Wednesday 28 March 2018

Tung Uahn (同安)



So finally, I've completed my Cheng Beng obligations for this year. My wife and I left the house later than usual at just past seven o'clock. Previously, it would be 6.30am on the dot and we'd arrive at the Batu Lanchang cemetery while the sky is still dark. This year, it was bright all the way to Batu Lanchang. After paying my respects to my maternal grandparents, it was the turn of my paternal grandparents at the nearby Siamese cemetery in the Wat Pimbang Onn grounds. Cost of getting people to spruce up the two graves, that is, to clear the area of undergrowth and overgrowth, was RM180. Finally, we went to the Triple Gem temple in Pangkor Road, this time to pay our respects to my parents and aunt. All in, we finished just before lunchtime.

I had one additional objective when doing this year's Cheng Beng. It is common knowledge that Chinese gravestone heads would contain information about the male deceased's district of origin in China. It is a useful way to let descendants know where their ancestors had come from.

I know that my paternal grandfather came from an old district called Tung Uahn (同安) in the Hokkien Province. In fact, the forebears of the present Quah members from the Swee Cheok Tong Quah Kongsi (檳城瑞鵲堂柯公司) all originated from Tung Uahn in China. So it was very gratifying - and re-assuring - to see these two Chinese characters engraved on his gravestone. But then, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my maternal grandfather's headstone also featured the same two Chinese characters. So his fore-fathers had come from the same district in China too!

Of course, China being such a large place, it is impossible for me to find out exactly where in Tung Uahn. Their villages could jolly well be next to each other or they could have been hundreds of kilometres apart. Nevertheless, it was sufficient for me to know that both my grandparents were Tung Uahn lang.





Sunday 25 March 2018

Eusoffe Abdoolcader - a giant among equals


It is not often that I would reproduce in full the content of a news item but in my opinion, this story is so significant as it is all about a unique man who was a giant among equals. Eusoffe Abdoolcader emerged from the shadows of his father, Sir Hussein Hasanally Abdoolcader, to be well-respected internationally in his own right. We won't find such a Malaysian again. Not during my lifetime, anyway.

Of course, we Old Frees, will know Eusoffe Abdoolcader to be an Old Free as well. In his later years after his brush with the constitutional crisis in Malaysia, he would occasionally turn up at the annual dinner of The Old Frees' Association. It was at moments like the annual dinner that he could visibly relax among his Old Frees peers.

In 2011 during the course of preparing Fidelis, the commemorative coffee-table book of The Old Frees' Association, I managed to dig up some nice candid pictures of Abdoolcader during his youth. It really showed him in a different perspective but such pictures, I would stop short of reproducing them here. Not at this time, anyway, but people curious enough should try and hunt down a copy of that coffee-table book.
 
In the meantime, this online story was written by Looi Sue-Chern and appeared in The Malaysian Insight which will be taken offline from 31 Mar 2018, which makes it doubly important that the report be reproduced here lest it disappear forever.

An undated photograph of Dr Eusoffe Abdoolcader from a now-defunct magazine. Eusoffe is remembered as one of the greatest judges Malaysia has ever seen. – The Malaysian Insight pic, March 25, 2018

