The boxer

I've been back from Kuala Lumpur for several days now and while trying to settle back into my normal routine, I bumped into an old YouTube video of Paul Simon performing The Boxer at a live show in Paris. I've known this song for most of my life, of course. The original Simon and Garfunkel recording has been with us since 1969 and I must have listened to it countless times over the years. But this particular performance impressed me tremendously. Paul Simon was no longer the young man who wrote the song, but there he was, guitar in hand, performing it with such ease and confidence that I found myself listening to it several times.

There was a simplicity about it all. The original recording of The Boxer was a magnificent piece of studio work but here was Simon performing the song live with his guitar, and somehow it worked just as well. Perhaps even better, with the warmth, maturity and intimacy that came through in the performance.

Of course, once I had started listening to The Boxer, it was only a matter of time before I found myself going back to Bridge Over Troubled Water. One song led to another, and before I knew it, I had spent an hour wandering through music that I hadn't properly listened to for years.

Bridge Over Troubled Water was released in January 1970 and was Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's fifth studio album. It was also their last. The record went on to become one of the most successful albums of all time, winning six Grammy Awards the following year, including Album of the Year. Yet, behind the scenes, things were becoming increasingly difficult between the two men.

Simon and Garfunkel had been together, in one form or another, since their schooldays. By the late 1960s, however, their relationship had become strained. Art Garfunkel had also begun pursuing an acting career and was away filming Catch-22 while work was still continuing on the album. The recording itself took almost two years, and I can only imagine the difficulties involved in putting everything together when one half of the partnership was increasingly occupied elsewhere.

What eventually emerged was quite unlike the Simon and Garfunkel of their earlier folk days. Bridge Over Troubled Water was a varied album. The title song had its gospel flavour, El Cóndor Pasa took them into the world of Andean music, Cecilia was infectious pop, while Keep the Customer Satisfied went off in yet another musical direction. Paul Simon was clearly stretching himself as a songwriter and exploring a wider range of musical styles.

And then there was The Boxer, which had actually been recorded earlier and released as a single in 1969 before being included on the album. It was Paul Simon's song, written at a time when he himself was apparently feeling rather battered by criticism from the music press. The story of the lonely young man struggling to survive in New York has always seemed rather personal, even if Simon himself may not have intended it to be read as autobiography.

But watching Paul Simon in that YouTube video made me realise that after Simon and Garfunkel went their separate ways, The Boxer continued to live on in Simon's own concerts. He had written it and sung the lead vocal on the original recording, while Garfunkel supplied the beautiful harmonies, but over the years it became a song that Simon kept returning to.

Perhaps that is why the Paris performance impressed me. Here was a song written by a young Paul Simon about a young man being knocked about by life and refusing to give up. Decades later, Simon was still singing it, but the years had indeed rolled by. The song was the same, but the man singing it was older, just like me.

I suppose that comes from revisiting music from our younger days. The songs haven't changed, but we have. We hear things differently and perhaps understand them differently too. When Bridge Over Troubled Water was released in 1970, I was simply enjoying their music, not caring that this would be their final studio album together. All I knew was that they had produced some wonderful songs. And more than half a century later, The Boxer pops up on my YouTube, Paul Simon is performing it in Paris, and there I am again, being taken all the way back to Bridge Over Troubled Water.

The day that changed the world

Time has really flown. It's hard to believe that it's already 25 years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City on 11 September 2001. What was I doing that day? Well, I was still working, although by then I was no longer in the banking industry but with JobStreet.com, based in the Hotel Equatorial building in Bukit Jambul, Penang.

Because of the 12-hour time difference, the attacks happened in New York during our evening on 11 September 2001. By the time I went to the office the following morning, the 12th of September, the full horror of what had happened was already becoming clearer. Word had come in that there had been a terrorist attack on US soil, and as more details emerged, we slowly realised that this was something on a scale none of us had known before. For the rest of the day, very little work was getting done in our office. My colleagues and I were glued to our computer terminals, reading the news, looking at the images and trying to figure out what was happening thousands of kilometres away in New York. We had no idea then that we were watching an event that would change the world, or that among the nearly 3,000 people who died would be three Malaysians who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was one of those days when the news seemed almost too unbelievable. Although we had become accustomed to seeing disasters and wars on television, this was different. The images coming out of New York were being shown again and again, and each time they looked unbelievable. First came the report of a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre, then another plane hitting the second tower. Before long, we knew that this was a coordinated terrorist attack.

There were four hijacked aircraft that morning. Two were flown into the Twin Towers, another crashed into the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 came down in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to take control of the aircraft. Nearly 3,000 people were killed, not counting the 19 hijackers. The Twin Towers collapsed within hours, taking with them office workers, visitors, firefighters, police officers and other first responders who had rushed towards the buildings when everyone else was trying to get away.

For those of us sitting in an office in Penang, we continued watching the events on our computers. Although the Internet was nowhere near what it is today, JobStreet.com by our very nature was very much connected through it to the outside world despite there being no smartphones delivering videos and notifications into our hands. So we sat at our computers, refreshing news websites and talking among ourselves as more details emerged.

I remember the feeling in the office. We were physically so far away from New York, yet somehow the events felt very close. Work continued, technically, but nobody was really concentrating on it. Every new piece of information seemed more shocking than the previous one. By the time we had spent hours following the unfolding events, we were not only distracted from work but mentally tired. And when the Twin Towers eventually collapsed, it was difficult to comprehend that the New York skyline had changed forever.

Twenty-five years later, the world has moved on in ways that would have been difficult to imagine that day. Airport security became much tighter, governments introduced new counter-terrorism measures and the United States went to war in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, was eventually killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011. But the consequences of 9/11 went far beyond the immediate response to the attacks and continue to influence the world today.

A whole generation has grown up since 9/11. In 2001, I was sitting in the office at Hotel Equatorial Bukit Jambul with my colleagues, staring at computer screens. This blog didn't even exist then, so there was no post for me to look back on and remind myself what I was thinking that day. Today, there are young people who were not even born when it happened. For them, 9/11 is not something they personally remember. It is something they learn about from history books, documentaries, photographs and the stories told by their parents and grandparents. So perhaps this is my belated 9/11 blog story, coming 25 years late.

