2019 co-curricular day

Myself with Lee Eu Beng, the president of The Old Frees Association

Experienced an interesting morning yesterday at my alma mater, Penang Free School. I had been invited to their co-curricular day, you see. All those mandatory prize-giving aside, the activities both on and off the field more than made up for the boredom of watching the pupils climbing on stage to receive their certificates. It's a necessity for the school to recognise the achievers or otherwise, why hold the function?

The guest of honour was Syed Mohd Aidid bin Syed Murtaza who had a special gift of communicating well with the pupils and audience. This year, he talked about birds. How a bird in hand was worth more than two in the bush. He even brought a caged bird to the function just to emphasise that point to his audience. But frankly, that's all I remembered from his speech. Wasn't particularly paying attention....sorry. 😜



This was the march past in front of the School Pavillion, comprising the uniformed bodies of the School, led by the School Band. Crisp salutes and all that. Singing of the national and state anthems on the field. Later, the guests adjourned to the School Hall for the band display, cultural performances and the prize-giving ceremony. There was also a small exhibition in the hall to showcase some of the pupils' achievements.



This was one of the highlights of the co-curricular day: the performance by the School Band. Derrick, the trombone player who featured so prominently in this 19-minute clip, was one of the alumni from our student leadership workshops this year. He's good. A thorough extrovert who enjoys his time in school and simply bathes in the limelight.

I was so surprised when the band delved into a medley of three The Beatles tunes: All my loving, Till there was you, and I want to hold your hand. This coming from the fact that the Abbey Road album marked its 50th anniversary only the day before on 27 Sept 2019. Was this a coincidence? I'm sure it was, in which case it was a happy coincidence. But I'm equally sure too that the School Band was totally unaware of the significance of their set list.

Abbey Road 50th anniversary today

The Beatles' Abbey Road album might have been released in September 1969 but it was very much later in the year that the record reached our shores in Penang. Never on time, always late. Such was life in the 60s and 70s. Anyway, Abbey Road was the very first long-playing record that I bought with my own money: from the pocket money that I had saved up through the weeks. 

If I remember correctly, records such as this were selling at around $10 per title then. But it was a herculean task saving up enough to buy them. So it was with pride that I rode my bicycle - or did I ride the bus? - to the Wing Hing Record Store in Campbell Street to select my very first purchase. An overload of audio and visual senses when I arrived at Wing Hing to find records on sale everywhere...12-inch records on the right side of the shop and also the centre aisle, while the seven-inch ones were displayed on the left side of the shop. Towards the back was the counter as well as a Lenco turntable which the proprietor used to test the records for his clients. After making my purchase, it was a quick and impatient trip back home to place MY record on the family record player.

Today, Abbey Road, the remastered version, is making an appearance in music stores around the world to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The original record was produced by George Martin and it was his son, Giles Martin, who would be overseeing the remastering of Abbey Road and giving it a new digital sound. Ironically, this release also marks the 50th anniversary of The Beatles playing together for the last time because soon after the record came out in 1969, the break-up of the group was announced.

Incidentally, the release of the remastered Abbey Road comes in many formats: an all-CD version of four compact discs, a three-vinyl record version that included two records of session recordings, a one-vinyl record version and finally, a one-vinyl picture record version. For me, the decision was very simple: I want the three-vinyl record version of Abbey Road. Several weeks ago, I made a pre-order and ended up buying it from Amazon.com's French store. Everything was in French and until today, I still don't know how I managed to navigate around that website successfully and place my order. Needless to say, I'm waiting impatiently for my copy to arrive. Gosh, I'm sure to feel like a 16-year-old again! 

Editorial review from Amazon.com
This limited edition Deluxe vinyl box set features all 40 tracks from the Super Deluxe collection on three 180-gram vinyl LPs. The album’s new stereo mix LP is packaged in a faithfully replicated sleeve, with the two Sessions LPs paired in their own jacket, presented with a four-page insert in a lift-top box. Giles Martin, working with Sam Okell, from the original eight-track session tapes, was guided by the album’s original mix supervised by his father, George Martin

Album 1: 

Side One: Come together (4:20), Something (3:02), Maxwell's silver hammer (3:28), Oh! Darling (3:27), Octopus's garden (2:50), I want you (she's so heavy) (7:47)
Side Two: Here comes the sun (3:05), Because (2:45), You never give me your money (4:02), Sun king (2:26), Mean Mr Mustard (1:06), Polythene Pam (1:12), She came in through the bathroom window (1:58), Golden slumbers (1:31), Carry that weight (1:36), The end (2:21), Her Majesty (0:25)

Album 2: 

Side One: I want you (she's so heavy) (Trident recording session & reduction mix) (6:59), Goodbye (home demo) (2:23), Something (studio demo) (3:37), The ballad of John and Yoko (Take 7) (3:37), Old brown shoe (Take 2) (3:15)
Side Two: Oh! Darling (Take 4) (3:30), Octopus's garden (Take 9) (1:43), You never give me your money (Take 36) (5:17), Her Majesty (Takes 1-3) (1:33), Golden slumbers / Carry that weight (Takes 1-3 / Medley) (3:20), Here comes the sun (Take 9) (3:41), Maxwell's silver hammer (Take 12) (4:44)

