The Penang Free School Foundation is holding a committee meeting at the school today. I'm not in the committee, so I won't be attending the meeting. I'm just an ordinary member for one year, until the next annual general meeting which should be in a few months' time.
But as an ordinary member still in benefit, I can bring up some proposals for the committee to consider and I have done so. The Headmaster assured me that in the absence of the now defunct Board of Governors, which the school still hopes to resurrect, the decisions affecting the school can be raised and decided at the Foundation meeting.
And so, I have put forth three proposals to the Headmaster.
Pinhorn Hall? Capt Mohamed Noor Quadrangle? Quah Seng Chye Quadrangle? To be seen...
The first is the affirming of the name of the School Hall. It's lost in the mists of time and ignored by the last chairman of the Board of Governors when I told him about it before or after the Bicentenary celebrations, but according to the Minutes of the Board of Governors meeting on 19th Sept 1969 - yes, that long ago - it was a unanimous decision to call it the Pinhorn Hall. The motion had been proposed by the then chairman, Sir Husein Abdoolcader and seconded by Capt Mohamed Noor. Therefore, I am hoping that the PFS Foundation will revive the name of Pinhorn Hall to remember the person who was possibly the greatest Headmaster that Penang Free School had ever had.
My second and third proposals are to name the eastern quadrangle in the school, the one with frangipani trees, as the Capt Mohamed Noor Quadrangle and the western quadrangle, the one with the gymnastic bars, as the Quah Seng Chye Quadrangle. In my opinion, these were two great men who were Old Boys of the school and who then went on to become teachers in the institution they grew up in. (Quah Seng Chye was in Hargreaves House while Capt Mohamed Noor was schooling at a time when the House system had not been introduced yet.)
Capt Mohamed Noor went on to become the chairman of the Board of Governors long after his retirement from government service. In 2012, I had written about Capt Mohamed Noor in the OFA coffee table book, FIDELIS. As for Quah Seng Chye, I had paid tribute to him in my blog writings. Memories of him had also been shared in The Old Frees Association facebook page by many others.
I hope to receive some encouraging news later today....
This perspective below was from my friend, Lim Siang Jin, who wrote about the sixth PFS student leadership workshop in his facebook account.
The point of making things more meaningful? Part 5 -- An atypical lesson on the history of Penang Free School
During the recent PFS Student Leadership Workshop (February 22-23, 2020), Seng Sun and I managed to collapse a 350-page book down to 90 minutes of videos, a guided tour and a fun-filled quiz.
The 10 five-minute videos, made with a very limited budget and lots of help from our former classmates like Kumaravelloo, Jimmy Lim and Albert Quah, took us over a year to produce. Now on Youtube, they were aired during the session, much to the awe of the participants. You can view them here: tinyurl.com/y2h76nmo
A tour around the Pinhorn Hall (the school hall) was conducted by Seng Sun. On the huge wall plaques were names of luminaries like Gnoh Lean Tuck (Wu Lien Teh), Lim Chong Eu, Ong Chong Keng, Syed Omar and Yeoh Bok Choon, among others more. There were photos of former headmasters like William Hargreaves, Ralph Pinhorn, William Hamilton and Tan Boon Lin.
Perhaps the most engaging for the students was the highly-interactive and competitive quiz after the tour. There were 22 questions in all. Ten were "bonus" questions where the first group that rang the bell got to try; marks were deducted from those who tried and failed. The rush, the anticipation, the release of tension, etc, can be seen in the accompanying pictures.
This is one way of getting from the parts of meanings (with audio-visuals, fun and games) to the greater whole. One day, perhaps, some of the participants would be driven to read Seng Sun's 353-page "Let the Aisles Proclaim: The First Two Hundred Years of Penang Free School 1816-2016". Even if they did not, they now know there is a structured resource they can turn to on the school's history.
The other coaches were Loh Lean Kang (PFS 1969-74) and Tan Soo Choon (PFS 1969-75) who have led the overall workshops with us since the first set in 2017. This is the sixth set of two weekends each.
