Rockwills turns 25

Today happens to be the 25th anniversary of the Rockwills International Group, the leading private estate planning company in the country. Rockwills was formally established on 23 August 1995 although it had begun operations at least a year earlier.

I can still remember that my association with Rockwills began at about the same time. This was while I was still working in Ban Hin Lee Bank or BHLBank. At that time, I had already been transferred out from the ATM Centre to the Systems & Quality Control Department of the Information Technology Division. Part of my role there as a Unit Head in SQCD was to be responsible for the development of the Operations Manuals which were used as reference materials at the branches.

It was in 1994 or 1995 that the staff was informed that the bank was going into will writing to augment its range of financial services on offer and a representative from a company called Rockwills would be giving a talk to brief us on how they would work together with the bank. SQCD as the operations manual people was required to sit in and learn from the briefing, and afterwards start to work on the manual.

We did come out with the manual on will-writing and this was first used at the Prai and the main branch on Penang island before the will writing service was extended to the Petaling Jaya and Johor Bahru branches. There could be one or two other branches throughout the country that offered this service too, but I am no longer sure.

Interestingly when my wife was working on her Diploma in Management, she used the banking procedures my team had worked out at SQCD for her thesis. I left it to her to write out the whole thesis and only came in to fill in some blanks and confirm the details. 

By the time I left the banking industry in 2001, I was already armed with a considerable amount of knowledge on the will writing service and it was a no-brainer that I decided to sign up as a franchise holder with Rockwills Corporation. I'm still in the business today although the scope has expanded considerably well beyond will writing to include offering trust services too.

The Quah Kongsi in 1949

It is a pity that my Penang Swee Cheok Tong Seh Quah Kongsi had lost most of our pre-war records, that is, prior to the bleak period of the Japanese Occupation from December 1941 till September 1945, but recently I found the earliest surviving official list of elected Trustees and Committee Members that dated back to 1949. The most prominent name among the office bearers was Quah Beng Kee, the man that introduced the first private ferry service that plied between the island and the mainland. Beng Kee cast a long shadow over the Quah Kongsi. It is of interest to note that as long ago as 1928, he was already the President and it was a post that he held until his death in 1952. 

Also of interest are the displays of the two flags. The one on the left - with the deep blue sky and a white sun - was the flag of the Koumintang party. Meanwhile, the other was the flag of the Republic of China, now Taiwan. The flag is no longer used in mainland China. Since the Kongsi's origins were in the Hokkien province of China, the two flags were dropped from all subsequent documents soon after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.

Eventful July (Part three)

So after the ice cream, house router, the Kongsi's caretaker and the car battery, what other event of significance could still await me in July? Thankfully, the month ended on an all's well note. My son said he would be bringing back a new television set for the house. A SHARP 50-inch television set to replace the SONY 40-inch which we have had for quite some time already. I tried to remain cool but inwardly I was looking forward to this new electrical item in the house.

So many questions to ask. How high would it stand on the television cabinet? Would I have to tilt my head backwards to watch the screen? Would it connect well to the house WiFi? Was it a 4K set? My answers were answered when I unboxed the set. Yes, it was so much more bigger than the old TV. Took my son and I just to lift it up onto the cabinet. Not that it was heavy. It was unwieldy, and it took up more space on the cabinet. But surprisingly, I felt comfortable watching it from the couch. No need to tilt my head back more than necessary. No need to buy a new cabinet to place this TV set.

And it connected well to the house WiFi. Better than the Sony ever did. And more intuitive too. The on-screen menu walked me through the installation process rather quickly. Less manoeuvring with the up, down, left and right functions on the remote control. But no, it wasn't a 4K set. A bit of disappointment there, but never mind. At least it came with Android TV functions. My face lit up. I was able to access my Netflix account, as also to my Spotify account. Connecting to YouTube and TuneIn were a breeze too. I plugged in my thumbdrive. No problem watching movies from there. However, I did not find a digital audio output on the set. That means I can't hook up my soundbar to the Sharp TV with my optical cable. I tried connecting the set to the soundbar with an RCA cable. So far, no success. There must be something I have missed. Will have to investigate further.

Meanwhile, I find that I've been spending too much time in front of this new television set. Watching too much Netflix movies and too much of YouTube. Should begin cutting down the time sitting in front of this smart idiot box, or else everything else will suffer. My work will suffer. Will have to make up for the lost time already.