Album 3:

Side One: Come Together (Take 5) (3:30), The end (Take 3) (2:11), Come and get it (Studio Demo) (2:42), Sun king (Take 20) (3:14), Mean Mr Mustard (Take 20) (1:34), Polythene Pam (Take 27) (1:39), She came in through the bathroom window (Take 27) (2:06), Because (Take 1 / Instrumental) (3:07)
Side Two: The Long One (comprising of ‘You never give me your money’, ’Sun king’/’Mean Mr Mustard’, ‘Her Majesty’, ‘Polythene Pam’/’She came in through the bathroom window’, ’Golden slumbers’/ ’Carry that weight’, ’The end’) (16:10), Something (Take 39 / Instrumental / Strings Only) (2:41), Golden slumbers / Carry that weight (Take 17 / Instrumental / Strings & Brass Only) (3:17)

Yahoo! login

Can anyone explain what happened? I was seated in the pharmacy of the Bukit Mertajam gpvernment hospital, patiently waiting to collect my medication and trying to access my Yahoo! email account on my mobile phone. I felt a bit perplexed when the login screen flashed up and displayed instructions in Vietnamese. Now, you know and I know that Bukit Mertajam is certainly not in Vietnam. So why did this happen? Why a Vietnamese login screen? 

Visiting the Penang Port

My wife and I visited the Penang Port Commission yesterday. Basically at the invitation of a close pal and former colleague whom I've known for almost 30 years now. 

In the mid-1990s, we were part of the early Internet users in Penang. Together with several others, we met rather regularly at the YMCA and Universiti Sains Malaysia to share ideas and promote online activities such as Telnet, FTP, Gopher, Newsgroups and Bulletin Boards, Internet Chats and of course, the World Wide Web.

Then he went for his further studies in Alabama, United States. He came back after graduation, joined a company (can't remember the name) somewhere in Burmah Road, later Solectron and a few others before finally joining me as a colleague in JobStreet.com. In the 2000s, JobStreet.com became the company that some of us early Internet users gravitated to.

After his stint at JobStreet.com, he joined the nascent Penang government which had just won the General Elections in 2008 and soon gained the trust of the Chief Minister. From there, he was transferred to the Penang Development Corporation. Today, he heads and is doing great work in the Penang Port Commission.

Meet Jeffrey Chew, the Commission's chairman. He was appointed to the post earlier this year. When we caught up with him yesterday, we discussed many things and he shared with us his vision for the port in Penang. Of course, with tourism taking a more forefront role in the state, there are plans to upgrade the facilities and the expansion of business there but I'm not in a position to disclose them here. I wouldn't want to spoil his fun, would I? So I will just say to be patient and wait for the announcements to come from him at the appropriate time.

But there were two things we talked about that shouldn't be out of place here. The first was the efforts to help our respective old schools. I was from Penang Free School and he was from St Xavier's Institution. Rival schools in Penang. We agreed that despite the general drop in the quality of education, our alma maters are still worth helping. As individuals, we can - and should - do something to help our respective alma maters in whatever ways we can contribute. Don't just criticise; do something to help your old schools. In Jeffrey's case, he and his school mates had raised money to hand out as annual bursaries to the needy but potential students at St Xavier's Institution for their further studies in public universities. A very noble cause.

The other matter we discussed was the problem of dementia which affects a considerable percentage of the population. We shared experiences about dementia which has affected some of our close family members. We agreed that the most affected are the caregivers: primarily the spouses of the affected dementia patients who just couldn't accept that their partners had changed and probably wouldn't be getting any better. It's all so very sad.

Sunrise (part 2)

My wife and I have just returned from Kuala Lumpur where we spent a few days attending a seminar by that foremost fengshui expert, Joey Yap. 

Last Wednesday morning thus saw us at the railway station in Bukit Mertajam patiently waiting for our regular train service to arrive. Around 7.30 in the morning, just as the sun was about to break out from behind the hill at Cherok Tokun. 

Only difference was there was no hill to see. Not that the hill had disappeared but because the haze was so think that it obliterated the sight of everything between the station and the hill. 

And of course, everyone knows that the country has been enveloped by a thick layer of haze from Indonesia since about two weeks ago. Haze which the Indonesian government had refused to acknowledge as their responsibility although it emanates from the plantations and forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Such irresponsibility, I have never known before. 

Anyway, this hazy scene before me last Wednesday completely contrasted with the clear skies we had several months ago. Last April and May, I had also taken some pictures of the hill from the same vantage point of the railway station and it was totally clear. Such a sad difference four months later. 

St George's Church in ruins

A magnificent building this, yes? Simple, yet magnificent. This is the main building of the St George's Church in Farquhar Street, George Town, Penang, completed in 1818 and consecrated in 1819.

