Furniture scam

"Next time, bring along a thumb drive," a bored-looking policewoman said to me when I went to the Police Station to make a report a few days ago and handed her a computer-printed paper. Wow, do they expect complainants to submit their reports via thumb drives nowadays? That's a new development. Good to know. But the problem is, you know, how often does a person make a police report in his lifetime?

For me, that was just the second time I was making a police report in five days. All for the same matter. The second report was a follow-up to the first one. And what was the matter in the first instance? Well, it concerns a scam. An antique furniture scam.

Last Friday week, I was called down to the Kongsi by an alarmed secretary who said there were several people who were trying to take any the furniture in the premises, claiming that they had paid a middleman a substantial amount of money for it. My treasurer and secretary who were the first to be alerted, rushed to the premises and ordered them to cease their trespass and leave immediately.

You see, we never approved anyone to sell our Kongsi furniture. None of our committee members did. None of out trustees did. Some unscrupulous scammer must have made an unauthorised entry into our premises some weeks ago and had taken some pictures of our furniture. Then tried to hoodwink some unsuspecting buyers to part with their money on the promise of delivering the items to them.

The scam worked too well because the victim flew into town to meet the scammer who subsequently disappeared. I hear the Police are now looking for him and his wife.

So when I arrived at the Kongsi, but not before I had consulted a lawyer on this matter, my fellow trustees decided to lodge a first police report, if not for anything else, to safeguard ourselves in case the victim were to come back with local thugs or possessors or what. The second police report was just to reinforce our view that we shall hold the victim, the scammer and whoever was associated with them responsible if any untoward incident should happen to our premises.

We want to make it very clear that this matter has nothing to do with us except for the fact that the digital image of the furniture may now be finding its way through the Internet. We cannot prevent that. Of course, we are beefing up the security at the Kongsi in the meantime.

Remembering Khoo Chuan Keat

Last Wednesday, my mid-week revelry was disrupted when I received shocking news that my long-time school mate - for me, our friendship had begun in 1962 while in primary school but for some others, their friendship started even earlier in 1961 - had passed away after a battle with blood cancer.

This long-time school mate was Khoo Chuan Keat. He was actually quite a prominent fellow in the business and financial circle: a former senior executive director of PricewaterhouseCoopers for many years until his retirement about three or four years back.

Chuan Keat had so many ideas, the latest of which was setting up a company called Eden-on-the-Park to provide the first Integrated Seniors Lifestyle and Care Residence Resort in the country. The development provides senior citizens with resort-style living in luxury apartment suites and bungalow villas with aged care facilities right next to them. After having set up the first development in Kuching, his company was not looking to expand to other areas of the country, not less Penang. Chuan Keat had been talking to me and his other old school friends about this project. We were all pretty excited.

So the news of him passing away completely shocked us. He was only 64 years old last December. Only one month younger than me. But nobody knew that he wasn't in the best of health. One year ago, he was photographed at a gathering of old school mates in Kuala Lumpur and he looked perfectly all right. But looks can deceive. Within the year, he had been diagnosed with blood cancer. Undergoing treatment and rehabilitation. And we still didn't know about it. He demanded privacy and he got it till his dying day.

I last communicated with Chuan Keat through whatsapp in December. We wanted to talk but he said that he was a bit tired and would contact me later. For several weeks after that, there was silence from his end. Then came Chinese New Year. And then Chap Goh Meh approached. I was thinking to myself: why not I call him instead? After the Chap Goh Meh festivities, I decided. But before I could do so, the message came that he had passed away. So there I was, shocked and dumbfounded. Anyway, it would have been impossible to speak to him already. He was already in intensive care at a hospital, and in a coma. His mobile phone already switched off by his wife.

During our secondary school days, Chuan Keat and I were members of the Chess Club. In 1972 when we were both in Upper Six, he was the president and I was the secretary. That year was the heady year for chess in the country. Not only were we gripped by the world championship match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, 1972 was also the year that the Penang Chess Association (PCA) was formed, the Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Pulau Pinang (MSSPP) and Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Malaysia (MSSM) chess competitions were introduced and the Penang Students' Schools Chess Council (PSSCC) was dissolved. We were in the midst of these local chess activities.

