Artificial intelligence

How often does chess make the front page of our local newspapers? Probably not more than two or three times within living memory. It is even rarer to find chess hitting the front pages of a local Chinese language newspaper but this actually happened in 1997 when the Guang Ming Daily reported on the match between Gary Kasparov and the IBM computer known as Deep Blue. 

The Guang Ming Daily or Kong Ming Yit Poh (光明日報) was formed from the closure of the Sin Pin Jit Poh (星檳日報) newspaper which was founded by the Singapore Tiger Balm king, Aw Boon Haw in 1939. Ten years earlier, Aw had also started the Sin Chew Daily (星洲日報). The Sin Pin Jit Poh had its headquarters in Leith Street, Penang. When it stopped publishing in 1986 following major management changes, the former staff of the newspaper launched the Guang Ming Daily in December 1987 with the help of Lim Keng Yaik who was then the Minister of Primary Industries. In 1992, the Rimbunan Hijau Group bought over Guang Ming Daily and thus making it the sister company of Sin Chew Daily again.

This particular historical connection aside, I discovered this page of the Guang Ming Daily of 13 May 1997 when going through my store room. 

The Deep Blue versus Kasparov matches were a pair of six-game chess matches involving a reigning world chess champion and an IBM supercomputer. Deep Blue was the successor to the original ChipTest and Deep Thought computers developed at the Carnegie Mellon University to research artificial intelligence. The rights to Deep Thought were later acquired by IBM and Deep Blue became the next iteration of a chess-playing super-computer. Kasparov won the first match against Deep Blue in Philadelphia in 1996 but a vastly improved Deep Blue v2 won the return match in New York a year later. This second match marked the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a computer in a match played under tournament conditions. Unfortunately, IBM chose to retire Deep Blue after the machine attained this landmark achievement. But the match received a lot of media attention worldwide and that was where the story was picked up even by a Chinese-language newspaper like Guang Ming Daily.

The strawberry moon

This picture was probably the closest I could get to a technically full moon since the beginning of the year. According to the Time and Date website, the moon would have been at its 100 percent fullest or roundest at 2.38am on the morning of 25 June. I had hoped to wake up at around 2.15am to prepare myself for a photo session but then at 10.15pm, I decided to take some pictures of the moon (probably at 99.9 percent full) in case I was too sleepy to get out of bed. Besides which, the sky was very clear and the moon was very illuminated. After all, it was also a supermoon, meaning that the moon was at about its closest distance to the earth this year and looked bigger than normal. 

Good thing I did this because I did sleep well through this time. When I did stir at about four o'clock, I was wondering why the moonlight was not streaming through the window. Then I realised that there were thick clouds in the sky. The moon was no-where visible although a dim patch of lighter clouds was the indication that the moon was there. Even at around 6am when I awoke again, the clouds had not cleared sufficiently to let through the moonlight. So, yes, it was a good thing that I did manage to photograph the moon at 10.15pm last night. Better a bird in the hand than two in the bush.

Master in business and chess

While going through my old newspaper cuttings recently, I came across this old story which I've been keeping for almost 20 years. Eighteen year, to be more exact. It was a story by Thean Lee Cheng that had appeared in the weekly Bizweek pull-out section of The Star newspaper of 22-28 Feb 2003. Before I reproduce it in full below, let me add that the following week after the story has come out, Tan Chin Nam came out to Penang for a meeting. Sometimes, he would ask me to come out to the Cititel Penang to meet him in the morning, not to play chess although I would always have a set handy nearby but for news about the chess scene in Penang. He was always interested to hear what was happening here, how the Penang Chess Association was getting on. And I would fill him in with the news he desired to hear. On more than one occasion, I shared with him a breakfast of Penang chee cheong fun which he could never get the authentic stuff in Kuala Lumpur. He really appreciated that.

Master in business and chess

TAKE it from the master. Nothing happens by chance, not in the corporate world, not on the chessboard, not on the racing circuit and certainly not on the golf course. Not for Datuk Tan Chin Nam, the patriarch of the Tan family who controls IGB Corp Bhd.

He should know. He has been through all the booms and busts of an economic cycle, the rise of a company, the fall of another. Be it war or peace, he has been there.