From the building's front, the clock on the steeple looks down upon the Francis Light Memorial on the lawn. But there was a time when the clock wasn't there at all. It was during the Second World War. At the start of the Japanese invasion of Malaya, their bombing damaged much of the building and the clock went missing. Destroyed, most likely. And after the War, although the building underwent extensive repairs, the clock was never replaced. It was not until its last major restoration in 2009, that a new clock was installed back in its original position on the steeple.

On this very day 72 years ago, The Straits Times published a story on the St George's Church, detailing its destruction during the Japanese Occupation. As I mentioned, this was the time of the Second World War. Japan was invading the peninsula and bombs were dropped on Penang island. The St George's Church in Farquhar Street was hit by one and it suffered damage.

But according to the newspaper story, the physical damage was relatively light. It was the looting and ransacking that followed which destroyed the church. Everything that could be removed was taken away, which says a lot for the (lack of) civic-mindfulness in those days. Would people still act similarly today? Anyway, here is the story:

St George's Church, Penang, the foundation stone of which was laid in 1817, just 130 years ago, was first opened for worship in 1818, and was consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta, whose diocese then included Malaya, on May 11, 1819. The building was erected by the munificence of the East India Company, as the inscription over the West door still records.

It was the first church built for the worship of the Church of England in Malaya. (Christ Church, Malacca, now used by the Church of England, was built by the Dutch Reformed Church at an earlier date.) St George's Church was built for the use of all English-speaking members of the Church, irrespective of race or nationality; in the absence of statistics it is difficult to say how many attended the Church in those far-off days, but it is safe to presume that they were mainly Europeans.

St George's was one of the first buildings in Penang to be hit by a Jap bomb, but the damage originally sustained was relatively small. The bomb entered through the roof over the gallery at the West end, near the main porch, bringing down part of the gallery and leaving a pile of debris on the floor.
But the present derelict state of the church is mainly due to looters, who soon got to work, stripping the place and leaving absolutely nothing behind that could be removed.

Amongst other furnishings that disappeared was a lovely brass lectern (a memorial to some devout and distinguished worshipper of past days), the pulpit, the Communion rails, as well as every pew and kneeler. Most of the memorials were torn off the walls, and even the ornamental paving stones from the floor were torn up and stolen.

The greatest single loss perhaps was the organ, which was completely wrecked and carried away piecemeal. The streets around the church were for some days strewed with the remains of organ pipes and other essential parts of that beautiful instrument.

This organ was originally built and erected in 1896. It cost then £750, and the charges for assembly came to another £250, making a total of £1,000, which sum was paid by the Straits Settlements Government.

Mr J.P. Soutar, for many years trainer of the choir before the war, and now a member of the church committee, has recently been in communication with some of the best known firms of organ builders at home.

While most of these firms state that they could not think of undertaking the work of building such an organ for a number of years, one firm said that they could be ready to start in a year's time, but the approximate estimate for carrying out such work, with freight and packing, and assembling here, would reach a total of about $30,000.

The old organ had been entirely rebuilt in 1939 at a cost of $5,000, which did not include the organ case, a magnificent piece of work which was added by the generosity of a private donor.

Another feature of St George's before its destruction was a beautiful little side chapel, with a carved screen of teak, and a dignified altar, both of which were also given by members of the congregation.

The church had been enriched by other gifts, many of which were added during the chaplaincy of the late Rev. Keppel Garnier, who loved St George's Church, and whose memory is still green in the minds of all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Just behind St George's was the Tamil church and parsonage.

The only part that remains of the Tamil church today is the Font, which still stands out in the open, as a solitary testimony to the many children who were brought into the fellowship of Christ's Church there.

The Font of St George's Church has also recently been found by the P.W.D. in a pile of rubble in the neighbourhood, slightly chipped, but otherwise undamaged. This Font will be replaced in the restored building, and will thus continue to be used by future generations.

It is now just two years since the liberation of Penang by the Allied Forces, and St George's Church still stands in a forlorn state, but it is hoped that it will not be long before this position is rectified.

The Government of the Malayan Union has undertaken the responsibility of restoring the fabric of the church at an estimated cost of $60,000. The building stands on Crown land, and was taken over by the British Government from the old East India Company when Penang (or Prince of Wales' Island) became part of the Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements.

Before the war the Government was always responsible for the upkeep of the fabric and the grounds of the church. The plans are now complete for restoring the old building almost exactly as it stood before, tenders have been called for, and work on the building will shortly commence.

A fund for interior decoration and refurnishing the church was opened at a great service which was held in the ruins on St George's Day this year, and an appeal was launched for support from all lovers of the old church and Penang residents, past and present.

Several banks and business houses in Penang, as well as private people, have already contributed generously to this fund, but it has still a very long way to go before even the bare minimum required for essential furnishing is reached.