THE late Dr Eusoffe Abdoolcader, one of five senior judges suspended during the 1988 judicial crisis, was a respected lawyer and Supreme Court judge, remembered by his peers and juniors as perhaps the greatest judge Malaysia had seen. 
Penang Bar Committee chairman T. Tharumarajah described him as an encyclopaedia, a man with the law at his fingertips and a daunting judge to appear before, sharp and strict.
But family friend T.D. Ampikaipakan remembers him as a man with a softer side – a loving husband and a generous friend.
“He was a tough and arrogant man, but on the other hand, he was also a person who would apologise immediately (when wrong),” she said.
The consultant and trainer spoke of how she and her husband became great friends of the judge at a tribute for Eusoffe in George Town organised by the Penang Bar Committee and publishers Akasaa and Avec on Friday.
Akasaa and Avec recently published the book The Legal Lion of the Commonwealth: Judgments. The two-volume work edited by Angela Yap and Ritchie Ramesh contains Eusoffe’s history and his landmark judgments in constitutional cases in Malaysia.
Ampikaipakan met him in 1985 when her lung physician husband, then only 35, attended to Eusoffe’s wife, Haseenah. Her husband made regular house calls to see Haseenah, who had throat cancer and then pneumonia that caused her to need constant supervision and regular medical checks. 
Ampikaipakan, who used to drive her husband to the judge’s house after he finished at his clinic, said they were expected at 5.30pm, and without fail, Eusoffe would be waiting for them, with the gates opened and dogs tied.
The judge, she said, was visibly upset whenever the doctor was late, but did not say anything until the third time it happened.
But after hearing her husband explain that he was held up at the hospital by patients and could help make arrangements for a different doctor to make the house visits, Eusoffe understood and quickly apologised for being angry.
“Slowly from there, the relationship between the two grew. He became very fond of my husband. They used to speak three times a day,” Ampikaipakan said.
She said they saw how lonely the judge was as he faced the challenges of his profession and struggled to care for his wife, who was ill and later became bedridden. 
She said after he was suspended in the 1988 constitutional crisis, strangers would go up to Eusoffe to shake his hand when he went out to dinner with them. 
“He would look at us and said he didn’t know those people. We said it was because they respected him for standing up for what he thought was right. 
“How lonely was the life of a Supreme Court judge because he had no friends. But my husband was a doctor, so they became good friends,” she said, adding that until today her husband still found it too hard to talk about Eusoffe, who died at 71 in January 1996. 
T.D. Ampikaipakan says doctors were afraid to tell Dr Eusoffe Abdoolcader that his wife was dying. – The Malaysian Insight pic, March 25, 2018.
Ampikaipakan related how Eusoffe loved his wife, who was about 10 years older than him. 
After Eusoffe was reinstated, she said, the stress from work started to give him chest pains, and tests revealed that he needed a heart bypass.
Initially, he declined as he wanted to die before his wife. 
“Then he changed his mind, went for surgery and recovered quickly after we asked who would take care of her if he died first. 
“I don’t understand their love. He spoke English and no Chinese. She spoke Chinese and no English. They communicated in broken Malay. I think they had some mental telepathy between them.”
Ampikaipakan said Eusoff, who was almost 70, was even willing to give his kidney to Haseenah when her kidneys started to fail before she died in 1993 in Penang.
“Haseenah was dying and doctors were all terrified of having to tell Eusoffe. I came to Penang and told him to let her go if he loved her. 
“The man cried so loudly. He was losing his soul. It was so sad watching him. She died two days later,” she said.
Each year on her death anniversary, Eusoff took out advertisements in newspapers to print poems he wrote  to her. Ampikaipakan saw the last poem he wrote for Haseenah in Latin without knowing it was going to be the final one. 
“My husband was leaving on a trip to London and Eusoffe had told him to remember to buy him medicated toothpicks and sugared almonds. That was a day before Eusoffe killed himself,” she said. 
Ampikaipakan also described Eusoffe as generous to a fault, frequently donating money to charities her husband was involved in. 
She said before Eusoffe died, he told her husband that should he ever need a lawyer, he would take off his robes to defend him. 
Eusoffe’s rulings set precedents in landmark cases in the Commonwealth, with the British press lauding him as the "Legal Lion of the Commonwealth". His judgments are still frequently quoted in international law journals.
"Work on the book started in 2005. We wanted to provide an accurate portrayal of Eusoffe. He was also one of four Malayans chosen by the Japanese to be an administrator in the country during the occupation.
"Research took us to countries like Japan, the UK and Singapore. That is why it has taken us so long," Yap said.
Eusoffe died long before the government, under prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in 2008 moved to make amends over the 1988 crisis, which destroyed the judiciary’s independence.
Abdullah gave ex-gratia payments to the judges who were sacked and suspended following legal hearings involving Umno, which displeased then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. – March 25, 2018.

Friday 23 March 2018

The on-going PFS vs SXI debate


I seem to have opened up an old debate about which school was the older in Malaysia: the Penang Free School or the St Xavier's Institution. The official stance and indeed, it should be the only one, is that the Penang Free School is the older of the two, although the St Xavier's Institution may claim that its roots go further back to the weeks following the founding of Prince of Wales' Island. But this is what I happened to stumble on during my research and revealed subsequently, without fear or favour, in my book Let the Aisles Proclaim.