After Form Six, we went our separate ways. I went to Kuala Lumpur for my studies and he headed to England. But we still kept in touch. He used to send me those girlie magazines from overseas and somehow, they managed to evade our local postal authorities. Until one day, I suppose the postal people got wise to those big brown envelopes arriving from overseas and began opening and confiscating them. 😆

I also remember him for three more things. One, even as a corporate guy, he kept his hair longish and tied up at the back of his head into a sort of ponytail. An obvious non-conformist.  I had always wondered what his clients thought about that. Second, Chuan Keat was a judge for those Miss Malaysia/Miss Universe contests at Genting Highlands in the 1990s. He always talked about them but curiously, he never offered to bring us to see the contests. At least, not to me, anyway. Would he have done so if I had asked. Sadly, I wouldn't know now. And third, about 10 years ago, he had set up a wine shop in Penang called D'niece and invited all his old school mates together for a drinking party.

Those were indeed the good old days with Chuan Keat. He shall be greatly missed.

A window to chess in 1972

I was going through my storeroom yesterday, trying to clear the space of some old unused items and generally cleaning off the accumulated dust of the past years when I came across an old notebook which I had used to copy down some old games from chess books and magazines.

But at the end of the book were several newspaper clippings from 1972, which I had obviously forgotten about. They were gems as the clippings included the newspaper stories of the world chess championship match of that year, as printed by the New Straits Times.

Yes, the world chess championship match of "that year" referred, of course, to the match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer. A stupendous match, a de facto "Cold War" match,  that caught the attention of the whole wide world and pushed chess to rarified levels never seen before.

Who would have realised, 47 years later, I would be reading the same stories again? Re-living the excitement of the match. If I remember correctly, even the radio stations around the world were reporting on the match.

The BBC World Service, for example, was prominent in this respect as at the end of the day, the radio station would dedicate five whole minutes to report religiously  on the outcome of the day's game. Of course, Penang being seven and a half hours then ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT+8 would come a few years later), I would be listening to the World Service on the shortwave in the mornings. Listening to the reports, then rushing off to school where my chess pals would be waiting for me eagerly to pass on the latest chess news. A harbinger of my later interest in chess journalism, perhaps?

But there was one newspaper story that really jolted me. I had thought that I had lost this newspaper clipping forever as I had been searching unsuccessfully for it in the last few years. Of course, my search would have been unsuccessful because I had been looking in the wrong places. If I had remembered that it was here all along, snucked within the pages of this notebook, I would have been reunited with it much earlier.

So what story was it that I had been searching high and low for? Eleven years ago, I had written in this blog (click here and here) about the dissolution of the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council but I never gotten round to relate what had happened after that. Well, this story here from the Straits Echo of 20 December 1972 will provide a fitting conclusion to the story of the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council.

(See how old the stories were? The newsprint pictures, below and above, are all yellowed with age. Almost 50 years ago!)

PENANG, Wed. - Mr Fang Ewe Churh, President of the Penang Chess Association, this morning received seven challenge trophies from the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council at a simple ceremony before a small gathering of the Han Chiang Primary School here for safe-keeping as well as for display at exhibition.

The presentation was made by Mr Tan Yam San, advisor to the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council, which has now been dissolved.

Founded in 1966, the Council's first objective was to stimulate, promote and improve chess in the schools.

Its other major aims of organising inter-school tournaments, co-ordinating inter-school activities and to serve as a concrete body representing student chess interests in the State had also been realised.

The Council's decision to dissolve was motivated by the fact that encouragement and support both financially and morally was now being given by the Ministry of Education and that members were in favour of participating in the Penang Schools' sports Council and Low Hooi Siah chess tournaments now being organised annually.

MEMBERSHIP

As such it also decided that all challenge trophies for the various inter-school and individual chess championships be handed to the Penang Chess Association.

The trophies presented were: Open students Chinese chess and international chess challenge cups, inter-school Chinese chess and international chess challenge shields, inter-school international chess (girls) challenge shield, girls' open international chess challenge cup and inter-school under-16 international chess challenge shield.

The founder members of the Council were Chung Hwa High School, Chung Ling High School, Han Chiang High School, Methodist Boys' School, Penang Free School and St Xavier's Institution.

With the maturing of the Council, membership increased to envelope the Chess Clubs of Bukit Mertajam High School, Convent Light Street, Chung Ling High School (Private), Jelutong Secondary School, St George's Girls' School and St Mark's Butterworth.

During the years of its existence, it organised several championships which included the Penang students' Chinese chess and international chess individual championships, the Penang inter-school Chinese chess and international chess championships, the Penang inter-school international chess championships for girls, the Penang girls' international chess individual championships, Penang inter-school under-16 international chess and Chinese chess championships and the Penang students under-16 international chess individual championships.

Meanwhile, Mr Fang Ewe Churh stated today that the Penang Chess Association had now moved from the Penang Library to the Chung Ling Old Boys' Association in Anson Road.

Chess sessions are being held twice weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays from 7.30 p.m.

All members are invited to attend as often as possible and are encouraged to bring in friends interested in the game.