My friends and I have concluded the first weekend of the sixth student leadership workshop for the Fourth and fifth Formers of Penang Free School. The final number of participants had been whittled down from the original 46 to 25. We had anticipated that right from the beginning. Some had unavoidable activities that couldn't be rescheduled for one reason or another, while some others were simply not interested at all. Their loss, I would say.
The workshop itself went well but of course, it was not without any pre-workshop drama. The surprise was that the school had, at the last minute, required the Form Five boys to attend an event to set their targets for the SPM examinations at the end of the year.
To say that we were upset over this would be an understatement. More than half of the participants would be affected. Luckily, the school Senior Assistants came to the fore: an arrangement was made to exempt the boys from attending that event. If they were required to be present at that event, I would dare say that my friends would have taken an unprecedented decision to cancel the workshop altogether. After weeks of planning, a spanner is thrown into the works. Who would have liked it? It wouldn't be a popular decision, though. The only ones to suffer would be the boys themselves. Luckily, a solution was found quickly and I've to thank Cikgu Samad for this.
So our event finally began last Saturday. But because the Parent-Teacher Association was using the Pinhorn Hall for their annual meeting, we were again required to use an alternative venue for the morning session. Normally, we would use the meeting room in the Archives Block but with the Wuhan coronavirus such a big issue nowadays, we felt that it would be better to choose a more spacious and airier place.
The Headmaster offered us the dining hall of the School Hostel. It wasn't a bad alternative: place was big enough and the windows could be opened on all two sides of the building. Unfortunately I could catch faint wafts of odour from somewhere. Others didn't. But then, my nose has always been more sensitive than many other persons'. Needless to say, the move back to our regular venue, the Pinhorn Hall, for the afternoon session on Saturday was a big relief to me.
The Headmaster turned up in the afternoon but he was clearly drained after chairing the Parent-Teacher Association meeting in the morning. Fully understandable, having to deal with the parents, some of whom are quite unreasonable. He was scheduled to speak to the participants but we decided to move it to the next day. He spoke off the cuff on Sunday but he had his pointers on his mobile. Anyway, I hope his speech will inspire the boys. It is full of wisdom. They can certainly take lessons from the video at the end of this story.
The coronavirus scare meant that we decided to take some precautions before, during and after the sessions on the two days. At the start of each day, we took the temperatures of everyone - participants, student coaches and even the coaches - and requested them to wash their hands or sanitise them often. Those with the occasional coughs were asked to wear their face masks. And similarly at the end of each day, their temperatures were taken again.
As usual, we have been starting each day with the participants singing the School Rally. It was a practice that I had introduced two years ago. Nothing like the School Rally to set the tone for the leadership workshop. I experimented on the second day by requesting the boys to sing the School Rally the way that the Old Frees do by dragging out the word "soul". I thought it timely to let them hear the difference.
For only the second time, we introduced a quiz into the workshop; all questions were based on the history of the school. Prior to the quiz, we had shown the videos that Siang Jin had made last year, and which were available on the Internet, and I had taken the boys on a tour of the Pinhorn Hall. The wooden plaques at the back of the hall were significant points of interest.
The second half of the sixth student leadership workshop will take place on 26th and 27th of March.
I woke up early today, having waited patiently since about three weeks ago when I learnt that both the moon and Jupiter would be very close together in the dawn sky. True enough, it was a most brilliant sight. When I gazed upwards, there was the crescent moon and slightly above it was a very bright Jupiter. Of course, I took several shots of the brilliant duo in the sky and hoped that one of them would turn out right for me. Here it is below. It was a one-second exposure. The Olympus E-PL7 camera was handheld but braced against the top of a car for stability. Should have brought along my beanbag for extra stability but I forgot.
Two things stood out from this one-second exposure: the first is of course, the light from the earth shining onto the darkened surface of the moon. The earthshine was bright enough for me to see the darker and lighter patches on this surface. And the second was, of course, Jupiter's four visible Galilean moons, the only ones that can be seen with a telescope - or in my case, a tele-zoom lens - from earth.