More heavy sounds

Several years ago at a garage sale, I came across a CBS compilation that seemed to sit naturally beside a record album I once wrote about, Heavy Sounds. This companion record was titled More Heavy Sounds, issued in 1970. Like its predecessor, it gathered together a selection of powerful tracks from the Columbia/CBS catalogue, and listening to it today feels rather like opening a time capsule of late 1960s rock.

The album followed the success of the earlier Heavy Sounds compilation and leaned heavily toward the louder, more adventurous side of the label’s roster. Psychedelic rock, gritty blues and the first stirrings of jazz-rock fusion all appear here. In those days, compilation albums like this were a convenient way for listeners to sample artists they might not otherwise have encountered, and the selections on More Heavy Sounds were clearly chosen to showcase the energy and diversity of the Columbia stable around 1969 and 1970.

As with the earlier compilation, the interest of the record lies in the music itself. Each track was drawn from albums that had appeared on the Columbia/CBS label during the previous year or so, and the result is an engaging cross-section of what was happening in rock music at the turn of the decade.

The album opened with Save The Country by Laura Nyro, taken from her 1969 album New York Tendaberry. Nyro’s music always had a unique blend of gospel, pop and soul, and this song captured that mixture beautifully. Her piano drove the arrangement forward while her powerful voice delivered a passionate call for unity and compassion. The song would later be covered by other artists, but Nyro’s original remained the most emotionally compelling.

Next came It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue, performed by The Byrds from their Ballad of Easy Rider album. Originally written by Bob Dylan, the song received a distinctly Byrds-like treatment here. Roger McGuinn’s nasal vocal and the band’s chiming guitars transform Dylan’s stark folk composition into a reflective piece of country-rock. The result felt wistful rather than bitter, almost as if the band were looking back on the turbulent 1960s themselves.

Taj Mahal contributed Six Days On The Road, drawn from the double album Giant Step / De Old Folks at Home. The song had long been known as a classic truck-driving country number, but Taj Mahal gave it a very different flavour. Instead of a straight-forward country approach, he injected a deep blues groove, turning it into a performance that highlighted his ability to move effortlessly between musical traditions.

The next track, Mama Get Down Those Rock And Roll Shoes by NRBQ, comes from the band’s self-titled debut album. NRBQ had a reputation for being unpredictable, blending rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and even hints of jazz into their music. This track captured that energetic spirit, slightly rough around the edges and full of the enthusiasm that characterised many late 1960s rock recordings.

From there the album moved into heavier territory with Pacific Gas & Electric and their track My Woman. Taken from their 1969 album, the song was built around thick guitar riffs and the gritty vocals of Charlie Allen. The band would later become known for more gospel-influenced material, but here they sounded firmly rooted in the hard blues-rock style that flourished in San Francisco during that period.

One of the centre pieces of the compilation is Chicago’s expansive version of I’m A Man. This performance originally appeared on the band’s debut double album Chicago Transit Authority. The group stretches the Spencer Davis Group hit into an extended jam filled with brass riffs, Latin-tinged percussion and a spectacular drum break. Guitarist Terry Kath also delivers some searing passages that remind listeners how formidable Chicago were as a live band in their early days.

Al Kooper followed with Too Busy Thinking About My Baby, from his album You Never Know Who Your Friends Are. Kooper had already established himself as a musician, songwriter and producer, and his interpretation of this Motown number carried his trademark organ sound. The arrangement was lush and polished, blending soul influences with the sophisticated pop-rock production that Kooper excelled at.

No compilation representing the Columbia roster of that era would be complete without Janis Joplin, and she appeared here with Maybe. Taken from her album I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, the song shows a more vulnerable side of Joplin. Backed by a strong horn section, she sang with a mixture of pain and longing that made her such a compelling performer. Even among many powerful tracks on the album, this one stood out for its emotional intensity.

The energy ross again with Johnny Winter’s take on Highway 61 Revisited. Winter transformed Dylan’s already surreal song into a blazing blues-rock workout. His slide guitar flashed across the track with astonishing speed and precision, and turned the performance into a showcase for his technical brilliance.

The compilation closed with Treat, an instrumental by Santana from their debut album. Beginning with a jazzy piano introduction, the piece gradually built into a fiery Latin-rock groove. Carlos Santana’s melodic guitar lines wove through the rhythm section’s driving percussion, illustrating the fusion of rock, jazz and Latin influences that would soon make the band internationally famous.

Listening to More Heavy Sounds today, I am reminded of how adventurous the Columbia/CBS catalogue was at the time. The album moved easily from gospel-tinged pop to country-rock, from Chicago’s brass-driven experimentation to Santana’s Latin rhythms. As a compilation, it captured a moment when rock music was expanding in many directions at once.

For collectors and listeners alike, the record remained an enjoyable snapshot of that period: a sampler of artists who, in their different ways, helped define the sound of the late 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.

Nursery rhymes

I've written before about my kindergarten days. That particular episode goes back to 1960, when I was six years old. It was my first experience attending kindergarten and it turned out to be quite an eye-opening cultural shock. Until then the only children I really knew were those from my immediate neighbourhood and my cousins scattered across the island. Suddenly there were perhaps 80 or a hundred children all under one roof, learning our ABCs and 123s.

Ten years ago I wrote that the master of the kindergarten was someone I knew only as Mr Poh. Since then a little more has come to light. His name was Poh Thean Poe, and he ran the place, officially known as Seang Tek Road Kindergarten, from 1955 until 1973. By then he had already stepped back from the day-to-day running two years earlier and left for Kota Kinabalu to work in his mother's restaurant. Later he settled in Seremban. That much I know about him.

Music was a big part of my kindergarten days. I still remember those mornings when we were seated upstairs in the two-storey wooden bungalow that housed the school. The teacher would put on colourful 45 rpm records on one of those changeable record players and we listened to nursery rhymes.

