Old Bukit Mertajam

I came across these pictures of old Bukit Mertajam on Facebook. Old in the sense that they could have been taken in the 1960s or 1970s, or even the 1980s, and they certainly captured that laid-back look of a typical old town in Malaysia. This location happened to be Bukit Mertajam, where I now live, although the places in these pictures are a few kilometres away from where I stay.

The first picture shows Danby Road, with the shophouses on the left then occupied by Malayan Banking. What I noticed was the petrol station on the right side of the road, which I had completely forgotten about. It's now gone, and I suspect most people have completely forgotten that it was ever there! Only this picture remains to remind us that there was once a petrol station along this stretch of road. Really, familiar places can change so much over the years that things which were once part of the everyday landscape simply disappear from memory.

However, I still do remember the stretch of three old houses seen at the end of this road. Those are along Station Road, by the way, where Danby Road meets Station Road. Two doors away from the left-hand unit was Mun Kee Restaurant, which sold a very delicious tua pau, or dumpling. I used to stop by the restaurant early on Friday mornings to buy some before proceeding to work.

The second picture is Station Road itself, which was named because the old Malayan Railway station stood at the end of the road. It was an important station in those days, with trains from the north and south converging here before continuing on to Butterworth. I remember coming to this station quite often in the 2000s, before the railway was electrified, to catch the night train to Kuala Lumpur. I also remember arriving back here in the wee hours of the morning after the journey home. The station has since been relocated to Permatang Rawa, and the old station building was eventually demolished, with nothing replacing it. Another little piece of Bukit Mertajam's history disappeared.

And the third picture looks down the old Kulim Road. The rows of buildings on the right are steadily being demolished in the name of progress, although I noticed that at least one stretch has been restored. I suspect it may soon become a row of modern eateries, which seems to be the fate of many old shophouses these days.

These photographs are a reflection of Bukit Mertajam in the lazy, old days. Not only the buildings but the pace of life they represented. There was nothing particularly remarkable happening in these pictures. Just everyday life with roads, shops, a petrol station and a railway station, all looking as though they had plenty of time on their hands. Yet that was Bukit Mertajam once. But the town has changed quite a bit since the turn of the millennium, even if some of us who live here today hardly noticed it happening.

Chowrasta market

Since I had already written about the origins of the Penang Bazaar building some time ago, I thought it was time for me to turn my sights on Chowrasta Market, which is another old Penang landmark a little further up Penang Road.

The building we see today is actually more than 60 years old. It was reopened in November 1964 after the old market (see picture) was replaced at a cost of $1.5 million. I do remember seeing this old market building when I was younger, although I can't remember ever going inside it. Maybe I did. Then one day that old building was gone and another had replaced it.

Chowrasta itself goes back much further than the present building. The area around Penang Road, Tamil Street and Chowrasta Road had long been associated with the Indian community in George Town. The early settlement here was closely connected with people from the Malabar coast of India, which explains the name of nearby Kampung Malabar. Malabar was then part of the Madras Presidency under British India and later became part of Kerala after Indian independence.

According to local accounts, Chowrasta Market was started by the Malabari people who had settled in this part of George Town during the early days of the settlement of Prince of Wales Island. As the community grew, so did the trading activities around the area. What eventually became Chowrasta Market started as a busy open-air trading area where people bought and sold everyday necessities. There were vegetables, fruits, fish, meat and other foodstuffs, with traders and customers coming and going throughout the day. By 1890, the municipal authorities had built a permanent market to serve the growing population.

The market eventually became known simply as Chowrasta, a name generally understood to come from the Indian subcontinent and associated with a crossroads or four-way junction. Roads, people and businesses converged there, and over the years Chowrasta became one of those places where different communities rubbed shoulders with one another.

My mother's generation, however, had another name for the place. They referred to it as Kelinga Bansan. I should perhaps explain that, because I know some people outside Penang may immediately regard the word “Keling” as derogatory. That is not how I remember it being used in Penang, particularly by the older generation. It was simply a familiar term for people of South Indian origin and was used matter-of-factly in everyday speech. In fact, the old Penang Hokkien name for the Chowrasta area, Kelinga Bansan, is recorded as meaning “South Indian Market”.

There is plenty of historical evidence for this older usage. The word Keling appears in classical Malay literature and historical records going back centuries, where it was used to refer to India or people from South India without the derogatory meaning that it can carry today. Even in early Penang, Kapitan Keling was the title given to the leader of the South Indian community, and the name survives in the Kapitan Keling Mosque.

So, when my mother's generation called the place Kelinga Bansan, they weren't using the word as a racial insult. They were using an old Penang term that had been part of the local vocabulary for generations. Of course, words change with time and I recognise that Keling is regarded as offensive in many contexts today. But I don't think we should automatically impose today's meaning on an old Penang name without understanding the historical context in which it was used.

That brings back another memory for me. I once had an Indian Muslim friend named Mohd Noor, a classmate from both our primary and secondary school days. He grew up in Tamil Street, right in the heart of that old neighbourhood. Later in life he went into the food business and built up a successful nasi kandar restaurant business. We lost touch over the years but reconnected in the decade before the Penang Free School Bicentenary in 2016. Sadly, he died an untimely death a year later. Another old friend and fellow chess player, Jimmy Liew, also has a Chowrasta connection. His parents used to run a Chinese medicinal hall in Chowrasta Road, so his family too was part of the community around the market. These are the sort of personal connections that make an old place come alive for me.

