Free latte

I've been a member of this Accorhotel chain for a few years now. Free membership that was thrust onto me some five years ago.

As a basic member there's not much of a benefit except perhaps some small discount on room bookings, a welcome drink and being seated at a member's corner at breakfast away from the riffraff crowd.

But this is good enough for me and that's why I don't mind staying at the Ibis Styles Fraser Business Park in KL.

Being a member also means that I can order eggs prepared to my liking and have unlimited access to their coffee machine for latte, cappuccino or espresso at breakfast, which makes me happy.

Last Thursday morning, I was speaking to the restaurant manager to comment on the tourist crowd. He looked harried during the peak breakfast hours. Sympathised with him and tut-tutted the whole time. I think not many guests bothered to talk with him.

The day after, I took a friend to the restaurant for some discussions. I asked for a latte for my friend and the restaurant manager, seeing us, even gave us some pastries from the morning breakfast spread. When we left later, I asked his staff whether I needed to pay for the coffee, seeing that it was well after breakfast hours. The manager came out and said no need. He even packed the uneaten pastries for me.

Sometimes, it pays to lend a sympathetic ear to others. 😄

Videos in the making

We looked surprised, even myself. Seemingly, the camera had almost caught everyone unawares. But the fact was that I had set the camera on timer mode and then had rushed back to ask my old schoolmates, Kumaravello and Siang Jin, to look into the lens.

We were all at a video production studio somewhere near the Cheras LRT station last week where we were putting together the rushes for a series of short documentaries on Penang Free School. I had written the script for the documentaries and we were now slotting in the stills and visual footage. Not having been in any studio before, I had no inkling about the process. Now, I appreciate the amount of work involved. For a five-minute documentary, it took at least about three to four hours to coordinate the stills and visuals with the voice-over.

I had done the initial voice-overs but they are apparently not good enough. My voice is not silky smooth and there's also not enough gruffiness or grumpiness in my delivery. So we're inviting another old friend come along later to have a go at the final voice-over. In the meantime, I've to tighten up the script a bit more to cut out any repetitive or superfluous stuff. Wish me luck!

25 years of NOMIS

Eng Soon and Lilian, Ted, myself and Saw See, Jeffrey

It was never intended to be a Silver Jubilee luncheon at Hai Nan Town Restaurant today but as Teoh Eng Soon and Ted Targosz pointed out, it has been 25 years since we all got to know one another as the Northern Malaysia Internet User Group or formed the Northern Malaysia Internet Society (NOMIS).  We were among the pioneers in using the Internet 25 years ago. (Read about our challenges and how we first got together in 1994 here.)

Two weeks back, I had called Eng Soon, Ted and Jeffrey Chew to arms at this get-together luncheon since the last time that we had come together was 10 years ago at my retirement from JobStreet.com. So we arranged to meet up at the Hai Nan Town. Bumped into the boss of this joint who was incidentally a former colleague from my Ban Hin Lee Bank days.

And we spent the next hour-and-a-half jawing away about the good old days, and promising to meet again whenever we can. There'll also be a whatsapp group to keep the original NOMIS members connected, as soon as we can track more of them down!

The four of us in 2009

The four of us in 2019

 

MPSP: a dereliction of duty?

My complaint today to the Province Wellesley Municipal Council or Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai (MPSP) over an uncollected garbage bag: 

I stay in Lorong Jernih 4. The MPSP garbage truck comes round every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to collect rubbish from the houses here.

I had left a garbage bag beside my rubbish bin outside the house on Wednesday night. 

On Thursday, I noticed that the garbage truck had emptied my rubbish bin but left the garbage bag uncollected.

Today on Saturday, I noticed again that the garbage bag has not been collected. 

I want to ask the MPSP why had your garbage collectors not doing their job properly. In the first place, I never see your men come round to sweep the road of rubbish or fallen leaves and flowers. Now, I have to buy the garbage bags myself, sweep clean the area outside my house and tie up the garbage bag neatly for your men to collect. 

As a rate payer, I want to know why is there this dereliction of duty? 

Fourth Student Leadership Workshop (I) 2019

Last weekend, my friends and I completed the first two days of the fourth Student Leadership Workshop for the potential student leaders from the fourth and fifth forms of the school. We were quite happy with the outcome from the two days. A very supportive Headmaster, and very receptive students who lapped up everything we threw at them. There will be a further weekend of workshops in the middle of next month.