First, this is an extract from from page 11 of the book:
One of the earliest Europeans to follow Light over from Kedah was the French Catholic missionary, Monsignor Domino Arnaud-Antoine Garnault. In November 1781, Garnault and several other members of the Societe des Missions Etrangeres de Paris (MEP) had found themselves expelled from Siam. Garnault arrived at Port Queda near Alor Star, Kedah, in April 1782 and become the first resident priest of a small Catholic community there.(Note 7) After landing in the Prince of Wales’ Island, he asked Light for permission to build a church. Light was cautious of Garnault’s presence and politics, but tolerated the Frenchman enough to allow him to erect his church about 400 yards from Light’s base, the Fort Cornwallis. In August 1787, this first Catholic Church was completed and Garnault was made its bishop. As bishop, he provided for the denominational education of the children of his parish by establishing a small vernacular school for girls at China Street and a "small college" for boys at Pitt Street.(Note 8)
Notes:
(7) Father P. Decroix (2005). History of the Church and churches in Malaysia and Singapore (1511-2000).
(8) G.S. Reutens (1972). A Short Survey of the History of the Past and Present Buildings of Hutchings School, Penang (1816-1972). Private papers. Reutens was a teacher at Penang Free School and later, appointed as Head Master of Hutchings School which now stands on the former grounds of the old Free School.

Next, I offer the extracts from pages 20 and 21 of the same book:
In the 1823 annual meeting of the Free School, it was mentioned that the boys continued to be examined at the end of the year by the School Committee with the examination starting from the lowest classes and proceeding to the highest class. Regarding the use of the Madras System of Education, the following observations were made:
We cannot but feel great satisfaction that they have been introduced into this Institution and so suited to the circumstances of the scholars that that the happiest effect have been apparent. There is perhaps no place in the whole world where boys of so many different nations and languages are assembled together, and here learning one common language, the English. This circumstance gives a peculiarly novel and curious effect which, is heightened by the great disparity of size and age of the Boys who are placed together in the same Class, the little striplings in several instances having made the progress which has entitled them to instruct and to bear rule over boys twice as big and old as themselves. 
It is however satisfactory to observe, that the value of good education has become much more generally appreciated, and that the religious prejudices which have hitherto kept many Parents from sending their Children to the School, are now fast wearing away. They have now had abundant evidence, that it is far from the design of the Institution to interfere with the religious sentiments of any person.(Note 11)
To accentuate this point further, the 1824 annual report on the Free School reported:
The apprehensions and prejudices of the late Roman Catholic Pastor was supposed to have a very extensive influence in preventing many of his Flock from following the dictates of their own wishes and judgements. The expence (sic) of several years has given an incontrovertible proof, that whatever may be the religious opinions of those who are willing to submit their Children to the Rules of the Institution, those opinions will never be violated. The Children of Protestants are indeed most carefully instructed in the Principals of Christianity … To others the Instruction is, with fidelity to original engagements, strictly confined to the elements of useful Education and the Principles of Morality.(Note 12)
Despite all these assurances, a simmering tension between the Protestants and Catholics burst into the open in July 1825 when Porter was accused by the Catholic priest, Mgr. Jean-Baptiste Boucho, of punishing some Catholic boys for not turning up for service at the Protestant church, an accusation which was later dismissed after an extensive investigation by the School Committee. The managers went on to rebuke Boucho for “the interference of the Roman Catholic Clergyman with regard to the Education of their Children.” The tension continued until the end of the year when the Government, perhaps in an attempt to diffuse the situation and maintain neutrality, decided to contribute 100 Dollars per month towards a new Catholic school in Church Street.( Note 13)  Boucho called his school the Catholic Free School and in defiance of the proffered olive branch, coerced all the Catholic children to leave the Prince of Wales’ Island Free School and join his new establishment. The Catholic Free School was the precursor of the present Saint Xavier’s Institution.(Note 14) This unfortunate incident was perhaps the first recorded cold war between the two rival educational institutions that spilled into the open.
Notes:
(11) Prince of Wales Island Gazette, 14th January 1824
(12) Marcus Langdon (2015). Penang: The Fourth Presidency of India (1805-1830), Volume Two, p. 247. Publisher: George Town World Heritage Incorporated.
(13) ibid
(14) G.S. Reutens (1972). A Short Survey of the History of the Past and Present Buildings of Hutchings School, Penang (1816-1972). Private papers.