I sometimes wonder whether kindergartens today still play these traditional English nursery rhymes. Songs like The Farmer in the Dell, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and London Bridge Is Falling Down. They can still be found easily enough on streaming services like YouTube or Spotify. Recently I have been reacquainting myself with some of them and came across a collection recorded by Oscar Brand. 

Who exactly was he, this Oscar Brand? A practical unknown in this part of the world but Oscar Brand was one of the most prolific figures in the 20th century American folk revival. Born in Winnipeg in 1920 and later based in New York, he built a career that stretched across more than 70 years as a singer, songwriter, author and broadcaster. He recorded nearly 100 albums and wrote hundreds of songs, ranging from sea shanties and patriotic ballads to political campaign songs and his famous, or perhaps notorious, Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads series.

Brand's recordings covered an astonishing range of material. On one hand he recorded gentle nursery rhymes for children. On the other he was equally willing to document the more mischievous side of folk tradition.

That series was Brand’s cheerful attempt to preserve a part of folk tradition that polite society often preferred to ignore. Folk songs were not always wholesome campfire
material. Sailors, soldiers and travellers had been singing slightly risqué verses for centuries, usually in taverns or other less respectable surroundings. Brand simply gathered a number of these songs together and recorded them more or less in the spirit in which they had originally circulated.

My copy of Volume Three in the series was given to me by Anwar Fazal, that well known figure in Penang's civic and cultural life. The songs are performed in a straightforward folk style with little more than Brand’s voice and guitar. Despite the title, the humour is mostly based on suggestion and wordplay rather than anything explicit. That probably explains how such songs managed to be recorded at all in that period.

When these records first appeared in the 1950s they caused a certain amount of fuss. Some countries even banned them for a time, which of course only made them more attractive to collectors. Brand himself always maintained that these songs were part of genuine folk heritage. In his view they deserved to be documented.

Brand was also the long-time host of the American radio programme Folksong Festival on WNYC. The programme began in 1945 and ran for more than 70 years, earning a Guinness World Records citation as the longest running radio show with the same host. Throughout his career Brand championed both traditional and contemporary folk music, giving early exposure to performers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. He remained active almost until his death in 2016 at the age of 96.

Listening to some of his recordings today, especially those old nursery rhymes, brings back faint memories of those mornings in the wooden bungalow on Seang Tek Road. It is curious how a few simple songs on a record can open a small window into a very distant part of one's childhood.

Mamas and Papas

The Mamas & the Papas were part of my growing-up years. As teenagers, we knew California Dreamin’, Monday, Monday and Dedicated to the One I Love because they turned up regularly on Radio Malaysia and Radio RAAF Butterworth. Beyond those three songs, the rest of their output was largely a mystery to me. That is why, when a friend passed me a copy of 20 Golden Hits in the 1990s, I was taken aback to find a double album’s worth of material. It said a great deal about how deeply the group had once lodged itself in our everyday lives.

Listening again to 20 Golden Hits reminded me of just how brief and explosive the moment of The Mamas & the Papas really was. For a group that existed for barely three years, their hold on the sound of the mid-1960s remained strong. This compilation, first issued in the early 1970s after they broke up, captured that moment almost in full. With only five studio albums to their name, a collection like this felt definitive.

At the heart of the record is the group’s unique vocal chemistry. John Phillips shaped their songs and harmonies. Michelle Phillips added a cool presence, visually and vocally. Denny Doherty carried many of the leads with a smooth and elastic voice. And then there was Cass Elliot, whose sheer presence and personality gave the group its most recognisable human centre. On these recordings, their voices did not compete so much as complement, stacking emotion in layers.

The songs traced their rise and decline. Early hits like California Dreamin’ and Monday, Monday were fully formed, confident and expansive, while later tracks carried a sense of strain within the members. Creeque Alley turned their own history into pop mythology, name-checking friends and failures. Even the title of Dedicated to the One I Love carried a hint of fragility, as if everyone involved knew how precarious things already were.

California Dreamin’ remains the emotional core of the album. The song that came to define sun-drenched West Coast longing was written during a bitter New York winter, when John and Michelle Phillips were holed up in Greenwich Village and dreaming of escape. The imagery of brown leaves and grey skies is not symbolic so much as literal. It came from what they were living through at the time. The stop at a church, the pretending to pray, the ache for warmth and light, all grew out of that moment. Even the haunting flute solo felt like cold air moving through an empty street, a sound that carried the chill of that season straight into the song.

What made 20 Golden Hits particularly satisfying was its sound. Issued at a time when stereo remastering was taken seriously, it allowed the group’s harmonies to breathe. I could hear how carefully constructed these songs were, even when they presented themselves as effortless.

As a portrait of a band, 20 Golden Hits succeeded because it was more than a convenient collection of hits. It was the sound of a brief, intense California dream, captured at its height and preserved just long enough for us to hear its radiance.

Addendum: I also own a compact disc of the best of the Mamas and the Papas, where Mama Cass’ solo work after the band’s breakup is represented by four songs: Dream a Little Dream of Me, It’s Getting Better, Make Your Own Kind of Music and I Can Dream, Can’t I?

That compact disc, with its handful of solo tracks, hinted at a much larger and more complicated chapter in Cass Elliot’s life after the Mamas & the Papas came apart. When the group fractured in 1968, she emerged both liberated and exposed. For the first time, she was free of the internal politics and personal entanglements that had defined the band, but she was also left to navigate an industry that had never quite known what to do with a woman of her size, intelligence and force of personality.

Cass moved quickly into a solo career, releasing Dream a Little Dream in 1968, followed by Bubblegum, Lemonade &… Something for Mama and Make Your Own Kind of Music. Although commercial success was uneven, she continued to work steadily and refused to disappear quietly.

Her personal life remained turbulent. Deeply affected by the breakdown of the band and by years of being underestimated and judged for her appearance, she worked hard and struggled with health issues. By the early 1970s, the optimism of the “California dream” years had given way to a more demanding reality.