Sometimes we are lucky to be able to see all four moons, and sometimes we see less than four because the moons happen to have moved either in front of or behind their mother planet. Today, I was lucky to see all four of the Galilean moons lined up properly. The second picture below is a digitised magnification of Jupiter and its moons. Not very sharp when magnified, though. I reckon that my pictures would have had a better resolution if I was equipped with a professional lens, but I don't.
I've always been very fascinated whenever I learn of a new source of really old Penang pictures on the Internet. I would always scour the website to see whether or not there are pictures of the St George's Church.
Actually, my interest is not in the church itself. Far from it, I'm more interested in some particular buildings beside the church for these would be the first permanent buildings of Penang Free School: the first buildings before it moved to the double-storey structure that today fronts Farquhar Street and would be occupied later by Hutchings School and then Penang State Museum. The first Free School buildings in Church Square before the school moved to its present site in Green Lane.
There are numerous pictures of the old school building in Farquhar Street, and there are many more pictures of the present main Penang Free School building in Green Lane too. But it is very difficult to come across pictures of the original Penang Free School buildings in Church Square itself. I would always consider it a bonus if I can find part of the first Free School building in a picture of the St George's Church.
The latest art collection website that came to my awareness today is that of the Royal Collection Trust. The Trust looks after the Royal Collection, one of the most important art collections in the world, and manages the public opening of the official residences of Queen Elizabeth. The Trust holds several thousand pictures and among them are about 80-plus of old Penang. As luck would have it, there's a picture of the St George's Church in the collection.
Attributed to Kristen Feilberg (1839-1919) (photographer)
Elegant, isn't it, the church? The church has an octastyle portico and triangular pediment. Behind the pediment is a spire featuring a dark colour clock. But wait, what's that building in the background? The one with the white facade? It's a building that can be easily dismissed by the casual viewer of this picture. After all, its design was almost too simple, none of the grandeur of the church. However, it is to be noted that this was one of the first buildings of Penang Free School in Church Square, one of the five blocks built for the school and which were separated by verandahs. Here is a closer look. Impressive, isn't it? All the details preserved in a picture that's already more than 150 years old.
An update: The above picture is not new to me. I had seen it in 2015 or 2016 when I was researching for my book, Let the Aisles Proclaim. However, it was not used in the book. But it is good to see it again, especially when viewed in the greater context of the full Kristen Feilberg photograph.
My story on lift buttons [Note: Americans refer to them as elevator buttons] brings to mind a new and possibly useful 😝 word for everyone to know: fomite. It's a word associated with the spread of germs, viruses and bacteria through handling of dirty items. This information below is taken from Wikipedia, which I normally accept with a grain of salt but this one I do accept fully since it is simply a definition of a word:
A fomes (pronounced /ˈfoʊmiːz/) or fomite (/ˈfoʊmaɪt/) is any inanimate object, that when contaminated with or exposed to infectious agents, such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses or fungi, can transfer disease to a new host. For humans, skin cells, hair, clothing, and bedding are common hospital sources of contamination of fomites.
Fomites are associated particularly with hospital-acquired infections (HAI), as they are possible routes to pass pathogens between patients. Stethoscopes and neckties are two such fomites associated with health care providers. Basic hospital equipment, such as IV drip tubes, catheters, and life support equipment, can also be carriers, when the pathogens form biofilms on the surfaces. Careful sterilization of such objects prevents cross-infection.
In addition to objects in hospital settings, other common fomites for humans are door knobs, light switches, handrails, elevator buttons, television remote controls, pens, and other items that are frequently touched by different people and that may be infrequently cleaned.