Once work on the actual building begins, however, money is likely to come in more readily, and a number of people have expressed their desire to give some definite part of the furniture of the church as a memorial to someone who has worshipped in the church in the past.

It will be a happy day for very many people in Penang when once again St George's Church becomes a "House of Prayer for all the nations."

Malayan Exchange Banks Association

I posted this picture on the exBHLBankers facebook page today to commemorate the fact that on 16 Sept 1963, the Malayan Exchange Banks Association had taken out a full page advertisement in The Straits Times to congratulate Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah on the formation of Malaysia.

The banks listed in this advertisement were Ban Hin Lee Bank Ltd, Bangkok Bank Ltd, Bank of America, The Bank of Canton Ltd, Bank of China, The Bank of East Asia Ltd, The Bank of India Ltd, Bank of Singapore Ltd, The Bank of Tokyo Ltd, Banque de L'Indochine, Batu Pahat Bank Ltd, The Chartered Bank, Chung Khiaw Bank Ltd, The Eastern Bank Ltd, Far Eastern Bank Ltd, First National City Bank, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, The Indian Bank Ltd, The Indian Overseas Bank Ltd, The Industrial and Commercial Bank Ltd, The Kwantung Provincial Bank, Kwong Yik (Selangor) Banking Corporation Ltd, Lee Wah Bank Ltd, Malayan Banking Ltd, Mercantile Bank Ltd, The Mitsui Bank Ltd, Nationale Handelsbank NV, Netherlands Trading Society, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd, Overseas Union Bank Ltd, Sze Hai Tong Bank Ltd, The United Chinese Bank Ltd, The United Commercial Bank Ltd and United Malayan Banking Corporation Ltd. Numbering 34 in all.

The name Malayan Exchange Banks Association was a puzzle to me and I'm sure it would also be a puzzle to most other people, including my former colleagues at Ban Hin Lee Bank. A normal Google search on this name also turned out nothing much. But luckily I was able to dig a bit deeper. Digging deeper may not uncover any useful results but fortunately, this one did.

The Exchange Banks Association was a fore-runner of both the Association of Banks in Malaysia and the Association of Banks in Singapore. The earliest reference to this association in the newspapers was in 1935 when it announced, to subsequent great hue and cry from the public, an imposition of a $5 half-yearly service charge on small current account balances of below $1,000. It is now known that the Exchange Banks Association was formed in 1934 by 15 commercial banks in Singapore.

After the Second World War, a separate Exchange Banks Association of the States of Malaya (or Malayan Exchange Banks Association) was set up in Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile, the Exchange Banks Association continued to function in Singapore. No idea how inter-dependent on one another were the two bodies, but their functions included the interest rates and other terms on lending, determination of charges for various types of banking transactions and setting common foreign exchange rates.

In July 1965, the Malayan Exchange Banks Association and the Exchange Banks Association decided to merge into one entity called the Association of Banks in Malaysia, comprising the 43 banks operating in the country at that time, with separate secretariats in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Membership was also opened to Sarawak and Sabah-based banks. The formation was regarded as necessary so that they could cooperate closely with Bank Negara Malaysia.

After Singapore exited from Malaysia later the same year, there was a name change to the Association of Banks in Malaysia and Singapore to reflect the situation. The body continued to be representative of the banking institutions in the two countries. However in May 1973, Malaysia and Singapore ended the interchangeability agreement on their currencies and subsequently, they issued their own currency notes and coin. As a consequence, the joint association dissolved. Replacing it, the Association of Banks in Malaysia was established in November 1973 while the Association of Banks in Singapore was formed one month earlier in October 1973.

Haze haze go away

I had lunch with some of my cohorts on Wednesday and I took this picture of the haze that had been enveloping Penang for more than a week already. I posted the picture on whatsapp with a caption saying, quite cynically, "an absolutely breathtaking view from the E&O Hotel in Penang this afternoon. As far as the eyes can see too."

Unfortunately, someone in that whatsapp chat group took my comments literally at face value and told me quite as a matter of fact, "I am afraid the horizon in your pic is actually haze." Thank you for informing me. I am overwhelmed by your response. 😂

Intrigued, I posted a second picture of the hazy day in Penang, this time taken from the Penang Bridge. Aiming my camera northwards, I captured this scene below. Now, would anybody care to comment this time? Unfortunately, no. 😞 They must've wised up to me by now.

Spectacular view of The Channel this afternoon from the Penang
Bridge with George Town on the left and Butterworth on the right
as far as the eyes can see (again)

Okay, it doesn't matter. No great disappointment there. Let's see whether there would be any more noteworthy pictures to take in the next day or two. Then came Saturday, the 14th of September. It rained quite a bit the whole day through and it cleared away quite a lot of the haze particles in the air. When I was driving back to the mainland that night, I stopped again at the emergency area on the Penang Bridge and I snapped this shot:

Same direction as the above but whereas I couldn't even see George Town
and Butterworth during the day time, the distant lights were so clearly seen
at night. It showed how much of the haze had disappeared.