Cass Elliot’s death in 1974 at just 32, closed that chapter and froze her public image in place. In the years since, she has often been remembered as a tragic figure or as a symbol of a lost era. Yet looking at her life after the Mamas & the Papas, what stands out is not failure or decline, but persistence. She kept working, experimenting and asserting her presence in a fast-moving industry. If there is sadness in that story, it lies in how little time she was given to finish becoming who she wanted to be. 

Side 1: California dreamin', Dedicated to the one I love, I call your name, Twelve-thirty (young girls are comin' to the canyon), Creeque alley
Side 2: Dancing in the street, For the love of Ivy, Go where you wanna go, My girl, Look through my window
Side 3: Monday Monday, Words of love, Twist and shout, I saw her again last night, Dream a little dream of me
Side 4: People like us, You baby, Got a feelin', Trip stumble and fall, Straight shooter

Online chess revisited

Back in 1995, I found myself stumbling upon a fascinating new world of online chess. It was still the early days of Malaysia’s Internet connectivity, and the idea that you could play someone halfway across the world in real time was nothing short of thrilling. I wrote a story about this in one of my chess columns in December that year. A month later, in February 1996, I followed up with another story, this time about the Internet Chess Club (ICC) which had already captivated me to the point where I was logging in almost every day.

There was something almost magical about it. I was in Penang and find myself matched against someone in New York or Paris or Singapore, playing a real-time game on a text-based interface powered by Telnet. The chessboard was clunky, rendered in ASCII, but it worked. And for the time, it was revolutionary.

Blitz chess was already wildly popular then, but what really caught my imagination was the Fischer time control. You’d play with something like "3 15"—three minutes per player, plus 15 seconds added after every move. It was a strange new rhythm compared to our old-school five-minute blitzes. And since I’d registered as a member, my games were rated by the system. Every result tweaked your rating, right there and then. That little jolt of satisfaction (or disappointment) was addictive.

Handles, nicknames, anonymous opponents—it was a wild west of chess pseudonyms. My own handle was ssquah, naturally, while others used more cryptic tags. I even ran into an old friend from Singapore, FIDE Master Chia Chee Seng, who was an ICC administrator and helped ease me into the environment. By then, ICC had introduced paid memberships—US$49 a year, or half that for students—and while it might have seemed steep, the platform delivered. Even computers were showing up as opponents, ready to play you anytime.

The biggest usability leap came with the slics22f interface. Unlike Telnet, it gave you a graphical board and mouse-click functionality. I even demonstrated it at a local Internet Society meeting in USM. It felt like we were peeking into the future, and we were.

Fast forward nearly 30 years, and that future has well and truly arrived. Platforms like Chess.com and Lichess now host millions of users round the clock with sleek, polished interfaces, live broadcasts, integrated engines and on-demand lessons. I’m still amazed that I can log on today and watch grandmasters battle it out live while the system evaluates their every move and annotates in real time, often faster than I can process what's happening.

But perhaps what’s most striking isn’t just the playing. It’s how chess tournaments have caught up with the Internet too. These days, most over-the-board events are run using pairing software like Swiss Manager, which automates round-by-round matchups with mathematical precision. And once the pairings and results are generated, they’re seamlessly uploaded to Chess-Results.com, a global repository where you can track tournaments live from anywhere in the world. Whether it's a school-level event in Kuala Lumpur or an open in Reykjavik, results, pairings and standings are just a click away. The transparency and efficiency it offers are remarkable, and a far cry from handwritten pairing cards.

Of course, with progress comes new concerns. Online cheating has cast a shadow on the digital scene, and platforms now employ sophisticated anti-cheating tools: everything from statistical pattern detection to AI-based behavioural analysis. Some tournaments even require players to set up multiple webcams to ensure fair play. It’s a cat-and-mouse game, but the platforms are taking it seriously.

Even the way we consume chess has changed. In the past, if you missed a great game, that was that. Today, you have commentators like Daniel Naroditsky or Levy Rozman (aka GothamChess) explaining the key moments in colourful, engaging streams. YouTube have turned grandmasters into influencers. Hikaru Nakamura, once the enfant terrible of American chess, is now a global streaming star, toggling between bullet games and stock tips. It’s entertainment, education and sport all rolled into one.

And yet, as I look back at those old stories of mine, I realise that the core thrill hasn’t changed: that moment when you make your move and wait for your opponent’s reply, wherever they might be. Back then, it was ASCII boards and FTP downloads. Today, it’s touchscreen apps and cloud servers. But the chess is still eternal.

It’s tempting to feel nostalgic for the simplicity of those early Internet days. The dial-up sounds, the tiny online communities, the excitement of discovering something entirely new. But I also marvel at how far we’ve come. From ICC to Swiss Manager, from slics22f to Stockfish-assisted prep, from Telnet logins to mobile alerts saying, “Your opponent has made a move.” The game has grown in ways I never imagined.

Thirty years from now, someone else might look back and say, “Remember Chess.com? Remember Lichess? That was when online chess really took off.” And maybe, somewhere in their memory or search engine, they’ll find a trace of that curious Malaysian player who once logged in as ssquah and couldn’t believe his luck.

Part Two: December upcountry

Last December, I had written stories on the fateful days that followed the landing of the Japanese military on the shores of Kota Baru on the east coast of Malaya, concentrating on the early Penang experience of the war. From there and also from their other landings in southern Thailand where they met only token resistance from the Thais, the Japanese smashed their way down the peninsula, over-ran the positions of the British armed forces everywhere and captured Singapore on the eve of Chinese New Year in February 1942. 

In December 1961, The Straits Times newspaper in Singapore ran a five-part controversial serial called Eighty Days to Singapore to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1941 Japanese invasion. The serial was based on the report of General Arthur Percival (General Officer Commanding (Malaya)) and the memoirs of Japanese master tactician Colonel Tsuji Masanobu. 