Wednesday 21 March 2018

Singapore's kampong



Although I've stepped foot into Singapore a number of times, I must admit that this was the first occasion that I had gone to Pulau Ubin. This is a small island to the north-west of the main Singapore island and the only way to get there is by a bumboat from the Changi Point ferry terminal. There are bumboats waiting for passengers all the time but one will only pull away when there are 12 passengers filling the boat.


I didn't know what to expect when I took the crossing with my friends but once I had arrived at the Pulau Ubin ferry terminal, I was blown away by the rustic charm of the little village. It was just like being transported back into the 1960s; time having stood still on the island while the rest of Singapore marched into the 21st Century. The closest I could compare this village with would be the backwaters of present-day Balik Pulau in Penang.


But this part of Pulau Ubin was anything but quiet since this was the first place that greeted visitors upon arrival. Bicycle rental shops lined both sides of what was supposed to be the main street. Restaurants and sundry shops too. And the obligatory Chinese temple and an accompanying stage.





We just walked away and took the direction of a tarred road towards the Chek Jawa visitor centre, passing by this small altar worshipping the Ma Chor deity. After a while, the tarred road gave way to well-worn dirt trails. Monkeys were a-plenty. Bold and completely unafraid of their human cousins. My friend's wife had her plastic bag containing unfinished food snatched out from her hand. Soon, we decided to arm ourselves with sticks to chase the monkeys away should any stray near to us. Wild boars too. We saw boars crossing the dirt trails. "Just stand still and allow them to move off," my friend advised me. But what if they are moving towards us? "Then start praying hard and hope you don't shit in your pants," he replied. Very practical.






Soon we arrived at the Chek Jawa visitor centre, housed in a double-storey Tudor-styled building which was once a holiday home for a British official about 80 years ago. Who was he? I don't know. Nobody seemed to know. From there, we walked further to the Chek Jawa boardwalk. Unfortunately, with time not on our side, we forewent the chance to walk out into the sea and had to retrace our steps to the visitor centre.


Walking back to the ferry terminal, we took a different route, slightly longer, that passed by the incredibly serene, submerged Balai Quarry. Another photo opportunity here. After this small detour, the trek back to the ferry terminal was relatively uneventful. No more boldly brazen monkeys to shoo away, no more wild boars to hide from but we saw a monitor lizard scampering away in the undergrowth, and no more dodging the bicyclists. Arriving back at Changi Village, it was time for .... food. We were famished!




Tuesday 20 March 2018

The Lee Kong Chian Reference Library


Whilst in downtown Singapore, I took the opportunity to visit their National Library Board building in Victoria Street. First stop was to the basement floor where the Central Library was located.

My main objective was to pass along to their Central Library two copies of Let the Aisles Proclaim. I had felt that it was very important that Singapore possess the book as the history of Penang Free School is so closely intertwined with the history of their Raffles Institution itself.

That done, it was also an objective to visit the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library. Asking around, I was informed that my destination should be the 11th floor where I could seek access to the digital archive of the old Singapore newspapers. There are, after all, certain newspaper stories which cannot be accessed online from the Web and can only be referenced directly from their resident computer terminals.

The resources here were impressive and the staff very helpful. All in, I must have spent some two hours on this floor and was rather reluctant to move on. The Lee Kong Chian Reference Library is definitely worth visiting a second time and perhaps more often too.



Monday 19 March 2018

We remain hopeful



When I learnt that my friend, Siang Jin, would be going down to Singapore this month to make a fund-raising presentation to friends and acquaintances who so happen to sit in the management committee of the Old Frees' Association Singapore, I had vowed to go too to assist in the pitching.

That they were also in the OFAS management committee was so much the better, in my opinion, because this meeting presented an excellent opportunity to let the Old Frees there learn of our activities vis-a-vis the Alma Mater in Penang. After all, the fund-raising would be for a worthwhile intention: the on-going leadership workshop that we were holding for the Penang Free School student leaders,

Therefore, on the 15th of March, I flew south and met up with Siang Jin and the OFAS management committee at the latter's monthly committee meeting. Siang Jin made most of the talking while I added some words of support to fill in certain blanks.

