descendants from Fukien Province in China, who shared common historical, geographical and clan origins. They left their motherland in droves as the Manchu rulers of China lost their grip on power, and widespread poverty, famine and hardship became the order of the day. They are the anchor for newly arrived immigrants who, through kinship ties, were able to find jobs as stevedores and cross -channel ferry boatman in the bustling port of Penang to stake their survival in the new land.' [http://discoverpenang.evomediatech.com/chewjetty/home.html]

I met a tourist from Kuala Lumpur who was very amazed to see these Clan Jetties, to watch people staying in the wooden shacks or houses built on stilts on the waterfront of the channel. I shared his sentiment too. It crossed my mind to wonder whether the last Tsunami on December 26, 2004 has had any effects on the jetties.

The residents settled down at the jetties according to their last name(sir name,姓氏) At the moment there remains seven clan jetties, namely, Ong Jetty, Lim Jetty, Chew Jetty, Tan Jetty, Lee Jetty, Yeoh Jetty and Chap Seh Keo (杂姓挢，mixed surnames jetty). It is estimated that there are a total of 3,000 residents staying around here. All the residents of the clan jetties still preserve their Chinese tradition and cultures. They are either being employed as workers or shop attendants, or they are self employed doing small time business as hawkers in the neighborhood operating either coffee or food stalls, or grocery shops.

According to a middle aged resident of Lee Jetty, Lee Jetty was a newer jetty rebuilt 40 years ago. As a result, the wooden houses at Lee Jetty were neatly erected on both sides of the walkway as compared to the other jetties. The residents at Lee Jetty were relocated from elsewhere.

Jokingly he said, “I like to stay here. I have a world class swimming pool beneath my house!”

He told us that the oldest pier settlement here is Chew Jetty which is more than 100 years old. It is an old Chinese waterfront settlement, the largest and the liveliest jetty at the end of Gat Lebuh Armenian. The Chews were originated from the south-eastern coast of China - from Tung Aun District, Xin Lin She Village, and Quan Zhou Prefecture of Fujian Province. They were maritime clan communities in China. Thus when they emigrated, they also built homes for themselves at the waterfront. The Chew Jetty settlement has grown from about 10 families back in the 1920s to over 1,500 residents today.

Among the remaining jetties, only the Chew Jetty continues to have any clan-related activity - the once a year annual worship of its Temple Deity and "Tee Kong" (God of Heaven or Sky-God, 天公). The event takes place on the 9th of Chinese New Year (Lunar Calendar) annually. This distinctive and grand event attracts throngs of people to Chew Jetty to enjoy lion dance and dragon dances. On that day, residents place the worship food on the long altar table for praying.

Lee Choon Har of Chew Jetty resident said she was glad that her wooden house in Weld Quay was now part of Penang's tourism attractions. “This is a very nice and lively place to live in. Now we no longer have to worry that our houses will be torn down,” she said.

Next time if you happen to come to Penang Island, do not forget to visit Madam Lee Choon Har, to see for yourself the Clan Jetties, which is a pride of Penang Heritage.