From the 10 December 1961 issue of The Straits Times, David Baratham wrote the second part of his serial which I reproduce here: 

DECEMBER UPCOUNTRY

Penang taken without one Jap casualty 

3,000 troops throw away their rifles in panic

"THE PEOPLE of Singapore," declared an enthusiastic but pompous head of a department store, "especially the children, may consider themselves extremely fortunate, as the stocks exhibited in the shops here would excite the envy of every child in Britain."

And a reporter agreed: "With the third Christmas since the war was commenced barely a month away, Singapore shops are displaying attractive stocks of seasonal fare of every description."

But in the Federated Malay States - as they were then known - the records show that matters more serious than Christmas were being raised.

On Dec 1, Mr Cheah Him Leng said in the Perak State Legislative Council: "While many non-European British subjects are in the volunteer forces, many more are not."

To this the British Deputy Resident replied: "The matter would be considered," explaining that the present rules only provided for compulsory service for British subjects of pure European descent.

I wonder whether it satisfied Mr Cheah, or Mr K Rama, who wrote from upcountry to the Straits Times:

CALLED UP FOR PRACTICE

"IT would be a great boon to the estate population if the Government would take compulsory measures to train some of the Asian staffs as auxilliary fire fighters, air raid wardens, medical orderlies, etc."

In Penang, on the same day that Mr Cheah spoke in Ipoh, the Local Defence Corps was called up for a practice.

How many in Penang imagined that barely a fortnight later, this news would be printed in Singapore: "Six hundred evacuees, mostly women and children, the majority of whom were Europeans, arrived from Penang by train on Monday."

That was Monday, Dec 15, the same morning that the Japanese, according to Colonel Masanobu Tsuji's memoirs, made a surprise landing at Penang and took possession of the island without losing a single man!

The shock of the Invasion obviously set up a chain reaction of public alarm, which soon spread to Ipoh.

There, on Friday, Dec 12, the Assistant Protector of Chinese warned the Chinese Chamber of Commerce that merchants in the State must keep their premises open, and that any dealer refusing to sell would be severely dealt with.

There were ample supplies of various foodstuffs in the country, he stressed.

Ten days earlier, in the Negri Sembilan State Council, a record budget had been passed in record time.

In the unavoidable absence of the British Resident the Public Services Supply Bill for 1942, amounting to $5,700,000, was passed. The proceedings lasted 15 minutes.

A FREAKISH ATTACK

BACK to Ipoh four days later, back to Saturday, the first day of the Perak Turf Club's December meeting, when a turf correspondent reported that "the going is likely to be soft" and Super Special, Spun Wool and Jesanne were tipped as best bet.

Back to that Saturday of the Last Weekend, when in Singapore promoters were inviting all comers to enter - at a dollar a time - a roller-skating race from Johore Bahru to Singapore, to be held on Sunday, Dec 14.

Two days after the Japanese Saeki Detachment of about 500 - men who, according to Col Tsuji, more by accident than design broke through from Changlun and penetrated the Jitra line in 15 hours, and so paved the way to Alor Star, the scene of a freakish attack the day before.

At ten that morning, a raiding party of 11 Japanese, riding motorcycles and sidecars, shot into town and made for the bridges, in an attempt to cut the demolition charges.

Will some readers recall this fantastic episode? If so, would they share these sentiments, expressed by a London newspaper correspondent: "The main in the street is not dismayed by the totally unexpected reverses in the Far East. Singapore shall never be taken while Britain lives - that is what London is saying this morning."

And this is what Mr FI Durdin of the New York Times said on his return from the battle areas in north-west Malaya: "I gathered the impression that the atmosphere is rapidly clearing now, and that things are rapidly getting under control. The unflinching spirit of the Asian population, especially the Chinese. impressed me most.

"All are engaged on some sort of war work, and cheer whenever a column of British troops pass by."

Mr L Impey of the London Daily Mail said that the Japanese casualties were between 10.000 and 20,000, and in the Singapore Legislative Council on Dec 16, Sir Shenton Thomas, the Governor, said:

VALUABLE PRIZES

"SINGAPORE must not fall. It shall not fall. Let us fight every inch of the ground in this great task that lies before us, knowing, as we do know for certain, that ultimate victory is our."

Turning from these stirring despatches back to the Alor Star bridges and Col Tsuji's account which states that the Japanese raiding unit, moving abreast of the Asai patrol, not only managed to cut the demolition wires to the railway bridge, but also spread planks along the bridge decking, making it possible for cars to cross.

This helped the Japanese dash - and smash - into Taiping and Sungei Patani, where they gained the most valuable prizes they could wish for: Kedah's four largest aerodromes, from which they could mount further aerial onslaughts with vast stocks of captured bombs, fuel and provisions.

These unexpected assets, Col Tsuji writes, helped speed up the entire campaign.

"Our hurriedly constructed air bases in southern Indo-China could not be compared in equipment with these 'Churchill aerodromes.'

"Possession of two-fold numerical air strength was one reason for our air superiority over the Malayan theatre of operations, but the decisive factor was that we were able to take immediate advantage of the captured 'Churchill aerodromes'."

The Japanese Army also made the maximum use of equipment captured in Alor Star, where their army headquarters moved in from Singora on Dec 14, jubilant with the news of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse off Kuantan on Wednesday, Dec 10.

Col Tsuji, one of the master-planners of the Japanese invasion, tells in his "Singapore-the Japanese Version," that when the invaders forced their way southwards from Changlun, they discovered from captured prisoners that they were nearing the Jitra line; they were told also that this had taken six months to construct, and that it was defended by one division of troops, with the object of holding up the Japanese for at least three months.

DEMOLITIONS OF RAILWAY

GENERAL Percival, in his 1948 report said, however, that the defences in the Jitra position were not completed.

"In addition," he said, "most of the posts had become waterlogged after a week's heavy rain."

It was in these conditions that the troops set to work to complete the defences.

On Dec 10, the covering troops of No. 6 Brigade (2nd Battalion, East Surreys) withdrew without incident, carrying out important demolitions on the railway before they went.

