UNESCO biosphere reserve for Penang Hill?

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/09/19/cabinet-approves-penang-hill-bid-for-unesco-status/

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/09/19/unesco-recognition-for-penang-hill-expected-in-two-years-says-phc/1904807

From the Free Malaysia Today and The Malay Mail websites come this story about Penang Hill Corporation's bid for a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status:

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Hill and its surrounding areas could be accorded recognition as a Unesco Biosphere Reserve within the next two years, according to the Penang Hill Corporation (PHC).

PHC general manager Cheok Lay Leng said the Cabinet has recently approved the paperwork for the application submitted by the energy and natural resources ministry.

“We have been informed in early September that the Cabinet has approved the paperwork which will then be submitted to the Malaysian National Commission for Unesco where they may take about two years to evaluate,” he told reporters today.

Cheok said the Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve will include the Penang Hill as a central park, Teluk Bahang National Park and Marine Park with an estimated 12,481 hectares of land. He added that PHC had defined the core zone, buffer zone and transition zones clearly, and areas that need to be preserved.

The Penang Hill area contains virgin jungle reserves which have been found to house 85 species of orchids, more than 100 species of birds, three iconic species of monkeys, as well as several plant, ant and spider species unique to the hill range.

Chow said Unesco recognition would benefit all Penangites and become another selling point for Penang Hill to attract more visitors. “I hope it will have the same effect as the Unesco recognition of George Town as a World Heritage Site. The tourism sector is still in its recovery stage, the Unesco Biosphere Reserve recognition will come in timely,” he said.

According to the Unesco website, biosphere reserves are areas comprising terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems. Each reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.

At present, Unesco’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves lists 669 sites in 120 countries, including 20 transboundary sites. There are currently only two Unesco reserves in the country, Tasik Chini in Pahang and the Crocker Range, south of Mount Kinabalu in Sabah. They were accorded Unesco reserve status in 2009 and 2014 respectively.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/09/19/penang-hill039s-unesco-application-may-take-one-to-two-years-to-be-approved-says-corp?

Meanwhile, here is the report from The Star newspaper:

GEORGE TOWN: It will take between one and two years for Penang Hill and its surrounding areas to be recognised as a Unesco biosphere reserve, says Datuk Cheok Lay Leng.

The Penang Hill Corporation general manager said his team started the whole Unesco biosphere reserve application process about three to four years ago.

“We completed the first version in 2017 and subsequently, we missed the deadline for submission because we had to go through a long process of approval. There are many agencies that need to sign and have to be approved by the Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry before we can submit to Unesco.

He said that in recent months, the corporation has managed to get it through the whole process and the ministry has signed the application. “The ministry will have to submit the application to the Malaysian National Commission for UNESCO (MNCU), ” he told reporters at the Hillside Retreat Bungalow launching ceremony at Penang Hill on Saturday (Sept 19).

Cheok added that the corporation had met the deadline for submission, which is at the end of September. “We have to wait now. It may take one to two years and the experts from Unesco may come and visit Penang Hill and then we will take it from there. The area is about 12,480 hectares covering Penang Hill as a central park, Teluk Bahang National Park and Marine Park, as well as Penang Botanic Gardens, ” he said.

He said the wait could take longer, as Unesco might not be able to send anybody to look at Penang Hill immediately due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “We will be following up very closely to speed up the process, ” he said.

According to the Unesco website, biosphere reserves are areas comprising terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems. Each reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use. At present, Unesco’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves lists 701 in 124 countries, including 21 transboundary sites. Malaysia has two biosphere reserves – Tasik Chini and the Crocker Range. Unesco biosphere reserve is recognised by how human and economic activities can coexist with nature.

Walking

I still remember how, occasionally when the weather was fine, I used to walk from the Menara BHL Bank to the ferry terminal in Weld Quay after work. That was after the bank had moved from Beach Street to Northam Road in 1995. A one-way journey could take me an hour at a stroll and stopping to cross the busy roads and looking at life around me.

63th

I was at the AEON shopping mall in Bukit Mertajam this afternoon. Was getting to walk back to the car when I strolled past a restaurant. Noticed their promotional banner but the message didn't quite register in my brain immediately. Then it hit me. I couldn't believe what I hoped I did not read. So I turned back to take a second look. Sure enough, I wasn't mistaken. How embarrassing. The depths our command of the English language has dropped. But how do you pronounce it, anyway?

Hungry ghosts festival

Ever since we've been using this new Android television set, our main preoccupation is watching movies and TV series on Netflix. Presently, nothing is more absorbing than to watch the old BBC television series, Merlin. The series is quite absorbing and it ran over five seasons in Britain from 2008 till 2012. It can be said that my wife and I are eight years too late in watching the series. 

Right now, we have just started watching Season Four. Ever since a young age, I've always been fascinated by the story of King Arthur and his knights of the round table. How many times have I watched that animated Disney show called The Sword In The Stone? How many times have I watched Camelot in the cinemas and listened to the soundtrack of this movie? How many times have I read The Once And Future King by TH White? And how many times have I read Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory? Too many times, indeed. That is why I'm sat in front of the television set every evening to watch an episode from this series.