Tan retired from the corporate world in the early 1990s and is no longer a director of any publicly listed company now. He, however, has substantial shareholdings in a couple of companies under the IGB group today. Gold IS Bhd and Wah Seong Corp Bhd being two of them.

"I retired at the age of 70. Nobody thought I would. I am now 77. Because to just make money, is that what life is all about? How much is enough? Will it ever be enough?

"A million was a lot of money before. Today, it is almost hay. It is not the RM200 million you make but whether you have the last RM100,000 when the bank calls for it. Businessmen learn this the hard way during every crisis."

No university taught him his business skills, no mentor. And forget the manuals.

Tan quit school at 16. "I passed standard seven and was supposed to go to Junior Cambridge," he recalls. World War II took care of that. But Tan is no less rich because of that. If anything, he may be the richer for it.

A mere lad, he went into the world of buying and selling. That was his first job. "On my first day of selling ayam (chickens), vegetables and fruits at the roadside, my former fellow students in Victoria Institution saw me, I was malu (embarrassed), humbled even though I was making an honest living.

"There were no shops. Everybody was a broker, everybody traded. I was determined just to survive. not live. I didn't have the luxury of living. The moment I owned Straits Dollars (SD) 1,000 I was happy."

That SD 1,000 came by luck. "Ninety per cent, it's pure luck," Tan says in his penthouse office suite at Menara Tan & Tan in Kuala Lumpur, his autobiographer Larry Parr present throughout the interview.

He bought a cash sweep, a form of empat ekor (numbers sweep) and won SD1,852.

"l used that as an investment tool to go into business and invested in a trading company called Wah Seong. That name is significant. Today, Wah Seong Corp Bhd is a company with big plans. It aims to transform itself from a medium-sized Malaysian industrial group into "a major Asian/global oil and gas service infrastructure group" by the year 2007. Tan is a major shareholder there.

The company specialises in the coating of pipes used in the oil and gas industry. It took over the listing status of Perdana Industri Holdings Bhd last July 2002. 

"My philosophy was simple. If I had Straits dollars 10,000, I was one in 10,000 in South-East Asia in the old days, that's roughly where I would be standing. My ambition was to have SD20,000, and SD200,000 was the grand finale. After that, I stopped counting. Likewise with horses. After I had a stable of 20 horses scattered here and there, I also stopped counting. It no longer mattered how many horses I had, but how many times I won."

Tan is the only Asian to have won the Melbourne Cup, one of the oldest and most prestigious races in the world. Indeed, he is the only horse owner to have won it three times.

The Melbourne Cup is in the same league as the English Derby, America's Kentucky Derby and the Dubai Cup.

Twice in 1974 and 1975. it was with Think Big, a horse he co-shared with Malaysia's first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1975 for his second win and the third was in 1996 with Saintly.

The largest stake money he ever won was the 1996 Melbourne Cup - A$600,000. Tan has horses in Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere.

After about 20 minutes, Tan changes pace, moving from a game of speed to one of intellect.

Enough of horses! Let's play chess. Describing himself as a business man who is a chess player and not a chess player who happens to be a business man, Tan says he can play "eat and sleep" chess for days.

"You know why I enjoy it so much? It teaches discipline and it is a game that forces one to think. I have been promoting the game since 1974. There is a need in this country. Where do our young people spend their free time?

"Too many of them get involved in crime and drugs. In my time, we had the boy scouts. We caught spiders, played tops and marbles, had our fighting fish and swam in Dusun Tua.

"What do our young people do today? I saw the direction our youth were heading a long time ago and I am only sorry that the people in authority cannot see what I see."

Tan has been spending an average of RM100,000 annually since 1974 to promote the game. Beside the intellectual somersaults that the game accords him, Tan enjoys the friendship he has made over the years.

Comparing the manoeuvres on the chessboard with those in the business world, Tan says it is a wrong move (on the chessboard) versus a wrong word on the corporate field.

If you offend someone in a game of chess, the worst is that you are banned from playing. In the business world, it is different. So you have to be very careful with what you say."

In the chess world, when you are with a chess friend, money does not count. In the business world, one is a friend because it serves a business requirement.

Tan once described friendship like a piece of music. It transcends time, culture, class and race. "I valued friendships then, as I do today. With a true friend, one does not seek to ask for help when in need. Help is offered even before one asks. In life, there are very few friends of that calibre.