The market in those days was a very lively place. It was crowded and full of activity. Traditional markets were not merely places where people went to buy something and then hurried home. They were meeting places as much as shopping places. People knew the traders, chatted with their neighbours, exchanged news and generally knew what was going on in the community.

Chowrasta eventually became well known for more than just its wet market. The market and the shops around it developed a reputation for preserved fruits, nutmeg products, dried goods, Chinese medicinal halls, traditional biscuits and various local food products. And then there were the second-hand bookshops that came later and which became something of an institution in their own right. Generations of students, book lovers and collectors have wandered through them looking for something interesting, useful or perhaps simply unexpected.

By the early 1960s, the old market had evidently seen better days and a new building was constructed to replace it. When the new Chowrasta Market was reopened in November 1964, it had cost $1.5 million to build. That was a considerable sum of money in those days, and the building we see today has therefore been part of the Penang landscape for more than six decades.

The market has changed again in more recent years. Like many traditional markets, it has faced competition from supermarkets, shopping malls and changing shopping habits. The building itself also needed upgrading. Renovation works were carried out between 2013 and 2017 with the intention of improving the facilities while keeping the market's traditional function alive.

Today, Chowrasta sits comfortably within George Town's UNESCO World Heritage Site. It remains a working market rather than a museum. We can still buy fresh food there, while outside the market are stalls selling all sorts of things. The second-hand bookshops remain part of its identity too. Even today, Chowrasta continues to be described as a bustling market and an important part of George Town's living heritage.

But the atmosphere inside the market isn't quite what it used to be. It is still lively, particularly around the outside where goods and food are being sold, but inside it can feel relatively quiet compared with the old days when the whole place was crowded and bustling with people. That's because markets change as the city around them changes. The Penang of my mother's generation was very different from the Penang we have today. Yet Chowrasta has somehow managed to survive.

I suppose I have known Chowrasta all my life, even if I never really thought much about its history before. Having spent a lifetime watching Penang change, I sometimes find that places and pictures trigger memories I had almost forgotten. I remember the old building, although I can't remember ever going inside it. I remember hearing my mother and her generation call it Kelinga Bansan. I remember a schoolmate who grew up in Tamil Street and later built a successful nasi kandar business. And I remember that one particular Chinese medicinal hall in Chowrasta Road. All these little memories, from different periods of my life, somehow come together in this one small corner of Penang.

Dewan Sri Pinang memories

Just going to the Dewan Sri Pinang last Monday brought back memories of my long association with this grand old hall. It was not the first time I had walked into the building to receive recognition, but it was also certainly not the first time I had been here for something else that was equally memorable.

At the investiture ceremony, my wife was seated high up in the terraced chairs, giving her an excellent vantage point of the proceedings below. At some point during the ceremony, she took a photograph of the hall from where she was sitting. When she showed it to me afterwards, I found myself looking beyond just the picture itself. The sweeping view of the hall, the spaciousness of the venue and the atmosphere it captured brought back a flood of memories.

Because my first visit to Dewan Sri Pinang was not for an award ceremony. It was December 1972, the last few days of my school life. Upper Six and the Higher School Certificate examinations had just ended, and like many school leavers, I was standing at the crossroads, wondering what lay ahead. There wasn't much time for soul-searching, though, because I had been selected to represent Penang in the inaugural Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Malaysia (MSSM) team chess championship. It was the first time chess had appeared as a competitive sport in the MSSM programme.

It is tempting to attribute the inclusion of chess to the famous World Championship match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer from July to September in 1972. In reality, the wheels had already been set in motion months earlier.

In April 1972, Dr Max Euwe, then President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and himself a former World Champion, visited Malaysia as part of a regional tour to promote chess. He stopped in Kuala Lumpur, and I was one of five players from Penang selected to take part in a simultaneous exhibition against him. If memory serves me right, he played about 24 schoolboys from around the country. We from Penang were myself, Khaw Teik Kooi and Khoo Chuan Keat from Penang Free School, and Beh Hong Pin and Lee Teik Leong from Chung Ling High School.

I actually caught him out in the opening when he played his moves in the wrong order. Unfortunately, my inexperience showed. Instead of exploiting the opportunity, I allowed him to recover, and before long he won the game. But I did earn something far more memorable. When Dr Euwe realised his mistake, he paused briefly, looked at the position and said, "You're sharp."

Just two simple words. Yet coming from a former World Champion, they meant the world to a teenage chess player. Following Dr Euwe's visit, the Ministry of Education approved chess as an MSSM sport, although initially only as a team event. The Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Pulau Pinang (MSSPP) was entrusted with organising the inaugural championship. The task fell to Fang Ewe Churh, then Headmaster of Han Chiang Primary School and President of the fledgling Penang Chess Association. Freshly returned from the Chess Olympiad in Skopje, Yugoslavia, where he had served as Malaysia's team captain and delegate, he was the obvious choice to organise the competition.

I honestly can't remember the selection process now, but by the end of the year I had been informed that I would represent Penang on first board. It proved to be a tough tournament. We defeated Johore and Kelantan to reach the semi-finals, where we overcame Negri Sembilan. In the final, however, Selangor proved too strong, and we had to settle for the runners-up spot.

