The commented games aside, which I'm not going to reproduce here, what struck me was Goffin's vivid observation of life in Penang in 1974. I have kept faithfully to Goffin's narrative and have not changed anything in his story. But I need to add here that the Chinese Assn he mentioned in the third paragraph was the Hooi Lye Tung Hneoh Hoay (Hooi Lye Association) in Kimberley Street. This place became central to chess players meeting in Penang from June 1974 until the end of the 1980s. Goffin titled his story:
AN EASTERN ODYSSEY
- P.B. Goffin -
On a fine morning early in December, six intrepid chess players, namely, A. Day, P. Goffin, D. Flude, M. Chandler, P. Clark, R. Gibbons took off for Penang in Malaysia to participate in the first Asian team tournament. The tournament was organised by the Malaysian Chess Federation to wind up the F.I.D.E. 50th Anniversary celebrations. Teams from Zone 10 countries were invited to attend the tourney and seminar. F.I.D.E. were at the same time holding a Bureaux meeting, so quite a gathering of international chess personalities were expected.
The team, after several adventures on the way, duly arrived in Penang and were met by Mr. Fang and Mr. Gong of the Penang Chess Assn. The first sight of Penang came during the drive from the airport to the city of Georgetown which is the main town on the island. The fact that we were in a tropical climate was immediately apparent although the temperature - around 80F was not oppressive. The trees and vegetation were so different that an unreal sensation came over you, as if you were living in a dream. The people and buildings also contributed to this feeling. The influence of Chinese and Indian architecture, the temples of various religions, the Malay, Chinese and Indian people who live on the island, all made a tremendous visual impact, that I will never forget. On the road to the city, we passed ramshackle dwellings which were the houses of the poorer people. the fact that they were set back in the jungle on the side of the road made them look a bit exotic and I should think the reality of life in those conditions would be far from easy.
The increasing density of dwellings and people suggested we were approaching the town and sure enough we had arrived. Again the difference of everything and everyone was dramatic. We were taken on a drive around the town to show us the main streets and then taken to the Chinese Assn. building where we were to stay for the 4 days prior to the start of the tournament.
The street where we were staying was typical of one of the secondary streets in Georgetown - narrow, with open-air stalls, eating places, masses of people, cars trishaws, noise and smells! The sense of smell was reawakened in Penang. It was not a question of offensive smells but new and different ones.
The place we were staying at proved to be a bit spartan when viewed in the light of N.Z. conditions. The rooms each had two low wooden couches with wooden slatts on them and a hard thin mattress, pillow and one blanket. A wash stand and a fan, which was built into the roof and could be operated at varying speeds completed the furnishings of the room. However, sleeping on these beds was good and the hard surface produced a very comfortable and deep sleep.
A new experience was the Chinese bath. This is a large basin with a plug hole in the bottom. It is built into the corner of the bathroom which had a mosaic tyle floor with a drain in one corner. The idea is to fill the tub with water (cold), stand on the floor naked, lather up the old torso with soap - then, taking a plastic bucket, fill it with water out of the tub and toss it over yourself. The effect on the person involved tends to produce loud inarticulate sounds usually originating from the throat such as "arrrgronchraanggabakkerbut" etc. In fact, if you take an early walk down a Georgetown street, you can hear Chinese taking their baths and the sounds heard are as varied as the smells smelled.
However, we soon settled into a routine and had a very pleasant 4 days pottering about the shops, sampling the different food and seeing the various places of interest. We learnt the art of bargaining as were told never to pay the price asked for something. D. Flude proved to be an expert at this and we had some merry moments watch him whittle away the profit of some unfortunate streetside trader. One such incident I recall is Flude walking off in a huff muttering to himself "If he came down to $4 each I would take them", and the trader shouting out to the by now out of earshot Flude "two for $4!!" Needless to say the rest of us burst into laughter, much to the surprise of the trader.
We discovered a restaurant which sprecialised in Western style food and we soon found ourselves heading that way for lunch each day. The food was delicious and with French wines at about $2.00 a bottle, we spent many enjoyable hours eating and drinking at this place. We tried the local foods and found that the Malay was the most interesting and although very spicy, not too bad. They specialised in seafoods, fish, crab, crayfish, prawns etc. The Chinese food was much the same as you would get in a good Chinese restaurant in N.Z. but more varied with different vegetables. We were not game to try the Indian curries as were told that they were very hot.
We visited several very interesting places during those few days. Mr. Gong took us to the Pagoda of the 1,000,000 Buddhas. We climbed to the top of the Pagoda and had an excellent view of the city. The Temple was set amongst low hills and was approached by a winding path. This path was set on either side by a huge bazaar with hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of things ranging from ivory chess sets to floppy hats. A great deal of fun was had in seeing who could beat the traders down to the lowest price!
We also had a look at a reserve which was a sort of Botanical Garden. The unusual feature of this was the monkeys, which are everywhere on the Island, being fed by hand. You could see the monkeys swinging from branch to branch in very tall trees and I was interested to see Day and Gibbons steering well clear of those trees. Cows might not fly but monkeys in tall trees might be just as bad!
Well, the 4 days holiday passed quickly. We played some practical games to try and build up a bit of form but these were not successful due to the environment in which they were played: high temperatures, noise, etc.
On the 5th day of our sojourn in Penang we moved into the Merlin Hotel which was where all the teams were by now staying. The Merlin is a modern, air conditioned tourist hotel with about 5 restaurants, bars, snack bars, swimming pool, sundeck and barbecue area. We had been given rooms on the 6th floor which gave a tremendous view of the city and water-front. The rooms were very comfortable, furnished in European style and we quickly settled into the new routine. However, we continued to eat at the Eden Restaurant as the Hotel prices were very high.
On the evening of the 5th day was the opening ceremony. This was a splendid occasion in true Eastern style with flowery speeches, a live chess display featuring the game Torre-Portisch, which Torre won. The teams were welcomed by the Governor of Penang and the Tourney was officially under way.
N.Z. did well to finish in 5th place as most of the teams were at full strength. The play of Day in patches, Chandler and Clarke was very good and fitted in well with the plan of the team. On the other hand Goffin, Flude and Gibbons had a brief flash of form and for the rest played badly.
The team had several days in Penang before flying to Kuala Lumpur and these were spent in more shopping and sightseeing. We entertained several teams and had some lightning chess in one room after the tourney. We spent a day in Kuala Lumpur and were royally looked after by Mr. Singam of the Malaysian Chess Federation. Then a long flight direct to Sydney, by-passing Darwin, then home on Boxing Day to New Zealand.
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