"Each of the friendships made contributed to my life in different ways. There cannot be one single one that..."

Tan pauses, turning back the pages of his mind. Lost friends but not lost friendships.

"The Tunku (Malaysia's first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman) is one of them. We shared more than just Think Big, the horse which won the Melbourne Cup twice and which the Tunku co-shared with me for the second Melbourne Cup win in 1975. He paid me RM30,000 for his share of the horse. He confided a lot in me, although he was 23 years older than I."

"My philosophy on friendship has not changed. Always make new friends but never forget the old. Not only because the more friends you have, the happier you are, but also because the fewer enemies you have.

"I like to consider some chess moves now."

The last G7 supper

This is a commentary piece from Global Times, a daily tabloid newspaper published under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party's flagship People's Daily newspaper, that comments on international issues from a nationalistic perspective. What can I add to this? All I can say is that the G7 countries must wake up from the dream they will continue to be the masters of the world. But there is little doubt that the awakening will come and when it happens, it will be very abrupt for them. In the meantime, China must not let this concerted G7 effort hold back the country. Proceed full steam ahead, I say, with plans to become the Number One economic power in the world.

(P.S. One of my friends added that below the table, all have human feet except Japan which has legs of a dog. The English-speaking countries are barefooted while the rest have slippers on. India is on two drips - one the water of Ganges, the other yellow-coloured liquid is supposedly cow's urine. At its feet is a little sign that calls out to "Help Me." Australia has a drip with the flag of China on it. Australia is depicted as Judas.)

The countries depicted in this cartoon are, from left, Germany, Australia, Japan, Italy, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and India, with Taiwan represented as the tiny frog)

‘The Last G7’: Satirical cartoon mocking bloc’s attempt to suppress China goes viral

A Chinese cartoonist’s political satire, which mocked the Group of Seven (G7) members that attempt to suppress China, went viral on Chinese social media on Sunday, when the G7 summit was underway in Cornwall, the UK.

Titled The Last G7, the illustration, published by its author Bantonglaoatang on Sina Weibo on Saturday, was painted based on the renowned religious mural The Last Supper. This G7 summit is widely seen as an attempt by the US to rally allies against China.

Similar to the final meal Jesus shared with his apostles before his crucifixion that The Last Supper depicted, Bantonglaoatang painted a vivid picture of nine animals – respectively representing the US, the UK, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Australia and India – sitting around a table with a Chinese-map-shaped cake on it. On top of the painting is the words in quote: Through this we can still rule the world.

These animals have different facial expressions and gestures, implying that each side of the G7 actually has its own axe to grind on the common conspiracies of suppressing China and upholding the Western hegemony, analyzed some observers and Chinese netizens.

Wearing a bowler (see my note) hat with an American flag on it, a bald eagle sits in the middle like Jesus in The Last Supper, obviously the convenor of the meal. In front of the bald eagle there is a small banknote printing machine and a bill on the table. The machine is printing toilet paper into dollars, and the number on the bill gets bigger and bigger – from $2 trillion to $8 trillion. {My note: It should be a top hat, not a bowler. The top hat is part of Uncle Sam's outfit}

There is also an iron hook under its feet, and two pieces of cotton with blood near its hands on the table, suggesting “the US’ capital accumulation was built on racial oppression,” a vlogger nicknamed “sharp-tongued pumpkin” said in his latest video analyzing the illustration, which has gained over 700,000 views on video streaming platform Bilibili within a day after he uploaded it on Saturday afternoon.

The bald eagle image shows today’s aggressive yet feeble US is trapped in its growing debt crisis and racial conflicts, but still points fingers at China, “sharp-tongued pumpkin” pointed out.

Sitting on the left of the bald eagle is a grey wolf, wearing a cap with an Italian flag on it. The wolf waves its hands as the apostle Andrew in The Last Supper, as if saying “No” to the US’ suggestions of jointly cracking down on China. The grey wolf image shows Italy, the first European country that joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is reluctant to collaborate with the US in suppressing China, commented “sharp-tongued pumpkin.” 