Researchers have discovered that smooth (non-porous) surfaces like door knobs transmit bacteria and viruses better than porous materials like paper money because porous, especially fibrous, materials absorb and trap the contagion, making it harder to contract through simple touch. Fomites include soiled clothes, towels, linens, handkerchiefs, cups, spoons, pencils, syringes, and surgical dressings
When I was having the get-together with some of my old schoolmates earlier this week, one of them brought out packets of tausar piah or tambun biscuits for all of us. Said that these were from one of his friends. Not selling in the open market but being baked on a small scale for people who wants them. But methinks, this was just to test the market before the tausar piah is launched.
I found the biscuits to be well made. The pastry was very light and fluffy and the filling was delicious. More flavourful, in fact, than the more commercially available ones from the likes of Him Heang, Ghee Heang, Ban Heang and all the other Heangs in Penang. Only drawback was that it was rather sweet. For me, anyway. And it means that I can only take one tausar piah per day. If the bakery can cut down on the sugar, I'm sure it would still taste all right. I have passed my feedback to my old schoolmate. I hope it will be taken constructively. 👍👍
Maybe I was in the wrong place at the right time, or maybe not. But the fact was that I happened to be on the ground floor of a flat on Penang island about a fortnight ago, waiting for someone to come down from his apartment unit. So there I was, sitting on a bench and watching people go by when suddenly, a garbage man passed by me with his garbage bin in tow.
He walked up to the lift and pressed a button with his gloved hand. When the lift door opened, he walked in and pressed a button there. Came out, waited for that lift to go up and then he pressed the button again to summon a second lift. All within sight of me.
I was horrified. We know how clean garbage bins are, right? They are hardly the cleanest of containers. In fact, they are dirtier than dirty. Wearing gloves will make no difference to cleanliness and hygiene if they are also used to touch garbage and everything else. The same gloves being used to press on the lift buttons simply transfers the contamination from garbage bin to the lifts!
Really! This was something that I saw this with my eyes. Imagine those who are not aware of the invisible dirt that has been transferred from the lift buttons to their own hands. All the germs, viruses and bacteria. Users blissfully pressing the lift buttons with their fingers and then touching their faces, their food and everything else! That's how clean lift buttons are.
And that is why for several years now, I've been telling my family that public amenities are not the cleanest things in the world. You just can't see the dirt that's been transferred from one spot to another. But assuredly, the contamination is all around us.
So what are we going to do on a personal level? Granted that we can't change society's habits, we can only change the way we do things ourselves, especially at this time when the Wuhan coronavirus is spreading around the world. So what we do when we are at the lifts? Easy, at the very least, don't press the buttons with your fingers. Use your knuckle instead. I would prefer to have unseen germs on my knuckle than have the germs at the tip of my fingers. And secondly, disinfect your hands at the earliest opportunity. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water, especially after you exit from the lift. That's the easiest way to reduce the germs, if not ridding them totally.
By the way, I hear that in our southern neighbour which has been harder hit by the coronavirus than Malaysia, even condoms have been flying off the shelves at an unprecedented rate. Whatever for? So that people can use a condom-wearing finger to press on the lift buttons? Don't laugh. This may actually be an effective way to lessen contamination.
UPDATE (22 Mar 2020): One of the best advices I've heard in the past weeks since writing this story came from the TODAY newspaper in Singapore. The newspaper recommends using a capped ball-point pen with its ink refill removed. "Carry around a ballpoint pen with a cap," the newspaper said, "Remove the ink refill so you don't leave pen marks on the lift button. Use the inkless tip to press lift buttons and other things such as traffic light buttons. Recap when done."
UPDATE (22 Mar 2020): Initially, Singapore was harder hit than Malaysia but not now. Malaysia has overtaken Singapore in terms of the number of infections and deaths.
A very busy day for me yesterday. First, it was a timsum breakfast with some of my ex-colleagues from Ban Hin Lee Bank. Incidentally, we all live on mainland Province Wellesley, which makes it easier for us to get together. So we spent something like two hours there at the timsum shop, together with a long-time former customer of the Bukit Mertajam branch of the bank. Mr Hor is his name, and he is 82 years old (or young).
