Like I wrote previously, mail orders for Ten Thousand Prosperities: The Story of Ban Hin Lee Bank are now available from my publisher's website. The price of each copy is RM65. Due to the pandemic, delivery within Malaysia is free of charge until further notice. Global shipping is also possible but please do check from the website. In the meantime, here are very quick looks into four pages of the book. The first is the CONTENTS page and as can be seen, there are 10 main chapters which tell the story of Ban Hin Lee Bank from its inception in 1918 (the bank was incorporated in 1935) until the merger in 2000. At first I did not want to say too much about Yeap Chor Ee's arrival in Penang and his subsequent rags-to-riches transition but for my editor's persuasion. I believe now that she was correct because a story about the bank would not be complete without writing about Yeap Chor Ee's role. After all, without Yeap Chor Ee, there would be no Ban Hin Lee. Moreover, he was already one of the richest men in the Straits Settlement of Penang at the turn of the 20th Century.
There are also seven ancillary chapters, which I called as appendices, appended to the back of the book, including an interesting reminiscence by an old bank staff which had been reprinted from an issue of the bank's newsletter. This bank staff, Ong Chin Seng, had spent the whole of his working life with Ban Hin Lee Bank Bank which is a mean feat today considering that the present generation wouldn't think twice about moving from one job to another all in the name of earning more money. There is simply no loyalty to the employers presently, unlike in the past, but then there is no long-term job security in the present age either.
Included in the book are two Forewords and an Introduction. The first Foreword was written by Dato Seri Anwar Fazal, a very well-known public figure from Penang who is presently the Chairman of Think City. The second Foreword was a collective effort by the three former directors of Ban Hin Lee Bank, namely, Dato Seri Goh Eng Toon, Dato Seri Stephen Yeap Leong Huat and Yeap Lam Yang. For the book's Introduction, I have to thank Tan Sri Andrew Sheng, who was formerly with Bank Negara Malaysia, for consenting to write it.
I don't mind showing here what I wrote in the PREFACE. It revealed the reason why this book had to be written. The incorporated Ban Hin Lee Bank functioned from 1935 until 2000. That's 65 years of existence. After it was merged into Southern Bank, it lost its identity. But still fresh in people's mind, the bank and its ideals were fondly remembered. In a sudden turn of events, Southern Bank found itself bought over by the CIMB Group in 2006. The result was that the memory of Ban Hin Lee Bank became even more distant and diluted.
By 2019, if ever there was a time to narrate the Ban Hin Lee Bank story, it was now while many of the former employees and directors of the bank were still able to tell it. So I approached the Yeap family and a deal was finally struck sometime in the middle of 2019 for me to proceed. Nevertheless, it took the pandemic to spur me on and give me a push whenever I faltered.
I spoke to many people either through face-to-face interviews in 2019 or whatsapp conversations after we were all forced to remain indoors during the iterations of the movement control order. Whatsapp proved so useful as a communication tool because I could speak with people in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore effortlessly. I wasn't exactly looking forward to physically travel to these destinations. I had also reached out to some of my former colleagues through social media, in particular, facebook messaging. For the illustrations in the book, I borrowed extensively from my former colleagues too - coinboxes, neckties, newsletters, photographs, et cetera. All of these have been duly mentioned on the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page.
And finally, I must particularly mention APPENDIX SEVEN of the book. To me, the book would not be complete if I did not try to identify the bulk of my former colleagues throughout the years. It started as just a small compilation of the names of the original staff of the 1930s but after a while, the list grew and assumed a life of its own. No way could I mention the 1930s staff without recalling the staff from the 1950s to the 1970s too. Some of these people supported the bank through the difficult years of the 1950s and 1960s when the bank's business was at its lowest ebb, moving neither here nor there. Then when the bank decided to expand through opening of branches from the 1970s, that was an exciting period in the bank's progress. And having achieved that, my sights turned to those employed in the 1980s and 1990s.
So this Appendix sought to name all the people that had ever come into employment in Ban Hin Lee Bank. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a complete list. I had to scour all sorts of documents and publications in order to compile anything reasonable. Unfortunately too, because the newsletters after 1995 did away with naming the fresh recruitments, I could not include the names of many people who joined that year or later. The omission of anyone's name is truly unintentional and regretted. But guess how many names are there in this Appendix? At the last estimate, more than 2,300 names covering the period from 1935 to 2000. We really have a rich alumni.
No comments:
Post a Comment