So these were the few things that happened to me and my household in July. Might not have seem much to other people but to me, they were plentiful. What began pleasantly, ended pleasantly too. But in the middle were discomforting. Could do without them. Anyway, I hope August will be back to normal for me.

Eventful July (Part two)

So I've talked about the ice cream, the breakdown of the house router and the discovery of the whereabouts of my Kongsi's erstwhile caretaker in my last story. All in the month of July. To add to all these, the family car broke down. Yes, the Prius C broke down.

Actually, it was not that the car developed any mechanical problem. Mechanically, the car was fine although the absorbers are starting to be somewhat problematic. No, the issue was with the hybrid battery. When my wife and I decided to buy a new car in 2012, we chose a hybrid car for its fuel efficiency. Most times, we could get more than 20 kilometres to a litre of petrol. With some luck, we could push till 25 kilometres. We were aware that the battery of a hybrid car was expensive but we didn't think too much of this in 2012. After all, the battery came with a five-year warranty. And Toyota was confident enough that their hybrid batteries could last longer than that, that they extended the warranty period to EIGHT years soon afterwards. As the car aged, I learnt that the lifespan of the hybrid battery was winding down. It was going to die sooner or later. The only question was when. Would it be before or after the warranty period finishes? Nobody could tell, least of all the Toyota service centre. All they could tell me was that there was about 25 percent usage left. And it was about six months to a year ago.

Anyway on the 22nd of last month, we were crossing the Penang Bridge to get back to the mainland. We proceeded along the highway and turned into Seberang Jaya. And then, the warning signal appeared. Stop the car immediately and check the hybrid system, the message flashed on the dashboard without warning. Oh oh, I thought to myself, here comes trouble. Something's the matter with the car now. I pulled over to the side. Luckily, it was a wide road and the car wasn't blocking any traffic. I called Toyota and was told to have the car towed to the service centre. So I made arrangements for a tow truck. Took about two hours before the truck arrived. By the time we arrived home it was almost eight o'clock.

The next day, the service centre confirmed that the issue was with the battery. But never mind, it was still under their warranty. They would replace it without charge. Was I glad to hear that? You bet! The hybrid battery died three months before the warranty expiry date in October. But I had to wait until Thursday week before they could replace it since the part had to arrive from Kuala Lumpur first. Under my breath, I was muttering that they could have asked for a month and I would have agreed with them. Readily agreed with them. Anything to avoid forking out RM6,000 for the battery. Yes, that's how much it would have set me back if it had conked out after October! Not to mention their labour charges and the battery disposal cost too. Would have set me back a tidy sum.

You know, this was not the only time that I had benefited from Toyota's warranty. In 2006 when my Avanza was still within its warranty period - less than 30,000 kilometres on the meter - the automatic gearbox started giving problem. Whenever I hit a certain speed, I heard a roar above the engine's sound. I took it to the service centre and was given a new gearbox. FOC. Free of charge. But I nearly flipped over when they asked me to sign on some documents and I saw that the cost of the gearbox was something like RM28,000. So thank goodness for the car manufacturer's warranty. Came in useful for me twice.

To be continued....

Eventful July (Part one)

I'm very glad that July is over. I've had enough excitement in a month - too many things that happened to me and my household - and I hope it doesn't spill over into August. It started on 07 July, the 35th anniversary of our wedding. There were the usual congratulatory messages that came in through facebook and then in the evening, someone delivered three tubs of ice cream to the house, courtesy of See Ming. First got to know her in 2001, from my JobStreet days and we have kept in touch ever since.

That was a big and very pleasant surprise, the ice cream, that is, from a friend in Kuala Lumpur. But just a few hours earlier there was a big shock. Lightning. And Thunder. An overhead lightning strike at an electrical pole directly outside my neighbour's house. Immediately, BOOM and the electrical supply to my house, and several other houses to my left and right, shut down.

The neighbour to my right had her ceiling fans damaged. The neighbour to my left suffered damage to several of his electrical items. As for me, my Internet connection went down. My mobiles and laptop could still connect to the router by WiFi but there was no connection to the outside. My desktop, linked to the router by cable, was unaffected although I also could not link to the outside world. Luckily for the laptop and mobiles, my neighbour was kind enough to share her WiFi password with us. So my wife could at least continue working on her laptop. As for my desktop, I couldn't run a cable to her house and thus, I was totally cut off. Not that it affected me a hundred percent. At least, it gave me time to do my writings with little distraction from the Internet world.