Then later in the day, I drove out to The Old Frees' Association for a Chinese New Year dinner with my old schoolmates. Another feisty occasion with flowing beer and wine. Naturally, enjoyed myself a lot too with my old mates. Curiously enough, some other schoolmates were also having a CNY dinner in Kuala Lumpur.
Timsum breakfast at the Chao Zhou Restaurant in Bukit Mertajam with ex-colleagues from my banking days. Left to right: Tan Seong Lye, special guest Mr Hor, Wooi Siew Phew, Tan Heng Boo, Ng Fook Chin, Wong Hionh Wah, Koh Seak Chin, Wong Yuen Chee and myself
Chinese New Year dinner at the OFA Restaurant with my old schoolmates, some with their partners. But basically, the batang-batang in this picture were, seated around the table from left to right, Wong Chye Chye, Cheah Swee Poh, Ooi Kah Theang, myself, Andrew Choong, Lim Teik Wah, Sim Hock Thiam, Leslie Lee, Sanan Buranakol and Wong Hang Yoke, with Sukumaran and Ho Siang Juan standing at the back.
We are living in very trying times indeed, what with the Wuhan coronavirus infections spiralling out of control. The most worrying point is that this is an invisible enemy. Some of my friends say a faceless enemy. But no matter what we would like to describe it, the virus is in our midst and the infected woman in Sungai Petani means that the virus is not very far from Penang. Who knows how much transmission and damage have already been done in the past few days while the lady's family members were moving around without caution?
Some say the best way to avoid infection is to wear a face mask in public so that other people's cough droplets do not get into your system. But my belief is that boosting up the immune system with Vitamins C and D and maintaining good personal hygiene are equally important. For example, I saw a Bloomberg story today that stressed on hand hygiene when flying. But the advice is equally applicable in our daily applications too. Let me quote from this Bloomberg story:
Hand hygiene. Contrary to what people think, the hands are the way that these viruses most efficiently spread. Top of the list is frequent hand washing, hand sanitising, or both. Avoid touching your face. If you cough or sneeze, it’s important to cover your face with a sleeve. Better yet, a tissue to be disposed of carefully, and then sanitising the hands afterward. Washing your hands and drying them is the best procedure. When that’s not easy to do, alcohol-based sanitiser is a good second-best.
Today too, I saw a notice advising people to take the highest precaution and in addition to wearing face masks in public areas, consciously to practice:
washing their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing;
using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser with at least 70% alcohol content if soap and water are not readily available;
avoid touching their eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands;
avoiding close contact with people who are sick;
staying home when you are sick;
covering your cough or sneeze with a tissue and then throwing the tissue away in the trash;
cleaning and disinfecting frequently-touched objected and surfaces using a regular household cleansing spray or wipe.
The start of yet another academic year means that my friends and I are getting ready to proceed with the sixth PFS Student Leadership Workshop for the fourth and fifth formers of Penang Free School.
Last Wednesday, Lean Kang, Swee Poh, Soo Choon and I were at the school to carry out an initial interview assessment of the Forms Four and Five pupils who had been identified by the teachers and prefects to attend this year's first weekend of the workshop later this month.
Initially, we were a bit apprehensive when we failed to receive a feedback from the school on the number of boys that would be called for the assessment, but on the eve of our return to the school, Lean Kang received a list of 47 names!
What a pleasant surprise! In the past three years, we have never had more than 30 persons responding to each our workshops. whether they be for the Fourth and Fifth Formers or for the Sixth Formers. And then with natural attrition, people dropping out because they cannot commit to all the four days of a workshop, the numbers would be whittled down to about 20, sometimes less than that! So to get this initial number, 47, for the assessment really surpassed our expectations!
Of course, these boys have still to make a final commitment. They have yet to speak to their parents or guardians. We can only know the final number on the sixth after the boys submit their application forms and make their deposits. Yes, we do insist on a deposit from them but we refund it after they complete the full programme. Otherwise, we shall pass the money to the school. So after they make a final commitment, we shall then know how many will be taking part in this forthcoming workshop. Keeping our fingers crossed!