The championship was held in the main hall of Dewan Sri Pinang. I still remember shivering throughout the tournament, not only because of the powerful air-conditioning, but also because of the tension of playing on first board for the state team. Over the years, I've returned to Dewan Sri Pinang many times for chess events. Games have been played in the main hall, the function rooms downstairs, and even in the foyer and first-floor corridors. But nothing can quite match the memories of that first tournament.

So now, whenever I step into Dewan Sri Pinang, it is not the investiture ceremonies or the medals that come to mind first. It is the memory of a nervous 18-year-old schoolboy, sitting at Board One in the inaugural MSSM Team Chess Championship, wondering whether he was good enough to do Penang proud.

Karajan's Beethoven

I felt like listening to a bit of classical music today and pulled an old Deutsche Grammophon LP from the shelf: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, recorded in 1977 by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan.

As the music began, I was immediately struck by the clarity and ferocity of the performance. Those famous opening four notes seemed to leap from the speakers with such force that I instinctively stepped back across the room, just to take in the full weight and flavour of the sound.

This LP formed part of Karajan's second complete Beethoven cycle for Deutsche Grammophon. By then, he had spent much of his career returning to these symphonies, revisiting them as recording technology evolved and as his own interpretations deepened with age and experience.

Karajan's association with Deutsche Grammophon, which lasted more than four decades until his death in 1989, remains one of the most influential partnerships in the history of recorded classical music. He saw the recording studio not merely as a place to document performances but as an instrument in its own right, working closely with engineers to shape every aspect of the final sound.

The sleeve itself is unmistakably Deutsche Grammophon: the familiar yellow banner across the top with a typography that reflected the label's sense of elegance and consistency.

Musically, this recording is all about control and momentum. Karajan's earlier 1963 account of Beethoven's Fifth has a certain warmth and lyricism, but the 1977 version feels leaner, more urgent and more dramatic. Recorded in the Berlin Philharmonie, it captures what many listeners describe as the "Karajan sound": smooth, rich and powerful, with individual instruments blending into a single orchestral voice. Some critics have argued that this sacrifices a degree of transparency for sheer beauty, but there is no denying its impact.

Karajan was also an enthusiastic advocate of new technology. He embraced digital recording early and later worked with Sony and Deutsche Grammophon in promoting the compact disc, famously declaring: "All else is gaslight."

Perhaps his lifelong engagement with Beethoven says more about him than anything else. He recorded the complete symphonies three times for Deutsche Grammophon. First was in 1963, again in the late 1970s and finally in the early digital era of the 1980s. Few conductors have left such an extensive recorded legacy of a single composer.

By the time of his death, Karajan had sold an estimated 100 to 200 million records worldwide, a figure that remains extraordinary in the world of classical music.

The original Chipmunk music

I must have been seven, eight or perhaps nine years old when my father brought home these two Chipmunks records from Wing Hing Records, his friend's shop along Campbell Street. At that age, few things gave me more happiness than listening to David Seville and the Chipmunks. I played those LPs over and over again until I practically knew every song by heart.

For a few years, they were constant companions. Then I grew older and gradually moved on to other kinds of music. The records went back into their sleeves, placed in a cupboard and left untouched for decades. Until recently.

Something stirred in me and I went looking for them again. When I finally played them again and heard those familiar high-pitched voices, I felt an unexpected lump in my throat. In an instant, I was transported back to a time when I had not even yet reached the age of ten. Wonderful how music can do that. A song lasts only a few minutes, yet somehow it can unlock entire rooms of memory that have remained closed for half a century. What more a whole hour's worth from Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks and Sing Again with the Chipmunks.

As a child, I never questioned who the Chipmunks were. They simply existed. After all, children do not worry about such details. Alvin, Simon and Theodore were mischievous little creatures who sang funny songs, while the long-suffering David Seville tried to keep them in line. Only much later did I learn that neither the Chipmunks nor David Seville actually existed. The entire concept was the creation of one remarkably inventive man: Ross Bagdasarian Sr.

Bagdasarian was a first-generation Armenian-American from California. Early in his career, record executives felt that his surname was too long and too ethnic for show business. During the Second World War, he served as a control tower operator with the US Army Air Forces and spent some time stationed in Seville, Spain. The city made such an impression on him that he adopted "David Seville" as his stage name.

Before the Chipmunks came along, he had already established himself as a songwriter. In 1951, he had collaborated to write the quirky song Come On-a My House. After spending months trying to persuade someone to record it, he finally found success when Rosemary Clooney turned it into a number one hit.

Yet success in the music business can be fleeting. By late 1957, despite his earlier triumph, Bagdasarian was facing financial difficulties. Supporting a wife and three young children, he reportedly had only about US$200 left. Instead of spending the money on household expenses, he took a gamble. He bought a dual-speed tape recorder and began experimenting with tape speeds at home. He discovered that by recording his voice slowly at a lower pitch and then playing it back at normal speed, he could create an entirely new sound: bright, squeaky and unlike anything listeners had heard before.

His first experiment was Witch Doctor, released in early 1958. The famous refrain, Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang, became an instant sensation, selling more than a million copies and helping to rescue Liberty Records from financial trouble. Asked to come up with a follow-up, Bagdasarian expanded the idea into three animated chipmunks. Their names were playful nods to the executives at Liberty Records: Alvin after company president Al Bennett, Simon after co-founder Simon Waronker and Theodore after recording engineer Ted Keep.