I hope the clear skies can remain for the next few days or even weeks, but I am not convinced that it can last as long as open burning continues to be a problem in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The winds are bringing the haze particles northwards into Malaysia and I am truly disappointed by the Indonesian authorities' claim that they are not responsible for it. Come on! It doesn't matter whether the rogue companies behind the burning are owned by Malaysian conglomerates. They are still located within Indonesia and it is the Indonesian government who must first take action against these conglomerates. I don't care what they do; just stop them from burning your land further. That all.

Grease: Daniel Levins, the green shirt dancer

I whipped out this copy of the Grease soundtrack a few days ago to give the evergreen tunes another listen. (More about this long-playing record later in this story.) It was a bit nostalgic filling my ears with the music again and memories brought me back to 1979 when I watched the film on the big screen. True, the film was released in 1978 but it only arrived in Malaysia in 1979, such was the distribution in the distant past. Unlike now, we didn't get to see new releases until weeks or even months later. We were hardly up-to-date in those days.

I can't remember how many times I've watched this show in the past. Maybe five or six, maybe more. But no matter how many times I've watched Grease, I've never failed to be mesmerised by the dance hall and carnival scenes in the show. Certainly felt like a free-for-all where the principal and back-up actors were allowed free reign to fool around.

In my opinion, the carnival scene stood out mainly because of one particular back-up dancer: Daniel Levans, known as the guy in the green shirt. He was amazing and extremely talented, which must have come from his training as a classical ballet dancer. His dance movements in the film conveyed a lot of energy and I agree with some observations that he could have even outshone all of the main cast. Anyone watching Grease again should look out for Levans in this carnival sequence.

As the back-up dancer, he was also the scene-stealer in the dance hall sequence. Who could not have noticed him strutting boldly in front of the camera during the dance contest? There were so many instances of Levans popping up in the background, as if the producer had purposely positioned him there.

By the way, Daniel Levins was his real name; and Levans was what he was known as professionally in Grease and his other films in the 1970s - The Turning Point, The Goodbye Girl and Godspell - but they were all minor roles.

Levins was the principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater in the 1970s. As an actor, he never made it big on the silver screen and was mostly teaching in ballet and dance academies in the United States. He died on 14 Sep 2015, four years ago today, aged 62.

Side One: Grease (Frankie Valli), Summer nights (John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Cast), Hopelessly devoted to you (Olivia Newton-John), You're the one that I want (John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John), Sandy (John Travolta)
Side Two: Beauty school drop-out (Frankie Avalon), Look at me I'm Sandra Dee (Stockard Channing), Greased lightnin' (John Travolta and Jeff Conaway), It's raining on Prom Night (Cindy Bullens), Alone at a drive-in movie (Instrumental), Blue moon (Sha Na Na)
Side Three: Rock n' roll is here to stay (Sha Na Na), Those magic changes (Sha Na Na), Hound dog (Sha Na Na), Born to hand-jive (Sha Na Na), Tears on my pillow (Sha Na Na), Mooning (Louis St Louis and Cindy Bullens)
Side Four: Freddy my love (Cindy Bullens), Rock n' roll party queen (Louis St Louis), There are worse things I could do (Stockard Channing), Look at me I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise) (Olivia Newton-John), We go together (John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Cast), Love is a many splendoured thing (Instrumental), Grease (Reprise) (Frankie Valli)

Mid-autumn mooncake / lantern festival

According to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, today is the 15th day of the eight lunar month, meaning that today we are celebrating the Mid-autumn Festival with mooncakes. Traditionally, mooncakes were either sweet with fillings of lotus paste or red bean paste with an enclosed salted duck egg yolk, or savoury with nutty fillings mixed with pieces of Chinese ham. But for quite a long time already, we've seen mooncakes with every inconceivable flavours as fillings. I quite welcomed them then but now, I don't quite like them.

Culturally, we Chinese have been praying to the Moon Goddess during this Mid-autumn Festival since time immemorial. When I was small and still living in Seang Tek Road, this was an occasion to look forward to every year. Come about nine o'clock at night, we would await my grand-aunt and her family. They would drive down from Ayer Itam to visit their elder sister - my grandmother - and we would then all troop upstairs to the open-air balcony at the back of the house.

I would follow them upstairs with my dragon paper lantern. My lantern was usually the grandest among my neighbours. I can say this about my parents. They always gave me the best lanterns every year and it was invariably designed as a dragon. Possibly it was the same paper lantern, kept and stored away till the following year, but I was too young to notice the difference or to care. If it was not displaying the lantern upstairs on the balcony, it would be out on the streets at night during the festival evening when the other kids in the neighbourhood would come out with their lanterns too. But as I mentioned, mine was always the dragon, and always the biggest and the grandest.