POSTSCRIPT: In those days we students had a lot of independence to plan our activities. Once we had the tacit approval from our own school's chess club advisor to proceed, we would set everything into motion ourselves. The Penang Schools' Students Chess Council was the initiative that the Penang Free School Chess Club was proud to be a part of. Once the Council was formed in 1966 - although inter-school chess tournaments had been going on since 1964 - there was no turning back. The events kept growing and once the girls' schools came on board as members, we began holding tournaments for them to find the champion girls' school and the girls' champion.

The chairmanship of the Council was rotated among the schools. Normally, we would hold the meetings at the school holding this position. Here, we got to know the chess club office-bearers from the other schools, inter-mingling with them as we planned the year's activities. But of course, there were always a great rivalry brewing in the background. We saw every school as equals but I would be less than honest if I don't admit that scoring psychological points and trying to get a one-upmanship on the other schools always featured in our mutual dealings with one another. After all, that was what the game is all about, on and off the chess board.

As far as I knew, Tan Yam San had always been the advisor to the Council. He was already a senior citizen in the 1960s. He had a very calm composure and usually agreed to everything we proposed. Tan was previously teaching at the Chung Ling High School until 1969 and he was always there for everybody who were in chess. He stayed at the government quarters behind Penang Free School and often, after school hours, we would slip through the back door to play chess with him and his son, Tan Keng Jin. In the 1980s, you could still see him play chess in Penang Chess Association events and normally losing inevitably to the younger players around him. Such was his love for the game that he didn't care about the results. Keng Jin later became my colleague at Ban Hin Lee Bank.

Chap Goh Meh musings

Chap Goh Meh. That's supposed to be the first full moon of the new lunar calendar. In the olden days, the Chinese in Penang would be celebrating this cultural festival in a very big way. There would be a grand procession through the city and somewhere along the line would be a Dondang Sayang troupe touring on a brightly lit bus.

The Baba Nyonya Dondang Sayang singers would be accompanied by a small ensemble of musicians playing the violins and sometimes the accordion too, and banging out on the rebana, kompang and drums. Since moving away from George Town a very long time ago, I don't know whether there is still an annual procession come Chap Goh Meh. I do miss those special occasions where I would run out to the main road to watch the procession pass by. From a distance, we would be alerted by the music growing louder as the bus approached us.

Anyway, it was reported in New Straits Times that on 29 Nov 2018, Unesco had recognised Dondang Sayang as an intangible cultural heritage. That's good news, isn't it? The recognition was made under the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003. The last time Malaysia was given a similar endorsement was 14 years ago for the Mak Yong performance art form in 2005.

Anyway, back to Chap Goh Meh, it is actually during the daylight hours when I would be observing this festival. It starts with the worship of the deities at home - nothing elaborate for me, of course - and then I'd make a beeline to my Quah Kongsi in Carnarvon Lane, George Town, where the members will come to worship our resident deities and the ancestors' memorial tablets.

Then normally at about one o'clock, I would walk to the nearby Poh Hock Seah, otherwise known as the Tua Pek Kong Temple, in Armenian Street to make my worship to the Tua Pek Kong deity. Although this has become habitual for me to go there on Chap Goh Meh day itself, I can't quite remember when I exactly I first began this practice.

And talking about the Tua Pek Kong deity, it was reported in The Star newspaper that the God of Prosperity has predicted a good first four months for businesses in Penang, based on the flame watching ceremony at the Hai Choo Soo Temple in Tanjong Tokong. The first fanning of the embers in the deity's urn gave rise to a high and strong flame but the intensity died down for the subsequent two flames.

Now, whether or not you believe in this prediction remains to be seen but this has been an age-long ritual in Penang since 1844.

I tried to take photographs of the full moon on Chap Goh Meh night but unfortunately, it had rained in the afternoon and there was a very thick cloud cover throughout the night. This completely obliterated all my attempts to view the moon. Luckily, though, I had already taken a snap shot of the moon on the eve of Chap Goh Meh. The moon was still round enough but it wasn't completely illuminated.

In comparison, this picture below was taken on the night after Chap Goh Meh, effectively the 16th day of the lunar month. Both pictures were taken around 11.50 pm to midnight.

Chess and the constipated player

Just days before Chinese New Year, I was asked by the Penang Chess Association whether I'd mind playing in the Penang-Singapore match on the third and fourth days of the festival. Initially hesitant about committing my time, eventually I agreed to play all four games on the veteran's list. There would be two rapid chess games and two full time control standard chess games.

My wife would say later that I looked constipated in this picture. 

Perhaps she was correct. I was struggling to find a continuation that

would not embarrass me.   