Do you think we succeeded? Yet to be seen. Pitching is always a work-in-progress and there's more work to be put in. But I remain hopeful. I'm sure some of our Singaporean friends will respond favourably. After all, it's for the school.



Sunday 18 March 2018

Four months to deliver



I arrived back home from a four-day trip from Singapore this afternoon to find this parcel on the table. "It arrived last Friday," my wife told me. So I ripped it open to find that at long last, my copy of Eric Berne's Games People Play had arrived.

I had almost given up on it. The book was ordered from Amazon.com on 17 Nov 2017 and despatched two days later with the delivery estimated between the 12th and 16th of January 2018. How wrong they were! I waited. And waited. And waited. The weeks passed after 16th January but I was too busy to inform Amazon.com that I hadn't received it yet.

Just a week ago, my wife asked me about the book and I told her that it could have been misplaced in the post. Such was the risk nowadays. "I'll write to Amazon when I get back from Singapore," I had assured her. So imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw the parcel on the table. All in, it had taken four months, almost to the day, to arrive at my doorstep.

Tuesday 13 March 2018

Manuel Gottsching's E2-E4


I guess it must have been close to 20 years already that I first bought this compact disk, E2-E4, by Manuel Gottsching. I was wandering around the now-closed Ampang Park shopping mall and came across the disk in Love Music. Mesmerised by the cover AND the title, I had bought the disk without any hesitation, such was my interest in everything chess.

I must add that I wasn't disappointed with the music. Basically, an electronically generated sound that did not grate onto the ear in terms of melody or intensity. Much unlike Steve Reich's compact disk, the fascinating but monotonous Music for 18 Musicians, which I also possess. (I wouldn't mind owning that record too, by the way.)

And recently, the opportunity arose for me to buy the vinyl record version of the same Gottsching compact disk. Again, without any hesitation after immediately seeing its availability on one of the facebook groups that I am a member of.

The album arrived yesterday. And I placed it on the turntable late last night. Shiok only, I must say. Again, the melody leapt from my speakers. But I noticed a slight difference in the music between the two formats. The record was about five minutes shorter than the compact disk. One of the tracks was six minutes long on the CD but only one minute on the record. That accounted for the difference. Other than that, no difference to the ears.

Oh yes, I must add that the record version came with rather lengthy interesting liner notes that described how Gottsching came up with the concept for the music. And how Richard Branson played a part in it. The compact disk version had nothing!


Side One: Ruhige nervositat (Quiet nervousness), Gemassigter aufbruch (Moderate start), ... Und mittelspiel (...And central game)
Side Two: Ansatz (Promise), Damen eleganza (Queen a pawn), Ehrenvoller kampf (Glorious fight), Hoheit weicht (HRH retreats), (Nicht ohne schwung) (With a swing), ...Und souveranitat (...And sovereignty), Remis (Draw)




Thursday 8 March 2018

Take Five on fontana



I had posted this picture to one of the groups on facebook, of which I was a member. This picture, as can be seen, was of a seven-inch 45rpm record that featured The Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Take Five on the A side and Blue Rondo Ala Turk on the B side.

This record was passed on to me recently by an old friend who was giving away his old music collection. "Left behind in the house by my late father and also my siblings when they went off to live overseas," he told me. "You can have all of the records if you wish," he continued, which I thankfully did. All 96 pieces of long-playing albums and a handful of 45s. This one was among them.

Soon after I had posted up the picture, a quick-eyed member of the group responded with an interesting message, "I checked and the main release was on Columbia, so I guess that particular record is rare. What is unfortunately rare is how few jazz recordings made it to 45s. That tune was originally on the "Time Out" album in 1959, but released on 45 in 1961 and became a surprise hit."

Maybe it's not so rare after all. Columbia, which was a major US label, couldn't release their records under the "Columbia" label in the UK and the Commonwealth countries because EMI, the major label in the UK, already owned the rights to the "Columbia" name there. I do have several old 45s that featured the EMI "Columbia" label.

So Columbia (the US company) went into an arrangement with Philips UK to have their catalogue pressed under the Philips-owned "fontana" label for the British market. This convenient arrangement went on from the late 1950s until 1962 when Columbia finally launched the CBS label and started releasing their own American recordings outside the US under "CBS".