My grandmother would have already laid out a table there and placed the joss stick urn and candle holders on it. At 10 o'clock or so, she would lay out the mooncakes and mooncake biscuits and we would then spend the next hour or so worshipping the Moon Goddess. It being the night of the 15th day of the lunar month, the moon would be a round, bright disc in the dark sky. But occasionally, there would be thick cloud cover too and the moon couldn't be seen during that hour of worship.

But these prayers, if I remember correctly, tapered off soon after 1969. Maybe not immediately but it took a few more years before we stopped completely. By then, I had moved temporarily to Kuala Lumpur for my studies and lost touch with this moon worship. When I came back to Penang about four years later, my family were on the verge of moving to Ayer Itam because the Seang Tek Road house was about to be taken back by new landlords. Yes, we were being evicted on their pretext of redevelopment of the land on which their four houses, including our rented home, were standing. We moved to Ayer Itam and never prayed to the Moon Goddess during the Mid-autumn Festival ever again. (Note: The properties were never redeveloped. Until today, the four houses are still standing in Seang Tek Road.)

Even though as a family, we do not observe the worship anymore, this is a culture that is still widely popular among the Chinese community, particularly by the Chinese guilds. Only this morning, I was at the Swee Cheok Tong, the Quah Kongsi, to pay my respects to our resident deities and the ancestral tablets on the occasion of the Mid-autumn Festival. Apart from the usual array of fruits, roast meat and roast chicken, we offered boxes of mooncakes at the various altars. Unfortunately, missing this year were the mooncake biscuits; missing not by design but simply because the Treasurer forgot all about them! 😛

Anyway, tonight is the Mid-autumn Festival night. Would we be able to see the full moon tonight? I would say not likely. It will be more than clouds that will cover the sky. It will be the dreaded haze that had enveloped much of the country for at least a week now. No thanks to the irresponsible people of Indonesia who had been doing open burning on their plantations, the country is now more or less totally shrouded with a thick haze around the clock. Even rain cannot eliminate the haze. Only a change in wind direction can do it and none is expected till one or two weeks from now.

As long as the haze persists, there is little chance of seeing the moon tonight. And this is a great pity because tonight, at 8.21pm, the International Space Station is scheduled to streak right across the face of the moon. It will be very fleeting: the transit across the moon's face is expected to last a mere 1.26 seconds. Over in the blink of an eye. And will be missed by most Malaysians because of the inconsiderate Indonesians. Ah, well....

Baroque revelations

Several weeks ago, I was alerted to an announcement that the Wicked Music People ensemble would make a return visit to Penang for another performance. Last December, they had played a concert of baroque music here on Christmas Eve and I had thoroughly enjoyed the programme. Thus, I was looking forward to the ensemble playing here again. It was time truly well-spent yesterday afternoon at the Macallum Connoisseurs listening to these folks on their baroque instruments.

The added interest this time was their newly acquired "Assembled-in-Malaysia" harpsichord. According to U-En Ng, it took him and his friends some three or four months to assemble the harpsichord from a knock-down kit imported from France, patiently putting together all the parts. Without taking into account the man-hours they spent on this task, the cost of the harpsichord parts was about RM60,000, inclusive of transportation and Customs duty. Importing a completely built-up harpsichord, Ng guessed, could have set them back RM100,000 instead.

Ng mentioned that the number of harpsichords in the country could probably be counted on one hand. There is one at the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra in Kuala Lumpur but it's used exclusively at the Petronas Philharmonic Hall at the KLCC. There are some which are privately owned but the owners wouldn't lend them out either. Therefore, Ng and his friends decided to build their own instrument instead. Now, having pieced everything together, they have been taking the harpsichord on the road to their various engagements. Malaysia's first publicly accessible harpsichord, he was very proud to proclaim.

The afternoon set featured Henry Purcell's Chaconne from The Fairy Queen Z.629, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's Ciaccona in A major, Diego Ortiz's Recercadas, Carlos Martinez Gil's Aromas from Suite Estiu, Andrea Falconieri's Ciaccona, Jean-Marie Leclair's Trio Sonata II Opus 13 and Georg Friedrich Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon HWV67. Somewhere in between Ibrahim Aziz threw in a solo performance.

The Wicked Music People ensemble consisted of U-En Ng and Ibrahim Aziz on the viola da gamba, Lee Hai Lin and Kenneth Lim on the baroque violin, Tina Vinson on the harpsichord and Adrian Jones on the double bass.

The case of Fang Yuxiang

There are valid reasons why the World Chess Federation wants smartphones and other electronic devices banned from chess tournaments. By nature of them being smartphones, they are mini-computers in their own right and users are able to instal whatever application, or app, they want into them. And the more powerful the processors become, well, the more powerful are the chess apps too.

Naturally, this leads to widespread cheating in the game. We have players referring to their chess apps to analyse crucial positions during games. Mind you, several cheaters have already been caught using their smartphones in toilets and lavatories. Just a month or two ago, a chess grandmaster was photographed looking at his mobile in the toilet, with his pants up, whilst his game was going on. He was outed and Fide, the World Chess Federation, is poised to slap a suspension on him. Igors Rausis has since said he is contemplating retiring from playing competitively altogether.