This withdrawal, General Percival recalled in his report, "entailed the evacuation of the State of Perlis, as a result of which Britain was accused by one of the Perlis Ministers of State of violating her treaty by abandoning the State."

At 8 a.m. on Dec 11, General Percival states, the 1/14th Punjab Regiment was attacked in the Changlun position, but succeeded in driving the enemy back.

Col Tsuji gives his version of what may well have been this counter-attack: "I had not witnessed the enemy's pretence of resistance and so, accompanied by an orderly, I moved out of the rubber plantation at the north end of Changlun to observe the progress of the battle from the frontline."

There he noted that his men were facing artillery comprising at least 20 guns, and with the bursting of the shells among the rubber trees "the enemy were covering the fighting zone with smoke; casualties were following close upon each other and it seemed that even withdrawal would be difficult."

Then there was a gas scare and Col Tsuji's praise for the troops' reaction was unstinted.

"Without a moment's delay, they put on their gas masks. Such alertness and such skill! Even at a special drill display by order of the Emperor, one would not have seen anything like it!"

Col Tsuji and his orderly had forgotten to carry gas masks, so they soaked towels to wet mud and covered their mouths and nostrils, advancing through yellow smoke with a strange offensive odour, until suddently someone called out: "IT IS NOT GAS!"

The violent rainfall during early December is frequently mentioned, both by Tsuji and Percival. To Tsuji it came as an advantage. To Percival, an added handicap.

DEADENED NOISE

BUT even the explosions of the shells falling all round the advancing Japanese army was a help in Tsuji's opinion; they deadened the noise of their tanks.

General Percival write poignantly in his report about the effect of the Japanese tanks had on the defenders of Jitra.

"At 4.30 p.m., when the force was moving back covered by a rearguard, occurred the first of many incidents which showed the influence of the tank on the battlefield, especially against inexperienced troops.

"Suddenly, with little warning, 12 Japanese medium tanks followed by infantry in lorries and other light tanks attacked the rear of our column.

"FEW OF THE TROOPS HAD EVER SEEN A TANK BEFORE."

The tanks advanced through the column, inflicting casualties and causing much confusion, and approached the bridge in front of the Asun outpost position.

The bridge demolition exploder failed, but the leading tank was knocked out by anti-tank rifle fire, and blocked the road.

(Tsuji's version describe, the tanks advancing "like angry cattle running amok," while enemy machinegun bullets rebounded from their armour. He makes no mention of any tank being knocked out.)

Shortly afterwards the battalion commander decided to withdraw all his three companies. But communications had been broken and of the forward companies only 20 survivors ever reformed.

ABANDONED GUNS

THE Japanese losses in this action were about 500.

Tsuji recalls how he travelled with Lieutenant Saeki in a black car captured from the enemy, following close behind one of the advancing tanks in pouring rain, with it seemed "every opposing soldier with his rifle firing at the black car."

They travelled nearly two miles before being confronted at point-blank range by 10 field guns. But every gun had been abandoned.

Shortly afterwards the Japanese tanks sandwiched about 20 armoured cars at range so close that cannon and machineguns could not be brought to bear.

The tanks smashed into the armoured cars, one of which turned over and started to burn.

According to Tsuji, he and Saeki got it righted and put the fire out while Japanese soldiers lobbed hand grenades at the soldiers inside.

"Blood," Tsuji declared, "fell as rain, flowing profusely and spreading thinly over the road surface."

On Dec 12 orders were given for a withdrawal of 10 miles from the Jitra line. General Percival said that some units withdrew without incident but others, finding themselves unable to use the only road, had to make their way as best they could across country.

Col Tsuji puts it in another way: "The much bragged Jitra line, which was to have been defended by a division for three months, was penetrated in about 15 hours by barely 500 men."

The Saeki detachment had lost 27 killed and 83 wounded, and Col Tsuji claims that weapons and equipment left behind in the withdrawal included about 50 field guns, 50 heavy machineguns, about 300 trucks and armoured cars, and provisions and ammunition for a division for three months.

He also asserted that over 3,000 "enemy" soldiers threw away their rifles in panic, and took refuge in the jungle, surrendering a few days later through hunger.

Percival reported that on the day after the battle the strength of one brigade was only about 600, and was "temporarily unfit for further fighting."

The 2/1 Gurkha Rifles, except for one intact company, had been almost wiped out.

Among General Percival's reasons for the Japanese victor at the Battle of Jitra was that they had won it primarily by "bold and skilful infantry tactics and by the use of tanks. They also exploited the use of noise behind the defences.

Col Tsuji's summing up was slightly different. "The breakthrough of the Jitra line was due to extraordinary tactics and to an error in the report of our first patrol."

He considers that if they had judged the strength of the positions correctly, instead of underestimating it, the battle would have lasted for more than 10 days and the Japanese would have had to be prepared for over 1,000 casualties.

Four days after the decisive Battle of Jitra, the only fighter defence allotted Penang island was four Brewster Buffalo fighters; these were able to operate for exactly one day only.

On Dec 15, the Royal Air Force evacuated Butterworth aerodrome.

Five days earlier, the Japanese had started large-scale raids on Penang island; 70 bombers attacked Georgetown. there the only anti-aircraft defence consisted of small arms; there were only a few shelters available.

"The inhabitants," according to General Percival, "thronged the streets to watch the attack. The casualties ran into thousands. A large part of the population left Georgetown and moved to the hills in the centre of the island, but the ARP and medical and nursing services stood firm."

A POINTED HINT

ONE of many extraordinary facts revealed in Col Tsuji's book is that the island was captured by the regiment of the 5th Division which was still in Shanghai at the time of the landing on Singora only about one week earlier.

Tsuji makes a pointed hint that had the British been able to reinforce Penang with the same speed, the Japanese advance on Singapore could have been delayed.

Penang was important, because any mainland advance could have been checked or disrupted from there. But meeting no opposition during the first bombing raid - or during the second, which followed the next day (the bombers were flown all the way from bases in Indo-China), Japanese troops seized local boats on Monday, Dec 15, and walked ashore to occupy the island without losing a single man.