Next to the wolf is an Akita dog that represents Japan. Without a seat, it is busy serving the others a “drink” – pouring green radioactive water into the glasses of the other animals. On Weibo some users said the green water is the contaminated water that Japan plans to release to the Pacific from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

Sitting next to the dog is a kangaroo, which is stretching its left hand to the banknotes that the US is printing, while grasping a bag in its right hand. The kangaroo symbolizes the double-faced Australia which actively cooperates with the US in containing China, but is also eager to earn money from China, its largest trading partner, according to “sharp-tongued pumpkin.”

On the left corner stands a black hawk, which obviously represents Germany as its pose is almost the same as that of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a widespread photo in the G7 summit in 2018. Germany, similar to the rooster (representing France) sitting in silence on the right side, seems more interested in its own European issues and shows less enthusiasm on the US’ propaganda, netizens found.

On the right side of the table also sits a lion and a nutria, respectively representing the UK and Canada, both the US’ close Five Eyes allies. The nutria (see my note), wearing a red coat with images of marijuana on it, holds a doll in its hand. Many netizens believe the doll represents Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is still unreasonably detained in Canada. {My note: The depicted animal should be a beaver, not a nutria. The beaver is Canada's national animal.}

On the right corner of the table sits an elephant (representing India) that is on a drip like a patient.

Under the table there is a frog holding banknotes in its hands, trying to jump as high as possible to reach the table and give the money to the US. The little frog symbolizes the separatist authority from the island of Taiwan, which is always subservient to the US, some netizens pointed out.

The illustration caused a stir on Weibo on Sunday, with numerous users praising the author for vividly and straightforwardly revealing the evil intentions of the West that tries to lay a siege to China. “But this is perhaps their ‘last supper,’’’ one user mocked. “With different positions, for various interests of their own, these countries and regions can’t form a real league against China.”

Fully vaccinated

Three days ago, my wife and I were vaccinated. Finally! And it wasn't just the first dose; it was the second dose of the Sinovac vaccine for both of us. Although we had to drive all the way to the Kepala Batas Hospital for the jabs, these were journeys well worth taken. 

And no, we did not suffer any adverse side-effects for both jabs although my wife did mention that she had a slight bout of diarrhea the first time around. 

Despite the vaccinations, we are still very careful with our movements outside the house, only going out whenever necessary, taking exercises alone, always wearing our double face masks, washing hands, keeping safe distances from other people and sanitising things like car steering wheels, doorknobs and keychains.

In fact, we shall need  to continue with our self-imposed movement control and personal hygiene for a lot longer. If a certain small, richer and far better managed country like that little red dot down south is finding it difficult to control the current Indian variant, what hope do we have to get the cases down to even triple digits? We've to take constant care of ourselves first!

12 years ago

Twelve years ago. That would be 2009. I was still gainfully in full employment then. But fast approaching my 55th birthday. At that time, the statutory age for retirement, not 60 years of age yet. I could have gone on for a further five years but no offer came from the company. So it was a year of winding down for me. No worries except to ponder what life would be after retirement. Totally dressed down too. Going to work at 8.30 in the morning and leaving the office at 5.30 in the afternoon. Many days, I would choose to come to work earlier, usually turning up at 7.30am and leaving at 4.30pm. But sometimes, I'd even arrive at seven o'clock and open up the office, then leave at 4.00pm. Such flexibility 12 years ago.

The 19th of June 2009 was a typical day of coming in early and leaving early. And, arriving back in Bukit Mertajam even before the jam started on the bridge, I'd head straight for the hill in Cherok Tokun. A regular weekly hike through the hill trails until I reached the tea house halfway up. Then I'd look for my favourite bench nearby, plonk myself down to enjoy the cool breeze and watch other hikers making their way up or down the tar road. I'd stay there for half an hour, 45 minutes perhaps, before walking down the hill to the car park. 

That was a typical day in 2009. I don't do hill hikes nowadays except for very special occasions. It's partly due to the pandemic. The recreation park is closed off during the Movement Control Orders. Besides, I fear that the knees may not take the punishment of pounding on the tarred hill road anymore. Therefore, my afternoon exercises have become walks around the neighbourhood. Such is life.

Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 6

The book is ready but it's not available for sale yet as my sponsors are getting the jacket re-printed. We are not fully satisfied with the quality of the printer's present effort. But as this is still the period of the Movement Control Order, the printer's plant is closed as printing is not considered an essential service. Thus, we've to wait until the Order is relaxed. It may still be a month or two until the book sees the light of day. In the meantime, here's a quick flip through the book.