Creating their voices was a feat in the days before digital technology. Bagdasarian recorded every character himself; four separate vocal tracks for Alvin, Simon, Theodore and Dave Seville while matching the timing manually with extraordinary precision. The result was The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late), released in late 1958. It became a runaway success and won three awards including Best Engineered Record (Non-Classical) at the inaugural Grammy Awards in 1959.

A string of hit records followed, including Alvin's Harmonica and Ragtime Cowboy Joe. Soon came the first full-length albums: Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks pressed on red vinyl in 1959 and Sing Again with the Chipmunks the following year. Those were the very records, with their 24 songs, that eventually found their way into my childhood home in Penang.

But of course, the songs were only part of the story. Beneath the squeaky voices was something far more personal: my father's love of his child in bringing those records home, the excitement of discovering new music as a child and the simple happiness of sitting beside the gramophone with nothing else demanding my attention. The Chipmunks may have been fictional, but the memories they created were very real. And after all these years, they still have the power to make me smile.

Maxwell Road

Ever since I wrote about old Gladstone Road several days ago, I have been thinking that perhaps a story about the schools, cinemas and amusement parks that disappeared during the KOMTAR redevelopment would also be in order. Many of them were located along Maxwell Road, another old street that vanished during the same redevelopment period. But roads alone do not make up a city. What truly gives life to an urban neighbourhood are the people, the schools where children studied, the cinemas where families gathered at night and the amusement parks where crowds drifted through beneath bright lights and loud music. Much of that old social landscape disappeared along with the roads.

When the KOMTAR project was launched in the 1970s, it was presented as a vision of modernisation for George Town. Large sections of the roughly triangular-shaped district, bordered by Prangin Road, McNair Street, Magazine Road and Penang Road, were cleared to make way for the massive 27-axre complex. Hundreds of buildings disappeared in the process. For many people today, especially younger Penangites, it is difficult to fathom just how densely packed and lively that part of town once was.

Along Maxwell Road and the nearby streets stood rows of traditional pre-war shophouses facing the old Prangin Canal. Many housed long-established Chinese family businesses such as metalsmiths hammering away in narrow workshops, bicycle and tyre shops, provision stores stacked with sacks of rice and dried goods, herbal medicine halls with drawers of roots and herbs, coffee shops and small trading companies dealing in everything from household utensils to joss paper offerings. Opposite these shophouses were compact roadside stalls selling inexpensive local goods and daily necessities to workers, students and shoppers passing through the area. Cobblers too were a common sight, quietly repairing worn shoes for customers seated nearby waiting patiently for the work to be completed.

The district was also one of George Town’s busiest transport hubs. Along Maxwell Road stood the old bus terminals and stopping points for the Lim Seng Seng green buses, the blue Hin Company buses and the familiar buses of the Penang Yellow Bus Company that connected the city to the suburbs. There was even a public toilet built on a pedestrian bridge across the canal, and one could not help wondering whether the waste went straight into the murky water below or was somehow channelled elsewhere for disposal. The entire area constantly moved with people: office workers, market traders, schoolchildren, cinema patrons and bus passengers all crossing paths from morning until late into the night. For a brief period from 1980 to 1983, I too became part of that daily flow of commuters, waiting along Maxwell Road for a green bus that would take me home to Ayer Itam.

Among the losses were four well-known cinemas that had once formed part of George Town’s busy entertainment circuit. There was the Capitol Theatre along Maxwell Road, built on land originally occupied by the Windsor Theatre. Nearby stood the Paramount Theatre and the Royal Theatre, both especially remembered for screening Hindi and Tamil films and attracting large Indian audiences from across Penang. Somewhere around where Komtar Walk is today, crowds once queued outside these cinemas. Then there was the Eastern Theatre, another familiar single-screen cinema that disappeared during the early redevelopment phase.

In those days, cinemas were not simply places to watch films. They were social gathering points. Young couples went there on dates, families planned weekend outings around them, and workers escaping the day’s heat found refuge inside the cool darkness of the theatre halls. Before television became dominant, these cinemas formed part of everyday urban life.

Several schools also vanished during the redevelopment. One of the most historically significant was Chung Hwa Confucian Primary School at Maxwell Road, among the oldest Chinese schools in the country. Its old premises served generations of students before the final batches left in 1979. The school later moved to Ayer Itam and split into Chung Hwa Confucian A and B.

Li Teik School also stood within the redevelopment zone. Interestingly, its Maxwell Road premises had once belonged to the old Anglo-Chinese School long before ACS moved to Ayer Itam Road in 1929. Li Teik inherited that educational space and carried on serving the local community until relocation became unavoidable. The school eventually shifted to Macallum Street Ghaut.

Then there was Tong Sian Primary School along Gladstone Road itself. Unlike the larger brick school compounds, Tong Sian functioned from converted pre-war shophouses in the crowded heart of the old neighbourhood. One can only imagine what school life must have been like there, surrounded by metalsmith shops, traders, food stalls and the nearby Sia Boey market. When Gladstone Road disappeared, the school too had to move, eventually settling at Dato Kramat Road where it remains today.