I've written so much about the Student Leadership Workshops in the past that it has become almost repetitive for me to say more or less the same things again. But they must still be said: that we, the Old Boys of Penang Free School, having gone through the school system,  must give our whole-hearted support to the present Frees as they prepare to face the world eventually.

Undeniably, each generation of Frees will be different from the previous generation, with a completely different set of problems and challenges, and it does no good to compare their lot with yours or mine. But condemning the present education system is not a solution even though we know that in the last 30 or 40 years, the quality of education in this country has been dumbed down.

Rather than a blanket condemnation, why not the Old Frees look to help the present Frees in whatever way we can? My friends and I have chosen to coach them and we shall welcome other Old Frees to join us in this endeavour for the good of Penang Free School. In this present session, we had Ooi Teong Siew and Jackie Lee Teong Ghee to lend their assistance. We appreciated that! And Leslie Lee Kim Guan too came to give a brief talk. Thank you, boys, thank you very much, indeed!

The registration process at the meeting room in the Archives Building. We held the first session here as the School Hall was being used for another function. But we moved there after lunch on Saturday.

Siang Jin kicked off the workshop

Getting comfy in the ice-breaking session under the watchful eyes of Soo Choon, Teong Siew and Swee Poh

These boys were actually writing lines!

Can you spot Headmaster Omar b Abdul Rashid in the crowd?

We asked the boys to do a lot of this!

One of the brainstorming sessions

Soo Choon took over most of the coaching sessions on Sunday

 

Headmaster Omar dropped by on the second day to address the participants

The boys getting their hands dirty. Well, sort of dirty.

Leslie Lee talked about the importance of mental health in relation to physical health.

Lean Kang rounded up the weekend with a pep talk to the participants 

That's us, the coaches and co-ordinators with Headmaster Omar: Left to right: Soo Choon, Seng Sun, Teong Siew, Jackie, Headmaster Omar, Siang Jin, Swee Poh and Lean Kang. 

These were the student coaches from last year's leadership workshops who volunteered to help us over the two days. They all happened to be prefects from the School. A great bunch. Left to right: Diviyha Thuresamy, Aryan Bhubhindar Singh, Inesh Dhillon, Hue Yan Tatt and Mohamed Afan Syafi 

Funeral parlours

It's amazing the diverse topics that sometimes get discussed in Whatsapp. Just yesterday, my friends and I - and by "friends" I really mean my old friends that go back to our schooldays - were suddenly exchanging notes about funeral parlours in Penang.

It started with Swee Poh mentioning about his membership in the Siew Heng Foo Association in Transfer Road. Now, this is an association that I have no idea about at all. I don't know what it represents. Doesn't even know that it existed. But it does exist: a four-storey building at the corner of Transfer Road and Ariffin Road, with a coffee shop occupying the ground floor of the premises.

This must have stirred up the memory of Gordon who used to stay in Hutton Lane. He said that the balcony at the back of his home (called the pang peh in Hokkien) overlooked the funeral parlour of the Siew Heng Foo Association and he could see them preparing the dead and hearing all the tok tok cheang music through the night, which was supposedly to pave an easy journey for the dead to the afterworld. There were often wails of grief, especially when the priest or lam mor loh sang the departure signature chant, san far koh.

He even became more descriptive: the priest, for effect of grief work, would cry, sniffle and even manifest jerky hiccups as he lamented that the departed had to go and could no longer ever come back. He would purposely drag on to make it like a long goodbye. Sad or melancholy was the ambience deliberately created to end the night.

Now as I said earlier, I haven't heard of the Siew Heng Foo Association before. But I know about the Toi Shan convalescent Home before. So, a little confused initially, I jumped in to ask whether they were the same. Gordon replied that the Siew Heng Foo Association was in Transfer Road, opposite the Datok Koyah shrine, while the Toi Shan Convalescent Home was actually a funeral parlour in Hutton Lane opposite the Eden Restaurant. Two different entities.

Then I asked whether the Siew Heng Foo funeral parlour had closed down. Yes, he replied. The Siew Heng Foo funeral parlour closed down a very long time ago. It had wound up and gone with the times when there are now better funeral parlour services in Farlim and Paya Terubong, run by the United Hokkien Cemeteries and Funeral Parlour.