The tragedy behind the dumpling festival

It is my family's tradition to offer rice dumplings for worship to the house deities in the morning of the fifth day of the Chinese Fifth Month. This particular day is known to us in the Penang Baba Nyonya community as Gor Guek Chek or Fifth Month Festival. Most households will either prepare or buy meat-based bak chang for worship but not my family. All offerings at our altars are strictly of vegetarian glutinous rice dumplings that are consumed later with a syrup made from gula melaka. Of course, this does not mean that we do not eat the meat bak chang. On the contrary, we have friends and relatives that drop by to present some to us. Otherwise, the rice dumplings are easily available from the markets. 

Nowadays, the Chinese community celebrate the festival with much gaiety but behind all the fun of eating the rice dumplings and watching the dragon boat races - I don't believe there are any organised nowadays primarily because of the pandemic - lies a tragic story of suicide and one man's stand against corruption.

This book, A Cycle of Chinese Festivities, has been in my collection since the 1980s. In it is an interesting account of the dark history behind Gor Guek Chek: how the rice dumplings and dragon boats became associated with the festival. 

What I have below is largely reproduced from the book with some of my personal embellishments thrown in. It is now out of print. The author, CS Wong, was the Acting Senior Chinese Affairs Officer in the Penang colonial government until Malaya's Independence in 1957. He was an expert on Chinese customs and his son, Wong Lin Ken, an Old Free and the winner of a Queen's Scholarship in 1954, gained prominence as Singapore's first ambassador to the United States (1967-1968) and their Minister for Home Affairs (1970-1972). 

The story of the rice dumplings is generally ascribed to Ch'u Yuan (屈原) (c. 278 BC) who is honoured annually on the Fifth Moon Festival, sometimes also called the Patriotic Poet's Festival. Ch'u Yuan was a loyal minister of the State of Ch'u (楚國) and was a Court favourite until his replacement by a rival through Court intrigues. He was banished. When General Pai Ch'i (白起) of the Ts'in State (秦國) launched a second attack on the Capital of Ch'u in the Spring of 278 BC, Ch'u Yuan knew all hope to save the state was lost.

Smitten with grief, he wrote two famous Odes, Ai Ying (哀郢) and then the Huai Sha (懷沙), the latter disclosing his suicide design. Then with sallow cheeks and dishevelled hair, he went to the shore of the Mi-Lo river (汨羅江) - an affluent of the Tung-T'ing Lake (洞庭湖) in Hunan (湖南) - with the intention of ending his life. A fisherman who met him said, "Are you not the Minister? Why should you seek a watery grave?" To which Ch'u Yuan replied, "The whole country is corrupt, except me. The people are inebriated, except me. So it's better that way." "But in that case wouldn't it be better for you to move with the trend and rise in power?" Ch'u Yuan replied that he preferred a death of honour and to be interred in the bellies of the fishes of the river. So saying, he clasped a huge stone with both hands and jumped into the Mi-Lo and drowned himself. 

Traditional history adds that as soon as he jumped into the water, the fishermen instantly rowed out in their boats to try to save him, but in vain. This was later followed by the throwing of rice into the river for the spirit of the heroic minister. This incident happened on the fifth day of the Fifth Moon and annually the people rowed out in boats and scattered rice into the water. 

In about 40 BC, according to a legend, a man who called himself a minister appeared on the shores and told the fishermen that it was a good thing that they did homage to Ch'u Yuan, but as the rice was eaten up by the dragon of the river, future offerings should be inserted into bamboo stems. The end of the stems should be closed up with lien leaves and tied up with five-coloured threads. These lien leaves and five-coloured threads were dreaded by the dragon monster and the food would remain intact for Ch'u Yuan's spirit to consume. 

It is generally believed that the triangular dumplings were thrown into the river not long after this complaint against the river dragon. However, CS Wong mentioned that a Chinese source said that historically the triangular dumplings were first used in the Tsin Dynasty (晉朝) (265-419 AD) in celebration of the turning point of the year at the Summer Solstice by the peasantry. 