[Update on Igors Rausis' case: It has been reported on 6 Dec 2019 that Rausis has been slapped with a six-year ban and his Grandmaster title removed. But then, the player had already said earlier that he had played his last game of competitive chess, anyway.]

Malaysian chess players aren't that innocent either. There was a report in May this year of a Malaysian chess player being booted out of a tournament in Dublin, Ireland, the month before when he was caught cheating with a smartphone. I had heard that there is also cheating going on in local chess tournaments despite precautions taken by the organisers, for example, in this year's Selangor open tournament where a participant was caught with his mobile showing the position on the board, presumably while the game was still going on.

For that reason, in long time-control events, players are asked to surrender their mobiles to the organisers in the tournament hall before the start of every round. No use just asking them to switch off the mobiles. If players want to cheat, they would just turn them on again in the toilets. Also no use asking them to pass their mobiles to their friends or relatives for safe-keeping outside the tournament hall. What's to prevent a cheater from collecting his mobile from his friend or relative while on his way to the toilet and returning it before re-entering the playing hall? Thus there is now this added responsibility of chess organisers to keep the players' mobiles each round. But it still doesn't solve the problem of friends and relatives waiting outside the hall to pass their own chess app-laden mobiles to the intending cheater.

At the recently concluded Malaysia Chess Festival, in particular, during those few days when the Open, Seniors Open and Challengers tournaments were played, the players' toilet movements were scrutinised closely by the organisers. They monitored how long a chess player had gone to the toilets and even the frequency. And red flagged any player who went many times during a round.

By the third day of the event, a mobile app had been implemented to scan the QR codes of the players pass tags. No player could leave the playing hall without his tag scanned and it was rescanned when the player returned to the hall. This way, the organisers could check how long or often a player would be away from his table, if required.

At this point, I'd like to acknowledge here the work done by Andrew Ooi, long known to the local chess community as Gilachess. He devised the toilet QR code app for the Malaysia Chess Festival. In his facebook entry, he said that it was the most challenging thing he did during the festival. "That's because even though programming is my profession, I have never written any program that could run on the phone," he wrote, and adding, "The scanning process was from the phone, data on players going in and out is saved on the web. Thanks to Google, Github, Stack Overflow and lots of cutting and pasting, it was done within 24 hours. Also thanks to GACC team for massive job of printing 300 players' tag that had the QR code embedded which was done in a day and a half."

Thus, these were the preventive measures - and more - taken at the chess festival to minimise cheating: the surrender of mobiles and all types of watches to the organisers, the scanning of the QR codes on the players' tags, the occasional metal scanning of players moving through the doors, plus the eagle-eyed observations of the arbiters and tournament helpers.

It so happened during the first day that the QR code scanning was implemented, a sharp-eyed arbiter spotted FangYuxiang, a grandmaster from China, emerging from the toilet with a mobile in his hand. He backed off when confronted and presumably began deleting the chess apps from his mobile. In the meantime, the Chief Arbiter was summoned.

From what I'm told, in front of witnesses, the Chief Arbiter asked the chess player to empty his pockets but he refused. Not once, but two or three times he refused. Then a metal detector revealed an object in his pocket. When the Chief Arbiter removed a mobile from the pocket and asked the player what it was, he had the temerity to answer, "I don't know." Naturally, the mobile was confiscated and it was found that the Stockfish app had been deleted. Fortunately, the traces of the app remained in the mobile and the timestamp of its last use was revealed as 2.59pm. This, however, was just before the round started.

If the timestamp was after 3pm, there would be grounds for cheating while a chess game was in progress. But since the timestamp was before 3pm, there was a doubt whether cheating had actually occurred. Nevertheless, the player was disqualified and ejected from the tournament not due to the suspicion but because he had broken the very first rule to surrender his phone to the organisers in the playing hall. There was no one else to blame but himself.

Somehow, this matter had reached the ears of the Chinese Chess Association even before the tournament ended. How the Chinese authorities are going to handle this problem of their player will be up to them but I'm sure the World Chess Federation will have their own procedures to follow too. I would expect a period of suspension will be imposed on Fang Yuxiang before too long.

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Note: In 2014, the World Chess Federation had approved the following proposal from the Anti-Cheating Commission:

The proverbial head in the sand

About two months ago, my neighbour on the left alerted me to the presence of a monitor lizard roaming freely about in the drains. "It's about four feet long," she gasped excitedly as she hurriedly closed the gate behind her. Whether or not that was an exaggeration of the lizard's length, having one running around can be pretty alarming.

Then there was the time, also within the two-month time frame, that my wife saw a monitor lizard - could it be the same one? - sliding through a horizontal gap in the gate of my neighbour on the right into their compound. This neighbour wasn't it but thankfully enough, their front door was closed.

