My Old Town Postmen

When I was a kid, I had a high respect for postmen and the services they rendered. The postmen then were very professional in carrying out their duties.

At that time, during the Sixties of the last century, the postmen were mostly of Indian descent. There were also a few Malay postmen in their rank and file. The postmen then could endure the heat under the hot sun or the shower of the falling rain while delivering letters on their bicycles. Usually they would dispatch letters twice a day, six days a week except public holidays.

In those days correspondence through post was the cheapest and the most common means of communication among people living in different parts of the world. As usual, it was always a joy for the elders in my family to receive letters from friends and relatives from near and far, especially letters, sent from my maternal uncle or from my paternal cousin brother living in the Canton, a Province of China, which were most welcome. My mother would be very glad to hear news read out aloud to her by my eldest brother, the news of my maternal uncle or my paternal grandmother who were our most intimate relatives staying in mainland China.

At that time there were no diplomatic ties between Malaya and the People's Republic of China due to the difference in political ideologies, in which the two blocs of nations~the Communist and the Capitalist countries~were at a deadlock during the Cold War era. Although correspondence through letters between the people living in two different blocs of nations was allowed, it had to be done through some form of surveillance or scrutiny by the authority of the countries concerned.

Correspondence through letters between my family and our relatives in China was written in the Chinese language. All the envelopes addressed to us from China were written in Chinese characters. No writing in English or Malay appeared on the envelopes. But somehow or other the postmen at that time were very dedicated and diligent in carrying out their job. They would take the trouble to get the help of the other staff in the post office to translate the address written in the Chinese characters into Romanized English or Malay so that they could deliver the letters to the recipients concerned without fail.

At that time, along the short stretch of High Road of Nibong Tebal, there were two households having identical addresses. One was our shop house and the other, a Malay coffee stall opposite the Parit Buntar bus station bearing the same house number of 176. We did not know how this mistake arose. It could be that a careless or inattentive staff working at the District Office had mistakenly allocated the same house number to the two households along the same street. But this did not deter the postmen from delivering the letters to their rightful recipients, except in a few instances whence the letters were mistakenly sent to the wrong recipients.

Sadly, the postal service has deteriorated in later years, especially after the implementation of the New Economic Policy of our country. Later the service was getting from bad to worse since its privatization. The postage increases multifold but the services provided do not commensurate likewise.

Instances of bundles of letters 'camping in the bushes’ or 'swimming in a mountain stream' were reported once in a while in the local newspapers. This was done deliberately by some of unscrupulous postmen to save their time and trouble in delivering the letters.

I personally had a bitter experience of failing to receive an insurance maturity cheque sent to me by AR registered mail. The letter bypassed me. It took a detour back to the sender, the Great Eastern Assurance Company, without my knowledge as the addressee. Neither did the insurance company itself make any attempt to contact me regarding the matter.

Two years later the money was sent by the insurance company to the Treasury of the Ministry of Finance of Malaysia as an unclaimed sum.

Another instance was that a close friend of mine, who wanted to send me a letter, but the letter was delivered back to him as the postman delivered the letter based on the address of the sender written on the reverse side of the envelope. Just imagine that!  The sender received the letter he posted, and wasted the postage of 80 sen! Both my friend and I were rather  puzzled and could not comprehend why the postman concerned was unable to read and understand simple English; to differentiate between the words, 'To' and 'From', written on the envelope. Or was it due to sheer carelessness?

I had been told by my other close friend, Christopher Lo,that there were a few among the postmen who were illiterate. I didn't want to believe him then. But now I am beginning to take his words seriously.
Gone were the days whence we could have a reliable and efficient postal service of the post Merdeka years. No wonder many people would prefer to use courier service from other mail service providers; the most prestigious and reliable one at the moment would be the DHL.