In North China, millet was cultivated extensively and the first harvest of millet took place in the Fifth Moon, the Summer month. So these dumplings were originally made of millet, with tortoise meat as the chief ingredient., wrapped with bamboo leaves in triangular shape. The underlying theory was to conform to the Yin and the Yang principles which have an important bearing on the seasons. The tortoise meat within represented the Yin and the bamboo leaves outside represented the Yang. 

It was about the Tsin period that the now-famous dragon boat races first took place. A 20th Century account throws light on the dragon boats in Amoy (廈門), Foochow (福州) and Canton (廣州), where "the water festival is particularly brilliant, and the races sometimes last several days." 

Everywhere there is the bustle of thickly-thronged life, a kaleidoscope of colour and sound, of lights and shadows, of moving boats and people, an ever-changing grouping on land and water in the tawny sunshine with its fierce, prowling splendour... They are a fine sight, these huge boats resembling dragons, each over 90 feet long and so gracefully slim that two men are crowded as they sit side by side. High sterns with long steering paddles rise many feet above the gunwales, high prows are shaped like a dragon's head with open mouth and cruel fangs, and the long body between is gaily painted to represent scales, and touched with with brilliant gilding. On man stands in each bow, as if looking for the corpse of Ch'u Yuan, and throws his arms about as though casting rice upon the waters. Others, interspersed among the rowers, wave brilliant flags or beat gongs and cymbals, so that the deafening clamour may frighten away the monster that Ch'u Yuan feared.

I can also relate here that during my time working at Ban Hin Lee Bank, the bank was very supportive of the Penang government's efforts to promote the annual Penang international water regatta. A mainstay of this annual event were the dragon boat races. Every year from 1983 till 1999, the bank consistently sponsored a dragon boat for the competitions. I remember it was in 1983 or 1984, I accompanied the then Executive Director of the bank, the late Jimmy Yeap Leong Aun, to present the sponsorship monies to the organisers at Gurney Drive. In return for the sponsorship, one of the dragon boats would be adorned with the name and logo of the bank. For several years too, the bank staff would send their own teams to row in the competitions although to the best of my memory not once did the bank's team ever win any race. But to compete and complete was the bank's contribution to make the water regatta a success. I do not know whether this sponsorship continued after Ban Hin Lee Bank was taken over by Southern Bank in 2000.

My other literary works

Many people knew me as the chess writer for The Star newspaper. But not any more as my chess columns had stopped in March 2012.Come next March, it will be 10 years already. A generation of school-going kids would have passed by without knowing that once upon a time, there was real chess reported in the newspapers. Not only in The Star but also other newspapers like The Malay Mail - under the tenure of Phuah Eng Chye, Lim Chong and Eddie Chua - and Berita Harian, the latter contributed by Sabar Hashim.

But I didn't want to be type-cast as only a chess writer. And for a brief period, The Star allowed me to cover other areas that interested me. These stories generally appeared in the North section of the newspaper although once of twice, one of my stories would find its way into Section Two. 

Mind you, all these stories were never about money. I did not write because I needed the money to supplement my work at Ban Hin Lee Bank. Far, far from it. As a disclosure, did the token honorarium of RM20 per story appear to be excessively generous? You tell me. No, it was because I needed something as an outlet for my creative energy that I turned to freelancing this chess column for The Star. And it simply grew from there, that's all.

I contributed not more than a score of non-chess stories to the newspaper. All very enjoyable. I remember that once there was a wine-tasting session at a hotel in Batu Ferringhi; the promoters were attempting to pair their Australian wines with local Chinese course dinners. I ended up mighty drunk and had to drive very slowly and carefully back to Seberang Jaya. Too bad that I cannot find the newspaper clipping anymore. 

I think writing these stories began in 1999 but by 2001 I had decided to stop because too much of my time was being taken up to attend these functions on the island. But not because I was objecting to them! 

Archive: 18th Merdeka team chess championship

There was a time in the distant past when the Penang Chess Association used to sweep the top honours at the annual Merdeka team chess championship in Kuala Lumpur. Later, this event was assimilated into the Malaysia Chess Festival and the tournament thrown open to all teams regardless of whether they were local, foreign or mix teams. In a way, it debased the original objective of the Malaysian Chess Federation which was to offer the Deputy Prime Minister's challenge trophy to the best state team in the country./p>

Recently, I unearthed these pictures which were taken during the 18th Merdeka team chess championship. The event was played at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur from the 29th till the 31st of August, 1999.