And somewhere amidst all this stood the old Great World Amusement Park. Older Penangites still remember it as one of the lively entertainment spaces of central George Town. There were games, food stalls, music and crowds wandering about in the evenings. Nearby too was the Fun & Frolic Park, another amusement area that formed part of the same nightlife landscape around Prangin and Magazine Roads. These places belonged to an era before shopping malls and multiplexes, when entertainment was more open-air, communal and slightly rough around the edges.

The redevelopment that produced KOMTAR undoubtedly changed George Town forever. From the planners’ perspective, it was meant to modernise the city and prepare it for the future. But in doing so, an older urban world disappeared. Roads vanished. Schools relocated. Cinemas closed. Amusement parks faded away. A neighbourhood that once remained active day and night gradually gave way to concrete plazas, office towers and wide traffic systems.

Today, when people walk through KOMTAR, Prangin Mall or Komtar Walk, very few would realise how much life once occupied the same ground. Beneath the modern structures lies an older layer of George Town memory, one filled with schoolchildren, cinema queues, market traders and the sounds of amusement parks glowing into the Penang night.

Austrian music: two poles apart

Some time ago, while browsing through a stack of records in my collection, I realised that I had two albums that, in their own very different ways, captured something of the musical spirit of Austria. One came from the Alpine folk tradition, the other from one of the world’s most famous choirs. Listening to them back to back was almost like taking a short musical journey through that country.

The first record was a Polydor LP, issued in 1973 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Austrian folk group Die Lustigen Arlberger, with the title 25 Jahre Volkstumsgruppe Die Lustigen Arlberger. Since the album commemorated 25 years in 1973, it meant that the group was founded in 1949.

The Arlberg region lies in the Tyrol, and the group came from the well-known mountain resort of St Anton am Arlberg. In those days, visitors to the area would often attend what was called a Tiroler Abend, or Tyrolean Evening, which was a lively programme of folk music, yodelling and traditional dances performed for both tourists and locals. Groups like Die Lustigen Arlberger were at the heart of this tradition.

For many years the ensemble was led by the colourful musician Sepp Staffler who was not only a skilled yodeller but also known for playing the unusual instrument called the "singing saw". Under his leadership the group became a regular presence in the region’s folk entertainment scene.

Their music reflected the unmistakable Alpine folk style. Instruments such as the zither, dulcimer, clarinet, harmonica, accordion, and even the occasional xylophone contributed to the lively arrangements. Some members of the ensemble were also well-known specialists on these instruments, including zither and dulcimer players Werner Nußbaumer and Margit Raffl Staffler.

The anniversary LP functioned almost like a sampler of their repertoire. Among the pieces were Ein Jodlergruss, which opened the record with a cheerful yodel greeting; Salzkammergut-Plattler, a traditional dance tune associated with thigh-slapping; and Kirchtag in St. Anton, which evoked the atmosphere of a festive church fair in the mountains.

One particularly eye-catching item was Zirkus Renz, a dazzling showpiece that featured rapid-fire passages on the xylophone. It is the sort of virtuoso novelty number that audiences always enjoyed at folk concerts. Another track was the Dengel-Lied, a song that grew out of everyday rural life.

The LP was issued as part of Polydor’s Austria Gold series which aimed to preserve and promote traditional Austrian music. One can almost picture a mountain inn with wooden tables and a cheerful gathering of singers and dancers after a long day in the Alps.

The second Austrian record in my collection came from a very different musical world: an album titled Austria Revisited, recorded by the famous Vienna Boys' Choir and issued by Capitol Records as part of its Capitol of the World series. 

Released around 1958 or 1959, the album was clearly intended for international audiences. Capitol had the clever idea of presenting music from different countries almost like musical travel postcards to give listeners a taste of distant cultures through recorded sound.

The Vienna Boys’ Choir is known in German as the Wiener Sängerknaben and they are the perfect ambassador for Austrian music. With a history dating back centuries, the choir had already built a worldwide reputation for its pure, disciplined sound.

During the period when this album was recorded, the choir was typically conducted by musicians such as Helmuth Froschauer or Xaver Meyer. Under their direction the ensemble toured extensively and was widely admired for the clear, almost crystalline quality of the boys’ voices.

The programme on Austria Revisited mixed classical pieces with traditional songs. Naturally, the music of Johann Strauss II appeared prominently. The album opened with the famous waltz An der schönen blauen Donau, better known in English as The Blue Danube, followed by the lively Sängerlust-Polka. Later in the programme came another Strauss favourite, G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods).

Alongside these orchestral classics were several folk-influenced items, including the Erzherzog Johann-Jodler which linked the choir’s repertoire to the same Alpine traditions celebrated by Die Lustigen Arlberger.

The album also included gentle choral pieces such as Johannes Brahms’s lullaby Guten Abend, gut’ Nacht, as well as sacred music by Johann Sebastian Bach. The result was a programme that moved gracefully between the concert hall, the church and the countryside.

When one listens to these two records together, an interesting contrast emerges. The Vienna Boys’ Choir represented the polished musical culture of Vienna: refined, disciplined and steeped in centuries of tradition. On the other hand, Die Lustigen Arlberger embodied the more rustic side of Austrian life, with its yodels, folk dances and cheerful village celebrations.

Yet both recordings shared a common thread. Each reflected a different facet of Austria’s musical identity: the elegance of its classical heritage and the earthy vitality of its Alpine folk traditions.