General Percival says this about the incredible feat: "The small (Penang) garrison, in addition to running the defences was called upon to assist the civil administration by taking the place of the labourers of essential services.

"It also had to assist in burying the dead."

On Dec 12, at a meeting between the fortress commander and the Resident Councillor, it was decided to evacuate on the following night all European service families.

The Resident Councillor was also asked to arrange for the evacuation of all civilian European women and children, as well as the sick and wounded.

On the night of Dec 16 and 17, according to General Percival, "most of the troops were removed to the mainland."

Thus, according to Col Tsuji, on Dec 15 there was no resistance of nay sort. Yet according to General Percival there were troops on the island until midnight Dec 16-17.

General Percival gives three reasons why mostly only Europeans were evacuated from Penang.

FIRST, because Asians serving in the Volunteers were given the option of being evacuated or staying behind, and the majority decided to stay to protect their families.

SECOND, because "lack of transport would have made it quite out of the question to evacuate large numbers of Asians."

THIRD, because "it was undesirable at that stage to increase the population of Singapore."

But at least, apparently, co-operation between the civil and military authorities in Penang was good during those crucial days.

CLASHES OF OPINION

BETTER it seems, than elsewhere, if General Percival's viewpoint is given the credence it surely merits. "I feel bound to record (he wrote in 1943) that in my experience in Malaya there was a lack of the team spirit between the Service departments on the one side, and the civil government on the other, in tackling problems of common interest.

"The vital importance of of attaining the common object, i.e. the security of Malaya, was at times overshadowed by local interests aggravated by the insistence of the Home Government on the maximum production of tin and rubber.

"Clashes of opinion naturally occurred, followed very often by long delays due in part to the complicated form of government."

In 12 days, from Sunday, Dec 7, the last day of the Last Weekend to Dec 19, the Japanese had destroyed the warships Prince of Wales and Repulse and had consolidated their land offensive over the whole of Malaya north of a line drawn from Penang to Kota Bharu. Alor Star had fallen, Taiping was doomed, and Singapore had been bombed.

"The Japanese," wrote General Percival, "had established complete air superiority over north Malaya and had gained full control of the sea communications east of Malaya.

"Our own forces were weak everywhere, and we could not expect any reinforcements until at least the following month.

"Further, it had been established that the Japanese force included tanks, while we had none. It was apparent that the safe arrival of reinforcements was of paramount importance and if we were to attain our object of securing the Naval Base it was essential that they should arrive in time to take part in operations on the mainland."

To be continued....

Part One: The last weekend at a cabaret

 

A nightmare?

Another Ed Sullivan moment. The Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show on 09 Feb 1964. Immediately, the United States was transformed into two groups. The youths of America were solidly behind this British invasion but typically, the adults were horrified. 

Newsweek, for example, reviewed the performance in less-than-glowing terms. 

"Visually, they are a nightmare: tight, dandified, Edwardian/Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair," they wrote. "Musically, they are a near-disaster: guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony, and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of “yeah, yeah, yeah!”) are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments. The odds are they will fade away, as most adults confidently predict.”

And then, there was this typical opinion piece that appeared in an American newspaper two days later. It is completely laughable when read today because like the rest of the mainstream and conservative media there, how wrong could they be?

If Ed Sullivan can find no better use for the time allotted him on Sunday night than to devote it to such exhibitions as he presented last Sunday night I suggest that CBS-TV find something else to put in this hour of prime time...

Why Sullivan found it necessary to aid in the phony promotion of four rock 'n' roll exponents, all of whom resemble Moe of the Three Stooges, is beyond comprehension. And why he felt it necessary to "load" the theater with screaming teen-age girls when he normally restricts his audience to grownups, is also a mystery. 

It was obvious to those who saw the Beatles, four young fellows from Great Britain, that they have not attained their present notoriety on the basis of their musical talents, for the sounds emanating from their mouths were anything but melodic.

Shorn of their mop-like hairdos they would look and sound like many other inferior rock 'n' roll groups which are still attempting to keep alive the fad which died when Elvis Presley entered the armed forces.

There is nothing attractive about the looks or the sounds of the Beatles,

UPDATE: Newsweek wasn't the only mass media that refused to accept that The Beatles' music was here to stay, but who could blame them? Several other newspapers in the United States were derisive of the band as well:

“The Beatles’ vocal quality can be described as hoarsely incoherent, with the minimal enunciation necessary to communicate the schematic texts.” - New York Times

 "With their bizarre shrubbery, the Beatles are obviously a press agent’s dream combo. Not even their mothers would claim that they sing well. But the hirsute thickets they affect make them rememberable, and they project a certain kittenish charm which drives the immature, shall we say, ape.” - LA Times 

“The Beatles are not merely awful; I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are god awful. They are so unbelievably horribly, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as “anti-popes.”” - Boston Globe 

"The Beatles must be a huge joke, a wacky gag, a gigantic put-on. And if, as the fellow insisted on What’s My Line?, they’re selling 20,000 Beatle wigs a day in New York at $2.98 a shake — then I guess everyone wants to share the joke. And the profits.” - Chicago Tribune 

“Don’t let the Beatles bother you. If you don’t think about them, they will go away, and in a few more years they will probably be bald….” - Boston Globe

20 years ago today

At 8.46am on the 11th of September in 2001, an aeroplane hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists slammed into the first tower of the World Trade Centre in New York. About 17 minutes late at 9.03am, a second hijacked aeroplane completed the humiliation and symbolic destruction of America's invincibility by crashing into the second tower. The terrorist attack had severe ramifications around the world. Life was never the same again as security was beefed up everywhere in the world. Every action caused everyone to look over the shoulder to ensure one's personal safety.

But where were you on that fateful day in September? When the two aeroplanes crashed into the twin towers, it was night time in Malaysia. For me, the first I learnt about the attack was while surfing the Internet from my house in Seberang Jaya. Immediately after that, went to turn on the TV to watch the events unfolding on CNN and CNBC. And the next morning while driving to work, the radio stations reported on nothing but the destruction in New York.