The Putra World Trade Centre was a sprawling venue and going to the toilets would require a long walk from the playing hall. Cheating and coaching often took place in the toilets. I remember on one occasion - not necessarily at this particular event - I caught a player receiving tips from his father in the toilet. I wasn't an arbiter in the tournament and so, the only thing I could do was to inform one of the arbiters after trailing the player back to his seat. Unfortunately, I cannot recall what had happened next.

The Penang State team with the Deputy Prime Minister's trophy

Lim Chuin Hoong checks his time in the crucial match with Perak in the final round

Ng Tze Han and his opponent agreeing to the draw in the last game of the match with Perak

The Penang State team

The Penang Youth team

The Penang Girls team

Why I resigned from Southern Bank

Twenty years. It has been 20 years since June 2001 when I decided to sever all employment ties with Southern Bank and exit the banking industry. It has also been 20 years of keeping quiet about this. But 20 years is a good time to reflect. Time does help to tone down your verbal delivery a little. 

At the end of that month in 2001, I threw in my letter of resignation and left the Kulim branch immediately as I had accumulated more than enough annual leave. I didn't have any regrets leaving Southern Bank but I did agonise leaving the rest of my colleagues at the branch with no notice at all and having to carry on with the burden of running the Deposits Department there.

But it had to be done. I had reached a point where I could no longer tolerate working in an environment antithema to everything we built at Ban Hin Lee Bank, the entity that Southern Bank swallowed up in a grand national banking consolidation plan envisioned by the federal government. Maybe it was a good thing altogether but in this particular case, the process was carried out very inefficiently. 

For one thing, the work culture in these two organisations, central to one of the 10 mergers he banking industry, were worlds apart and very little was done to assimilate the two cultures. It was a matter of take it or leave it as far as Southern Bank was concerned. (See note below.) The working condition at Ban Hin Lee Bank was excellent and as much as we respected our customers, we paid equal attention to the staff and their welfare. 

Facilities were excellent too. Ban Hin Lee Bank had one of the most advanced computerised systems in the country to serve their their customers at the front end. Not so the antiquated system from Southern Bank which the merged entity had to adopt and adapt. It was like a step backwards into the stone age. During the six months until 30 Jun 2001, I recall only one one-hour briefing session to inform the Deposits Departmental heads on their expectations when the Southern Bank system would replace the Ban Hin Lee Bank Branchview system in totality.

Imagine the groping around the dark when 1 July 2001 arrived. Everyone at the former Ban Hin Lee Bank branches were unprepared and they floundered. Service slowed down to a snail's pace. The situation at the beginning of the month did not help. This was normally the busiest time for any Ban Hin Lee Bank branch but customers would be cleared off efficiently. Now, with an inept computer system, the queues at the counters led beyond the doors of the branches. Staff had to forego their lunch and continue attending to the customers. Not only that, closing up the branch turned later and later and it was not uncommon to reach home way after 9pm.

This situation did not improve for months -- definitely more than a year -- and at the end of each day, the daily accounting and trial balancing of the banking operations became messier and messier. Accounts could not balance and Suspense entries had to be passed almost every day. Reconciliation of these unbalanced entries would be attempted another day when time permitted. 

Faced with this seemingly unsolvable problems, anyone would feel discouraged. I was greatly discouraged and by May, I had decided to find an alternative employment. One opportunity came along in the middle of June and by 1 July 2001, I had assumed the position of Content Manager at JobStreet.com

Note: When the two organisations were merged into one, almost all the senior management personnel from the Head Office of Ban Hin Lee Bank were offered correspondingly senior management positions at the merged Southern Bank head office but one by one within a year or two, many of them had resigned. The question remained whether they would have left if they had been treated as well as they should. 