Thankfully, my gate bears a different design from both my neighbours. It still has gaps but they are narrow and quite impossible for a monitor lizard of that size to crawl through, not with its splayed-out legs. Nevertheless, we weren't taking any chances at all and we ensured that as long as nobody is in the house, our front metal grille door will always be shut. For good measure, whenever we are out of the house, the wooden front door will be closed too.

A week ago, my neighbour told me excitedly that the monitor lizard had returned. It wasn't crawling about the drain but had climbed some two or three feet out of the drain and was trying to hide itself beneath a rock. She pointed to a rock some 10 feet away and there, I saw the hind legs and the long tail of the animal. It's front legs and head were hidden beneath the rock. It's belly looked extended. Could it be looking for a safe place to lay its eggs? Or momentarily just trying to hide itself away from danger?

Quite a comical situation, I was also thinking to myself. If the creature was trying to hide, this was akin to the proverbial ostrich hiding its head in the sand and thinking that if it couldn't see danger, then there was no danger around at all. Same with this monitor lizard. It must have felt that by hiding its head and fore limbs beneath the rock, it was safe from danger not knowing that its body, back limbs and tail were all exposed for predators to attack. But if it was pregnant, then it was a different matter....

I was also wondering whether or not this could be the same monitor lizard that I had noticed scrambling along drains in other parts of the neighbourhood. Or could there possibly be many of these creatures lurking everywhere? Usually, they are quite shy of humans and would run away rather than confront us. They are quite fast runners. The one that I saw simply dashed away in the drain in double quick time when it saw me approaching.

But I also remember the occasion when I was last in Langkawi in the mid-2000s. Walking out of the hotel and turning out to the main road, I was confronted by the sight of a huge monitor lizard, this one estimated at maybe five or six feet, sitting calming on the grass verge. Not more than 10 feet from me. I stopped in my track. I looked at it. It looked at me with its forked tongue. Thoughts raced through my mind. Should I go straight and walk pass it? Would it attack me if I tried? Um, on second thoughts, no. I backed off down the road, crossed over to the other side and continued on my way. Better not take any chance on it. Thinking back, it was a good and prudent decision.

A tale of two sourdough bakeries in Penang

I first tried sourdough bread several years ago. I think it was overseas, perhaps in Perth. Then for a long while, I went off sourdough bread because I couldn't find it easily in Penang. Didn't try hard enough to find its source, actually.

Then about three months ago at the Penang Adventist Hospital, I happened to see the bakery there selling sourdough bread by the loaves. Freshly baked, smelled heavenly and very soft. So I bought a loaf. Went home with it to proudly show it to my wife, and we had a nice sourdough bread dinner that night. Just bread with butter and a shared cup of kopi-o. Boy, did we enjoy ourselves.

Joies Café & Sourdough

A few weeks ago, a friend told me that there was a sourdough bread café in George Town. Where, I asked him. In Pulau Tikus, he said, close to the market there. Moulmein Road, to be exact. And he gave me directions. I was excited. Soon, I told myself, soon my wife and I will go there for a meal. And by a coincidence too, I also came across a second sourdough café while driving around the heritage area. This one was in Claimant Place, practically next to the Campbell Street market.

In the middle of last month, my wife and I dropped into Joies Café & Sourdough, the outlet in Pulau Tikus. Wide variety of food in their menu. Not only did the café sell sourdough bread but also pasta. But since our intention was to have sourdough bread, we chose one of their bread items from the menu. We felt heartened when the dish came out. Four pieces of toasted bread - sourdough bread - with two eggs sunny side up and generous portions of creamy egg mayo, sauteed mushroom, vegetarian ragu melt and onion jam. Enough to make us happy.

Yin's Sourdough Bakery & Café

But our joie immediately turned to disappointment with one bite into their bread, The crust was way too tough. If this sourdough bread was their specialty, then I wouldn't want to order any more bread dishes from them. Greatly disappointed with this particular experience.

Yesterday, we decided to drop into the second sourdough bread cafe, the one in Claimant Place, called Yin's Sourdough Bakery & Café. But before we went in, we told ourselves to be mentally prepared if their sourdough bread did not meet with our standards.

So did our order meet with our expectations? I've got to admit here that, yes, their bread did. A very simple dish but we found their version of toasted sourdough bread so much softer and definitely good enough to be eaten, not once but many times. I'm satisfied, very satisfied, that I've found this sourdough bakery.

VCR Bangsar

There is an interesting sourdough postscript to this story. You see, between our visits to these two sourdough cafés in Penang, I happened to be in Kuala Lumpur for a chess activity.

Professing hunger, my daughter brought me to the VCR Restaurant in Bangsar for an early lunch. I felt a bit surprised to see sourdough bread featured in their menu.

Before I knew it, I had already ordered one of their heaviest sourdough meals. Or course, it took me a while to get through this huge plate by myself but yah, it was enjoyable while it lasted. And the sourdough bread, lightly toasted, was soft and delicious. Likewise, my daughter's sourdough bread with egg and an avocado spread was equally good.