Once at the office, it became clear that all my colleagues at JobStreet.com had already heard the news. Our computers were surfing the CNN website for the latest news. Time and time again, we saw the video of the planes crashing into the towers. Time and time again, we saw the destruction on the ground. Throughout the day, the reports came in thick and thin of the casualties. For the rest of the day, there was very little work done. Then, gradually by the second and third days, while we still followed the news from the websites, work life returned to normal. But we knew that nothing could ever be the same again.

Only yesterday, a former colleague told me that he was flying between Houston and Las Vegas when the attack happened. The pilot came on the intercom and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to make an announcement and I want you all to listen VERY carefully...." The news almost scared the living daylight from him as the pilot continued that there had been a series of attacks on the east coast of America and they had been ordered to clear the skies. They landed at the nearest available runway in El Paso, Texas, and everyone were stuck on the ground for three days before some of the passengers pooled together to rent a van and drove 12 hours back to Houston.

I asked him what went through his mind in those three days. "Mostly that we were at war, and I had no idea how we were going to get home to Malaysia in about a week's time. As it turned out," he recollected, "we were on one of the first flights out of the United States."

 

Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 5

Yes, Ten Thousand Prosperities: The Story of Ban Hin Lee Bank is ready, finally!

It's fresh off the press and I went to collect my own 10 copies directly from the printing plant in the Prai industrial zone. As far as I'm aware, the rest of the consignment hasn't been delivered to the publishing house yet and so, I'm quite thrilled at being able to have this copy in my hands to feel. And touch. And hold. 

I don't have any idea when the book will be released for sale in the country yet. It's all up to the publishers tp decide and they'll have all the arrangements to make this title available at the bookstores as well as on their own online platform.

The book's jacket design came all the way from New York. The credit goes to Daryl Yeap. She's one of the great-granddaughters of the bank's founder, Yeap Chor Ee, of which I've got a picture of him in the book. I had very little input in deciding the cover but I'm very much impressed by the effort that Daryl had put into it. Imagine all the meticulous detail that went into drawing the building. 

Trust also Yeap Chor Ee to pick a name for his original trading firm that almost defied translation. It was practically impossible to translate 萬興利 or Ban Hin Lee (in the Hokkien dialect) correctly into the English language. Ten Thousand Prosperities is the literal meaning of the bank's name that was agreed upon subsequently. This in itself may not be the most definitive too. Close enough but still not exact. Wrongly translated, all the nuances of the original Hokkien may be lost. 

For a short while, even Unlimited Prosperity, Bountiful Prosperity and Boundless Prosperity were bandied with but those names were dropped. Eventually, we decided on using Ten Thousand Prosperities because after all, that's what 萬 means: ten thousand. And that was what we, working in the bank then, were grappling with all that time.

My earlier stories on the publication of this book:
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 4
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 3
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 2
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 1
Click here for Boundless Prosperity

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

I was going through my collection of books and rediscovered some nine books by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. I had been reading his books on and off for about 10 years, starting with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich around 1975. I got to know of Solzhenitsyn after he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974. It was big news in those days and it started my interest in Soviet literature and story books. The last Solzhenitsyn book I bought was The Gulag Archipelago Volume Two. I never got round to reading the third volume of Gulag because by then, I was already well immersed into my career and at the same time, trying to settle down into a family life.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich This crisp, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Krushchev himself, during the Russian thaw, is said to have authorised the publication of this spare, stark description of life in a Siberian labour camp. (Summary on back cover)

For the Good of the Cause Set in a new provincial school, this is a scathing indictment of the victimisation of ordinary, decent people by Soviet careerist bureaucrats. Solzhenitsyn presents the conflicts between right and wrong, between the freedom of the individual and the harshness of the system with absolute sincerity and conviction. (Summary on back cover)

The First Circle It is the tome of this huge book that is so marvellously new. It has no villians in it - which many people may think shows incredible tolerance. It shows something else, really - that when the world is reduced to guiltless criminals, freaks, narks, nuts and placemen, a loud laugh is more crushing than a howl of agony. (Nigel Dennis, Sunday Telegraph)

Cancer Ward Solzhenitsyn, like Oleg Kostoglotov, the central character of this novel, went in the mid-1950s from concentration camp to cancer ward and later recovered. The British publication of Cancer Ward in 1968 confirmed him as Russia's greatest living novelist although it has never been openly published in the Soviet Union. (Summary on back cover)

The Love Girl and the Innocent Drawing on his personal experience, the Nobel Prize-winning author sets this play in a Stalinist slave camp in 1945. His vivid dramatisation creates a terrifying picture of the despair and degradation suffered under a merciless camp regime. (Summary on back cover)

August 1914 Solzhenitsyn's August 1914 is what it promised to be - a classic of contemporary world literature... We can only marvel at the sweep and power of this epic work written in isolation by a man of unbreakable spirit (John Barkham, New York Post)

We Never Make Mistakes brings together Solzhenitsyn's two most famous novellas, Incident at Krechetovka Station and Matryona's House, both of which were first published in the prestigious Russian literary magazine, Novy Mir, in 1963. Both stories form part of the larger canvas in which Solzhenitsyn describes the havoc brought on human dignity by Stalin's bureaucratic and secret police. The title of the book is taken from the concluding remark of a NKVD investigator in this story. (Summary on back cover)

The Gulag Archipelago is a key work unparalleled in Russian or any other national literature. Solzhenitsyn has created it from his own experience of imprisonment and forced labour, and from that of numerous victims of Stalin's Terror and of Soviet prisons and labour camps. The result is a unique and startling national epic that presents the suppressed history of a vicious epoch and clearly documents the system that deformed or destroyed the lives of millions. (Summary on back cover)

The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2 With this publication, Solzhenitsyn's staggering achievement becomes more apparent: he has created an enduring and brilliant literary monument to the victims of one of the most monstrous crimes against humanity ever committed and the most complete account of the history, function and scope of the concentration camp system yet written. (Summary on back cover)