For a music enthusiast, that combination made for a rather satisfying discovery. Two albums, separated by style and audience, but together offering a small window into the sounds of a remarkable musical nation. After listening to them, I found myself thinking that perhaps one day I should finally visit Austria and experience some of this musical culture first-hand.

Pirated discovery

Over the years, I’ve accumulated what many people would probably describe as a fairly decent record collection. Once in a while, someone would look at the shelves and immediately call me a record collector. I understand why, but somehow I’ve never been comfortable with that label.

The term record collector often gives the impression of someone chasing rarity for the sake of ownership. First pressings sealed in plastic, catalogue numbers carefully ticked off, records stored away more as trophies than as music. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but that has never really been my relationship with records. I own records because I want to listen to them.

Some albums I return to repeatedly. Others may sit quietly for months before suddenly matching a certain mood or memory. For me, the enjoyment comes not just from possessing the LP but from cleaning the surfaces, lowering the stylus onto the groove, hearing the slight pops and crackles before the music begins, and allowing the sound to fill my listening space. The records are tied to moments in life, to particular periods of youth, to old discoveries and rediscoveries.

So I suppose music enthusiast would describe me better than record collector. The records themselves are only part of the story. The real connection is with the music, the voices, the performances, and sometimes even the memories attached to them.

And speaking of records, I must admit that among my shelves are also a small number of pirate LPs from the 1960s and 1970s. In those days, pirated records were everywhere, mainly sold in the pasar malam. Sometimes, I'd see them stacked in a quiet corner of non-descript record shops, not displayed openly. These shop owners had a knack of recognising prospective customers, or maybe their regular clientele. Anyway, music copyright enforcement was practically non-existent in those days and for many ordinary listeners pirate record purchases were often the only affordable way to hear certain albums. Interestingly enough, some of those pirate pressings actually sounded surprisingly good.

Among my pirate LP collection is a copy of Frances Yip’s Discovery, recently acquired from my cousin. It simply turned up among a batch of old LPs he gave me, and I only realised what it was when I started going through the stack at home. I was in two minds whether to play it or not. How would the sound quality be? How close would it be to the original pressing? Would it be worth keeping? In the end, there was only one way to find out.

The original album, Discovery, was released in the early 1970s and tied to her work with Cathay Pacific at the time. It was conceived almost like a musical travel record, moving across different Asian countries through song. In its official form, it was very much a product of that era when Asian pop was beginning to find its own identity while still drawing heavily from traditional melodies and Western arrangements.

But as I mentioned earlier, my copy is a pirate pressing. Like many of those records from the 1960s and 1970s, it carries its own story. The cover is slightly off in colour and the printing not quite sharp. Where the EMI label would have been, there is instead a rather nondescript catalogue marking. Still, the sound itself is surprisingly decent. That alone says something about how these unofficial pressings were not always crude copies. Some were made with enough care that the music survived quite well.

The content itself is what makes the album interesting. It moves through a series of songs representing different parts of Asia, from Arirang in Korea to Bengawan Solo in Indonesia, from Dahil Sa Iyo in the Philippines to Rasa Sayang Eh much closer to home. There is a clear travel narrative running through the record, as though each track is a postcard from a different place. Frances Yip’s voice sits neatly above these arrangements, smooth and unforced, carrying that slightly cosmopolitan tone she was known for in the 1970s.

There is something ironic about a record designed as a kind of official musical tour of Asia ending up reproduced unofficially and circulating through markets and second-hand shops across the region. But that, in a way, was also part of the musical landscape then. Music travelled in many forms, not all of them official, and listeners simply followed wherever it arrived.

It is an album that reflects a particular moment in time when Asian pop was still forming its identity, when travel and cultural exchange were beginning to shape popular music, and when even pirate records became part of how that music was heard and remembered.

Quiet tragedy

So there I was with this Bakat TV 1971 record in my hand. Until that first moment when I placed the record on the turntable, I was mainly interested in listening only to Bryan Jeremiah sing Love Knot in My Lariat and Rajadin Wan Mat's My Funny Valentine, two songs which had impressed me those 55 years ago. But when the stylus reached the fourth track on Side Two, I stopped in my tracks. Hearing Feather in My Pocket today was like hearing it for the very first time in 1971. Michael Tan’s lone voice, accompanied by his guitar, carried a plaintive honesty that cut through everything else on the album.

The song was quiet. Just a voice and a guitar, nothing more. The stark simplicity allowed the words to stand on their own. Nothing to hide behind, no orchestral sweep to distract the listener. It sounded like someone thinking aloud, perhaps while travelling, perhaps in a moment of solitude.

There's this image of the feather in the pocket. It felt like a small reminder of home or direction. Even when the lyrics spoke of not knowing when home would come, there was still that feather to be carried along for comfort. Hope tucked away in a pocket.

The folk imagery, though not something we grew up with locally, reinforced the mood of the song. Malaysia does not experience the four seasons, so references to autumn skies, white winters and fields of wheat turning brown felt slightly out of place to us. Still, the pictures suggested movement and transition, a sense of time passing and life changing. There was weariness in the line about concrete stretching endlessly. The overall tone remained reflective and gently wistful.