Nevertheless, I had to report the problem to Maxis, my home broadband service provider, to get it resolved. Report was made on the seventh evening but through a miscommunication, basically on my part, their technician could come only on the 10th, a Friday. He did some checks and said the problem was with the modem which belonged to TMNet's unifi service. So he had to inform TMNet too for their technician to come to my house too. That would to be the following week, unfortunately. Come the 14th, another Maxis technician turned up to relook at my problem. He quickly determined that it was the Maxis router that had conked out and not the TMNet modem. So after a quick replacement of a new router, poof! My Internet came back alive.

On the 24th morning, I went to the Kampong Baru market like I usually do every few days to buy our provisions. As I was walking around, I felt a sudden pain on my right thigh. Searing pain. I quickly rubbed the outside of my shorts trying to relieve myself of the itch. I knew it was an insect bite and the insect must have somehow flew up the end of my shorts. But the sensation was like nothing I had felt before. A longer sustained pain and itch. As I didn't see any insect parts fall off, I couldn't ascertain what type of insect it was. The pain lasted almost forever. I kept rubbing the itch. When I got home, I was horrified to see the damage on my thigh. A stretch of eight insect bite marks. All red rashes, the biggest about the size of the newer 20 cents coin. Quickly applied some ointment on them. I thought the rashes would subside by the next day but no, they did not.

Curious about the bites, I tried to find out more about the unknown insect. I've heard about the Charlie or rove insect that would leave quite a considerable damage on their victims but the rash on my thigh did not look anything like a rove insect bite. In that sense, I heaved a sigh of relief. I was lucky in an unlucky way, or unlucky in a lucky way. It took eight days for the rashes to almost subside. Today, the rashes have turned into a very light brown colour.

Last January, two or three days before Chinese New Year, the live-in caretaker of our Quah Kongsi collapsed and fell unconscious at our Kongsi premises. He was discovered by our vice-president and quickly, an ambulance brought the caretaker to the General Hospital's emergency ward. But somehow, this caretaker who I will call Ah Beng, mysteriously disappeared from the hospital. We couldn't locate him anywhere. We feared for his safety. I asked some friends what could be the likely reason. In the worst case scenario, could our caretaker have ended up in the mortuary? Not a pleasant thought but it was one of the possibilities. But nope, we made a few discreet telephone calls to check out the mortuary. No such name there. So we knew he was still alive. But where could he be?

We held an emergency meeting. One of our trustees said a police report must be made to safeguard ourselves. So I had to go make a missing person report at the Patani Road police station on the island. A police sergeant even came to the Kongsi to nose around. Looked through the caretaker's barebone of a bedroom upstairs. Found nothing out of the ordinary. It was a mystery to him and to us.

Several weeks later, the Secretary told me that he saw a message of appeal on social media asking for any information about the relatives of one person. That person was, of course, our old caretaker Ah Beng. Somehow the day after his admission to (or escape from) the hospital's emergency ward, a good Samaritan had brought him over to an Old Folks Home. There, he had been well looked after, cleaned up properly, given proper daily square meals and most importantly, a decent place to stay. Not to say that the Kongsi wasn't decent enough, it is, except that it is very quiet alone in an old house. We didn't want to disturb him since he looked so contented in his new environment. We would decide on the next course of action at a committee meeting.

So at the next meeting on the 19th of last month, as I was bringing everyone up-to-date with the developments of our wayward former caretaker, the Secretary, who was checking the Old Folks' Home's facebook page, suddenly surprised all of us to say that hey, Ah Beng passed away six days earlier and his funeral had already been held. He had been cremated and his ashes strewn into the sea. What a big shock to all of us. There we were, in the midst of deciding what to do with his belongings at the Kongsi when fate took a hand to decide for us. But in the end, everyone felt a big relief. Ah Beng had quite a miserable life. He was alone in this world, no-one to call as his relatives. It was only in the last few years of his life that he found shelter at the Kongsi. We installed him as the live-in caretaker so that there would be someone in the premises should a Kongsi member want to come in to worship at the ancestral tablets. Of course, there is nobody to do this duty now and I greatly doubt we will be able to find another person to replace him. Oh well....

Then the car broke down.

(To be continued....)