Later, I opted out of playing the second day because the schedule was too early for me. I did not fancy having to wake up at six o'clock or 6.30 a.m. after coming home late on the first day. So I asked to be excused. But definitely, I would play on the first day: a rapid chess game followed by a standard chess game.

But as all good plans go, there was a last-minute hitch. I had to attend a family lunch with my in-laws on the third day of Chinese New Year. Everyone had agreed to have the lunch at 11 a.m. to accommodate me and I was happy. However, on my way out to the island, I did not reckon with the traffic congestion at the Penang Bridge toll plaza or the slow-moving traffic in the city. In the end, after trying to search for a parking space, etc, etc, I was late for the rapid chess game by about 20 minutes and Eng Seong had replaced me for the first round. Nevertheless, I was able to sit down for the second-round standard chess game:

Position after 21...bxc3

[Event "Penang-Singapore match"]
[Date "2019.02.07"]
[Round "2"]
[White "John Lee, Singapore"]
[Black "Quah Seng Sun, Penang"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A45"]
[PlyCount "136"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 c5 3. e3 d6 4. c3 cxd4 5. exd4 g6 6. Nf3 Bg7 7. Be2 O-O 8. Nbd2 b6 9. Nf1 Bb7 10. Ng3 Nbd7 11. Qd2 Ne4 12. Nxe4 Bxe4 13. Bh6 Nf6 14. Bxg7 Kxg7 15. O-O Qd7 16. h3 Rac8 17. Nh2 Qb7 18. f3 Bf5 19. Rf2 b5 20. Nf1 b4 21. Ne3 bxc3 (see the first diagram) 22. bxc3

If my opponent had played 22. Nxf5+ gxf5 23. bxc3, I would have been in for a torrid time. Maybe the game would still be balanced but the dynamics have changed and I would be required to play more actively on the queenside to compensate for my broken kingside. The threatening 24. Qg5+ would be looming and if I were to play 23...Qd5, thinking that I can defend the pawn, there would come 24. c4 and my opponent is definitely better.

Position after 37. Qb2

22... Be6 23. Rff1 Nd5 24. Nxd5 Bxd5 25. Rfc1 Bc4 26. Bd1 Rb8 27. Qe3 Rfc8 28. Bb3 e6 29. Rab1 Qd5 30. Qe4 Qa5 31. Qe3 Rb6 32. Qd2 Rbc6 33. Bxc4 Rxc4 34. Rb3 Qf5 35. Rb7 a5 36. Rb6 Qd5 37. Qb2? (see the second diagram) Rxd4!

Suddenly, I became wide awake in this game. Could this really happen? Was a rook combination in the air? I knew that I could recover the sacrificed piece after a series of exchanges but should I play 37...Rxd4 or 37...Rxc3? My assessment of the position lasted one or two minutes but I wasn't thinking deep enough.

I opted for 37...Rxd4 because a gut feeling told me that it was far more spectacular. But Dr Ronnie Lim pointed out to me later that 37... Rxc3 would be a gross mistake on account of 38. Rxc3 Qxd4+ 39. Re3! (see the third diagram) and the rook was safe because my queen was pinned by my opponent's queen. I would have blundered and lost a piece. Oops!

Position after 39. Re3

38. Re1 (after 38...cxd4 39. Rxc1+ Qxc1 40. Qxd4+ and 41. Qxb6, I would be up by two pawns in the game) 38...Rd2 39. Qb5 Qxb5 40. Rxb5 Rxc3 41. Rxa5 Rcc2 42. Rg5 Rxa2 43. f4 h6 44. Rg3 Kf6 45. Rb1 d5 46. Rb7 Rf2 47. Rb4 Kf5 48. Rb7 f6 49. Rg7 g5 50. fxg5 hxg5 51. Rb7 Rf4 52. Rb5 Ke4 53. Rgb3 e5 54. Rg3 d4 55. Rb4 Re2 56. Ra3 Rff2 57. Rg3 Rb2 58. Ra4 Rbe2 59. Rb4 Kd5 60. Rb5+ Kc4 61. Rb8 Rf4 62. Rc8+ Kd5 63. Rd8+ Ke4 64. Rd6 Re1+ 65. Kh2 Re3 66. Rd8 d3 67. Rxe3+ Kxe3 68. Kg1 Ke2 0-1

For the record, this inaugural match was won by Penang with a 50½-45½ score. That's a margin of five points. After the first day's play, Penang was leading the Singapore team by a mere one point. The hosts had won the first round handily but the visitors stormed back in the second round. However, Penang played decisively in the third and fourth rounds on the second day to put the victory to bed.

Keong hee huat chye 2019