Then there was the solo guitar being finger-picked. Clarity in every note. Everything felt intimate, like a private living room performance that gave the song space to breathe and leaving the listener with a thoughtful silence at the end.

And who was this 20-year-old Michael Tan? Not only was he a talented performer from the Bakat TV stage, but also a University of Malaya graduate in English, He hailed from Malacca and had honed his singing and guitar skills while still at the Malacca High School. After the loss of both parents, grief weighed heavily on him. He struggled to cope and eventually turned to substance abuse, a path that led to a tragic and untimely end at 41. 

Knowing all that inevitably changed how I heard the song. The themes of wandering, distance and longing...all felt more appreciated. The feather in the pocket seemed less like a poetic device and more like a quiet emblem of someone searching for steadiness in a life that later became unsettled. It was a gentle song, but it now felt like part of a larger story. One of promise, talent and eventual loss. In the end, it is hard not to see it as a quiet tragedy.

Bakat TV 1971

During my recent slow stretch away from the blog, I found myself revisiting something from the early 1970s that came back to me quite unexpectedly: the Bakat TV 1971 talent show. What made it more meaningful was that I had actually watched the programme when it was telecast live. I was in Lower Six at the time, and I still remember how the next day Bakat TV became the talking point in the whole school. Everyone had something to say about the performances. It left quite an impression on me, even then.

So I was genuinely surprised to find this record recently among a stack given to me by one of my cousins from Petaling Jaya. It was not something I was actively searching for, but there it was, and it was very much welcomed. Thanks, Eng Chye! In fact, I had noticed in the past that a second-hand vendor in KOMTAR was selling the same record at what I thought was a rather exorbitant price. At the time, I had simply looked at it and moved on. Now, having a copy in my own hands felt different.

The album was produced by Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM). Bakat TV itself was one of those early televised talent competitions designed to discover new performers across the country, long before the era of modern talent shows. In those days, television felt more communal. When a programme aired live, the whole country seemed to be watching together.

The 1971 record captured finalists and selected performers, backed by the RTM Orchestra under Johari Salleh. It was quite something to think that a national broadcaster made the effort to preserve a talent show in this way. There was a seriousness about culture and broadcasting then, and perhaps a sense that these moments deserved to be documented properly.

Playing the record brought back good memories of my Lower Six days almost immediately. I could picture classmates discussing the performances and debating the results the next morning in school. In those days, a programme like Bakat TV could become the talk of the whole school overnight. Some of the names on the album went on to establish themselves in Malaysian entertainment, and hearing those early recordings again felt like stepping briefly back into that period of youth.

Bakat TV 1971 was more than just another record. It captured a time when television, live performance and recorded music came together. Finding the record unexpectedly among a stack of old LPs made the rediscovery even more meaningful.

Rail memories

I came across two old photographs of the Butterworth railway station platform that were taken before the railway service was upgraded and electrified. They had that slightly lazy, unhurried look and I found myself lingering over them longer than I expected. It brought back some vivid memories of the nights when I used to catch the train from that very platform.

In the 1970s when I was still living on the island and needed to travel to-and-from Kuala Lumpur, this was part of the routine. I would buy my ticket earlier from Howe Cheang Dispensary along Penang Road, then made my way across by ferry to Butterworth. From the terminal, it was a short walk to the station, perhaps a hundred metres or so, where rail passengers would wait for the collapsible grille gate to open. A railway staff member would check the tickets and let us through.

Train services were sparse in those days. From what I remember, there were maybe two, at most three, a day: a morning train, a night train and occasionally a railbus service in the afternoon. Because there were so few services, the morning and night trains were long, easily 15 or 20 carriages by my estimation, and pulled by a diesel engine. Walking from one end to the other could feel like a journey in itself.

Travel was not quite as convenient as it is now. Luggage didn’t come with wheels, so every bag was carried by hand, often over quite a distance just to find the coach. The night mail offered second-class sleeping berths, but third-class passengers had to make do with upright seats. These were unnumbered, taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets were often oversold, and during the run-up to national holidays, it could turn into a scramble. Those who were late, or simply unlucky, ended up sitting or trying to sleep along the passageways, or at the space, called vestibules, I believe, at either end of the carriage, right by the open exits.

Between 1973 and 1976, when I was studying in Kuala Lumpur, these journeys became a regular part of life. I still remember one trip just before Chinese New Year when I had no choice but to settle into the vestibule. As it turned out, I was sharing that cramped space with a woman who, to my surprise, was also an Old Free but a year my junior. We struck up a conversation, and what could have been a long, uncomfortable 10-hour ride passed rather more easily than expected.

Every now and then, I would opt for something different: the newspaper vans. In those days, freshly printed newspapers from Kuala Lumpur were sent north and south overnight in vans, and for a small fee, anyone could hitch a ride. We would gather at a designated spot in the city, usually around two o'clock in the morning and waited for the vans to arrive. There would be a few others like me, and we would climb into the back, settling ourselves on stacks of newspapers.

The vans would head north, stopping along the way to drop off bundles, each stop briefly interrupting whatever sleep we managed. Looking back, it sounded rather precarious, but at the time, none of that mattered or even crossed our minds. There were no worries about accidents, no thoughts about insurance or safety. It was simply a cheaper way to travel, and more than that, it felt like an adventure. Those, indeed, were the days....