May I add too that two other parlours that have also closed in recent years were the Toi Shan Convalescent Home itself and the one in Bawasah Road behind the Penang Plaza. But two others still exist: one in Batu Gantong Road outside the Batu Gantong Cemetery and another in Mount Erskine Road behind the Phor Tay School.

And then our Whatsapp conversation turned suddenly to char koay teow, a more palatable and less morbid subject.

Magnifique

Is there any other school hall in the country that is more or equally magnificent?

View from the stage

View from the main entrance

Tacoma flowers blooming

Woke up this morning, looked out the window and the sight of a Tacoma tree - it's outside the house - in full bloom filled me with amazement. Beautiful. But I know that for the next week or two, I've to spend the time sweeping away the fallen flowers. Already since this morning, I've almost filled up a garbage bag with them. But bring them on!

Hours away from another workshop

More giving your bit back time. We're getting ready. All preparatory work is completed. This will be the third year that my friends and I are holding a Student Leadership Workshop at Penang Free School, our alma mater.

The workshop starts tomorrow morning at eight o'clock at the Archives Building (the one on the school field) before moving to the School Hall after lunch. Sunday will be Day Two of the workshop and thereafter, there will be a break of about a month before the third and fourth sessions continue in mid-April. This workshop is aimed at potential student leaders from Forms Four and Five.

Apart from Lean Kang and Siang Jin, we shall have Soo Choon, Swee Poh, Teong Siew, Jsckie and I as the coaches, while assisting us as the student coaches will be Divya, Aryan, Arfan and Yan Tatt, all of whom are the School Prefects. Wonderful to see the Prefects so committed.

Jackson Browne: Hold Out

This is one of those albums that I've got to give a listen to on a warm, sweaty afternoon. It's supposed to be Jackson Browne's only record to reach Number One on the Billboard charts. 

I had picked this album out from a flea market sale [UPDATE: I just remembered. It wasn't a flea market. I picked up this record from a second-hand bookshop in Kuala Lumpur last year] and boy, was this record dirty when I removed it from the sleeve. Apart from cleaning the vinyl surface, I had to give the album cover a wipe down with a damp cloth. But it is okay; the surface's very clean now.

Side One: Disco apocalypse, Hold out, That girl could sing, Boulevard
Side Two: Of missing persons, Call it a loan, Hold on hold out

Beware of bird shit

Here's an interesting story. I think it was two days before Chinese New Year. With people already coming back from outstation for the festival, the road outside our house was getting rather congested with parked cars.

The neighbour opposite my house was already occupying the empty space beneath the tree outside my gate with his car. I have to live with it. It's fair game for anyone to park their vehicle there as it is a public road. My name's not there on the road shoulder.

However, on Chinese New Year Eve, he suddenly removed his car to outside his house gate and he began hosing it down furiously with a jet of water. And it so happened that I sauntered outside to do a spot of doing nothing.

"Uncle," he called out to me. "don't park your car there. There's a lot of bird shit. A lot. And it's so difficult to wash them off!" I looked up at the tree and saw nothing but the branches and leaves. "Okay," I called back, "thanks for the warning."

I didn't think too much of it until I happened to leave my car for a few hours that night in the same spot and saw a few bits of bird shit on the bonnet. Of course, I had to wash them off immediately before the droppings dried up. So there really was bird shit from up there.

From that day onwards, I've been avoiding that space. Another neighbour who had the same habit of parking his car in the same spot also suffered the droppings until he decided that it wasn't worth his time to wash them off every morning. His car is now parked somewhere else.

So last night, I decided to take a close look at the tree and see whether I could spot the offending bird. Came out of the house with a torch. Abd there they were. Not one bird but two birds up in the branches. Cosying up to each other. They weren't even bothered about the light from my torch. They just sat there, unmoving. No doubt about it, they were the culprits.

Since no car is now parked beneath the tree, all that's left of the evidence of the birds' presence are the dried-up bird shit on the road below.

PS. It is not the first time that I've caught birds taking a rest in this tree at night time. There have been other bird-shit occasions in my 15 years staying in this house. But this one has been satisfying because the birds did what I couldn't do: chase one particular neighbour away from parking overnight beneath this tree. I'm bad. 😈

Xu Yuhua

An unnamed artist came up with this drawing of former women's world chess champion Xu Yuhua when she was hosted to dinner by the Penang Chess Association in January. I'm surprised by the artist's sharp eye for details. And I'm also flattered by his rendition of my goodself. 😊