An unwanted milestone

Penang attained an unwanted milestone on 7 June 2021: the total cumulative Covid-19 deaths in the state reached 100 (and hardly anyone noticed). 😢

Other statistics released by the Health Department in Penang on the same day:

• Total number of cumulative cases in Penang: 30,906
• Current active cases in Penang: 2,049
• Total number of discharged cases in Penang: 28,757

Digging in a bit further, these are the incidents of Covid-19 infections per 1,000 residents in each of the five districts in Penang. The South-West and Province Wellesley Central districts are the most badly affected with almost three persons out of each thousand residents having been tested positive for the coronavirus since tracking began on the 18th of March last year:

• North East - 1.38 infections per 1,000 residents
• South West - 2.95 infections per 1,000 residents
• Province Wellesley North - 1.05 infections per 1,000 residents
• Province Wellesley Central - 2.88 infections per 1,000 residents
• Province Wellesley South - 1.75 infections per 1,000 residents

Remembering Larry Parr

It has been 10 years since the passing of Larry Parr, a very good friend of Malaysian chess. In the later part of his life, this renown, sometimes dogmatic but always true to his own beliefs, American chess journalist had lived his life in Malaysia, effectively working as a researcher and author. In fact, Parr was the main person working on Dato' Tan Chin Nam's memoirs that was published in 2006 to commemorate the latter's 80th birthday. Whenever I could, I would see him in Kuala Lumpur for a rewarding conversation but unfortunately, whatever time spent was never long enough for me. This was my tribute to him in my chess column of 8th April 2011.

Draughts board

For the past months I have been going through my storeroom and cupboards, trying to clean out the unnecessary stuff -- books, magazines and chess tournament bulletins -- but finding it almost impossible. Too much clinging to my material belongings although I know that I do not need them any more. They are no longer of any practical use to me but the very thought of throwing or giving them away pains me to no end. So back into the cupboard or storeroom from where they had emerged.

One item uncovered in the last few days was a homemade board of 64 squares. I posted the picture of it to a few chat groups. I mentioned that this was my very first chessboard and it could have been made in 1968 or 1969. Now, I'm not even sure that it is a chessboard. It could have been a draughts board. It would have also measured 8x8, the same as a chessboard.

Now, if it was a homemade draughts board, it could have been made even earlier than 1968. Possibly 1965 when I was still in Primary school. Chess was still far away from my mind but we kids were playing draughts (or dum-dum) during recess time or after school while waiting to be picked up by our parents or a school taxi driver or trishaw man. 

The game of draughts was all the rage. No need for sophisticated pieces. No horse head, no castle, no peculiar everything else. All that was needed were 24 bottle caps. And here, the type of bottle caps you owned probably hinted a lot at your social standing too. If your caps came from a brewery, you stood well above your friends who owned caps from soft drink bottles. Me? My caps were a mixture of everything, picked up from the coffee shop behind my home in Seang Tek Road in those days. But I proudly owned a homemade foldable draughts board...THIS draughts board.

The necessity of money

The first chapter of Herbert M Casson's old book, How to get and use money, Indian edition published in 1969 by DB Taraporevala Sons & Co Private Ltd of Bombay contained some basic truths about money and living life properly. I wonder whether the book is still in print?

I'll summarise Casson's basic truths about money in case the image can't be read properly:

• Three ways of getting money: inherit it, marry it, earn it
• Three things we must have: food, clothing, shelter
• Right policy regarding money: get all you can, save all you can, give all you can
• Three duties of business: to its shareholders, to its employees, to the public.

All these truths still apply today.

Penang's coronavirus deaths

I've been collecting data on the coronavirus infections in Malaysia ever since the country went into its first lockdown on the 18th of March last year. It is now 440 days and although we have gone through various stages of lockdowns ever since, there is no sign of the situation improving in the country.

Indeed, with the inept leadership and level of competency shown at federal level, the concern is getting from bad to worse One statistic that stood out from my database is the total number of Covid-19 deaths in Penang since the first day. Little has been said about this but I would want to highlight it now.

It should be a big concern to everyone that the number of deaths has been increasing exponentially in the past two weeks. Right until 17 May 2021, the death toll stood at 42 casualties. That was spread over 426 days.

Immediately after that, more people had died in the next 14 days that in all the preceding 426 days. From 42 deaths on 17 May 2021, the tally on 31 May 2021 rose steeply to 82 deaths: an almost 100 percent increase in numbers. But I guess this is a trend that is reflected across the whole country and not for Penang alone.

Folks, we simply need to keep our guard up. It is solely up to us, whether we like it or not. The coronavirus is an invisible enemy and it cuts across all races and ethnicity. The virus doesn't rest for faith and politicking. It doesn't rest at 8pm when all business activities are required to stop according to government regulations. Covid-19 does not stop at all.