ADDENDUM: How can I leave these rail memories without mentioning one other thing that shaped those journeys? The single track. Before electrification, there was only one line running north to south, shared by everything, passenger trains and goods trains alike. It meant that timing was never entirely in our own hands.

The Ipoh railway station was the key point. That was where the northbound and southbound trains had to meet and pass. Although Ipoh sat roughly halfway between Butterworth and Kuala Lumpur, the stretch southwards was actually longer, so the train from Butterworth would almost always be the one waiting. And waiting it did. Delays were part of the system, and it wasn’t unusual to be at the Ipoh station for an hour or more while everyone waited for the other train to arrive.

On a journey that already took close to nine hours, that stop could feel longer than it really was, especially at night if sleep didn’t come easily. You lay there in the second-class berth, half-aware of the stillness, wondering what time you would finally reach Kuala Lumpur, or back in Butterworth. If it was the return journey, there was always that worry at the back of the mind whether I’d make it home at a reasonable hour, perhaps even catch the family by surprise. There was a certain kind of boredom in that semi-darkness. And just when the mind had drifted far enough for sleep to take over, there would sometimes be that sudden, unmistakable jerk of the carriage, the whistle unheard, as the train eased back into motion. But more often, it was quiet and smooth, the movement returning almost unnoticed, and it was the unsteady rhythm of the carriage, the soft clacking of wheels on the rails, that told me the journey had resumed.

It was a long chain of small uncertainties, and yet that was simply how travel was in those days. Looking back now, what I remember most is that mixture of anxiety and anticipation, the slow approach towards home after being away for weeks or months, and the sense that every delay, every pause along the way, only made the arrival feel that much more satisfying.

The girl from Ipanema

Every now and then I come across a significant album that I need to talk about. Getz/Gilberto is one of those. I’ve known it for years but coming back to it recently, I found myself wondering about how it came together. Before this album came out, Stan Getz was already circling around the Jazz Samba sound, thanks to Charlie Byrd who had brought back records from Brazil. So when Getz finally got together in the studio  with João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim in 1963, it wasn’t just another session. João’s guitar had that soft, almost stuttering pulse that didn’t push. Jobim’s writing held everything together without drawing attention to itself. And Getz was somehow finding a way to fit in.

The whole situation was quite funny in a way. Getz and João didn’t speak the same language and Jobim had to translate, not just words but intentions. João, from what I’ve read, was particular about everything: the phrasing, the space, the balance. Getz came from a different world altogether. And yet when I listen to the album, none of that friction really showed. If anything, it felt as though everyone was holding back just enough to let the music breathe.

Then there’s Astrud Gilberto. I’ve heard The Girl from Ipanema more times than I can count, but it still reverberated every time I hear it again. There’s nothing showy about her voice. It was almost hesitant, as if she was feeling her way through the song. And knowing she wasn’t even meant to be the singer, that she just stepped in because she could handle the English lyrics, made it all the more remarkable. That slightly detached, untrained sound was exactly what the song needed. 

I also find myself thinking about the small decisions that shaped the record. The producer trimmed João’s Portuguese vocal for the 45-inch single and pushed Astrud’s lines forward. From a listener’s point of view, it worked. From João’s, probably less so. He wasn’t entirely happy with how things were handled, and in the background, things between him and Astrud weren’t exactly steady either. But that’s the nature of the music industry. What we hear is often the result of compromise.

Sonically, the album still holds up today. It doesn’t sound dated. If anything, it sounds cleaner than a lot of what came after. Very little reverb, everything close and direct. On the early stereo pressings, the separation was wide with sax on one side and guitar and voice on the other. It gave the music space. 

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to either the record or the compact disc. There’s this sense of restraint running through the whole album, nobody trying to dominate, nobody in a hurry. The music just unfolding at its own pace. I don’t think the people in that studio fully knew what they had at the time. These things are usually clearer in hindsight. But listening to it now, with all the stories behind it, this was one of those moments where everything lined up just right.

I also have this compact disc, Getz/Gilberto #2, recorded live at Carnegie Hall on 9 October 1964. This should have been a perfect concert with Stan Getz and João Gilberto riding high after Getz/Gilberto, and appearing together at Carnegie Hall with Astrud Gilberto who was now a star. But the occasion was anything but perfect. 

First, Getz came on with his quartet filling the hall confidently with his music. Then João followed, and the whole mood shifted. Just his voice and guitar, sounding soft and almost fragile. A complete contrast. A concert in two acts. It felt like they were not really sharing the same evening. The more I listened, the more I noticed the tension. João’s idea of bossa nova was always about restraint. Getz played with more presence. Side by side, the contrast was sharp.

I’ve read about the arguments over sound during rehearsals, João wanting the drums muffled while Getz wanting something that would carry in a hall that size. Listening now, I can almost hear that disagreement in the music itself. Even when they finally come together at the end, it felt more like an obligation to the audience than a natural meeting between collaborators. 

And then there’s Astrud, somewhere in the middle of all this. By then she wasn’t just the accidental singer anymore. She was part of the sound and part of the connection between the two men. Not long after that concert, João and Astrud divorced. Once she was gone, it was hard to imagine how the two men could have kept going in any meaningful way. And when I go back to that Carnegie Hall album now, it felt less like a reunion and more like the last time all the three pieces were still in the same room, even if they were already pulling apart.