Today, we were watching the first episode of the fourth season: the episode called The Darkest Hour. The story is about a sorceress tearing open a veil that connected the living world with the dead. When the veil was torn, ghoulish creatures from hell were released to cause deadly havoc in the land of the living. Quite a coincidence, I commented to my wife, that we were watching this episode during the Chinese seventh lunar month, otherwise known as the Hungry Ghosts Festival. The Cailleach in the Merlin story was their medieval equivalent of the Tai Su Yah (大士爷) in Chinese culture. Interesting that some aspects of different cultural beliefs have some similarities.

During the Hungry Ghosts Festival, as we all know, the gates of hell are opened to allow the ghosts to roam among humankind. It is during this lunar month that the Chinese will pray to the unseen inhabitants of this earth. On a certain day during the month, up to each family to decide, the spirits of our ancestors would be invited to the household and offerings would be made to them. My family practice a strictly vegetarian offering of fruits or sweet desserts to my ancestors (my paternal grand-parents, my parents and my aunt); many others would prefer a non-vegetarian offering that included chicken, roast pork and other cooked dishes. 

On the 14th day of the seventh lunar month too, I would make my way down to the Swee Cheok Tong Quah Kongsi in the morning for worship, this being one of the cultural traditions that we have been observing since the early 19th Century when the first clansmen arrived from the Ow-Quah village in Hokkien Province, China. We would be praying to our resident deities and also to the memorial tablets of deceased clansmen.

Normally, it would be a challenge to find a parking space for the car along the road but it was pretty easy this time because there wasn't any makeshift outdoor stage erected along the road to celebrate the occasion. In fact, all over Penang, both on the island and the mainland, there was hardly any outdoor stage seen. No open celebration of the Hungry Ghosts Festival due to the coronavirus pandemic. No massive outdoor stages, no giant paper effigies of the Tai Su Yah, no stage shows, no open-air Chinese dinners and hence, no traffic jam on the roads. Quite a muted affair. Quite sad how the pandemic has put paid to a lot of Chinese festivals this year. Unable to go for Cheng Beng in April this year and now, unable to celebrate the Hungry Ghosts Festival in August/September. 

Of course, the absence of the roadside stages has economic ramifications beyond the Hungry Ghost Festival. The stages provide an avenue of income for the Chinese opera performers and entertainers. Normally, the stages are not removed immediately at the close of the Chinese seventh month. The Mooncake Festival of the Chinese eighth month also provides these performers with an extended opportunity to earn a living, which doesn't look forthcoming this year. It also remains to be seen whether the traditional Nine Emperor Gods processions during the Chinese ninth month can proceed this end of October. 

Self-service

This is my wife's laptop. Bought five years ago to enable her to work from home. At that time, it could boast of an Intel i5 chip and a 1TB hard disk, although a bit lacking in internal memory, what with only 4GB RAM. Solid state disks weren't popular yet and besides, were expensive. So I had plumbed for that configuration. Value for money, I thought. 

The laptop served her well enough. As she used it mostly for word and spreadsheet processing, it could be considered under-utilised. But for whatever reason, it began slowing down. Took a long time to boot up and to open programs. Sometimes, had to wait almost five minutes before she could start any work. No prize for guessing correctly who was pressured to do something about this. 

Sometime last year, I bought a 512GB solid state drive. Had wanted to replace her hard disk with it. However....every time I wanted to take away the laptop, she was hogging it. So I deferred the moment to a better time, which never came. But finally, the frustration got to her recently and she implored me to do the upgrade as soon as possible.

At first, I took the laptop to a nearby computer shop along Jalan Maju in Bukit Mertajam, which shall remain unnamed. Showed them the laptop and asked for a quotation. The shop assistant texted me on the next day. The cost for a 512GB SSD, formatting it and installing Windows 10, and setting the old hard disk into a new external casing would cost me RM698. How much was the 512GB SSD, I asked back. The reply: RM400.

I knew that I was being ripped off. They had no qualms about ripping off this old uncle. RM400 for a 512GB solid state drive? The last I checked on Lazada, this SSD was available for abour RM210. Okay, so the price has risen very slightly over the past year but it doesn't matter much. I would willingly pat RM210 for a new 512GB SSD today if I had not already have one. If the computer shop was going to charge me RM400 for an SDD that could be bought online for RM210, I wondered what other inflated prices they were going to be thrust on me.

Back to some self-research. First, it was possible, I found out, to download an officially sanctioned copy of Windows 10 from the Microsoft website. Next, YouTube showed me how to open up the laptop and do the replacement. And that's what I did. Removed all the screws. But then I hit a problem. Tried to remove the DVD drive but couldn't do so, no matter what I tried. Looked so easy in the video but I really couldn't figure it out.

Resigned, on the next day I took the laptop and the SSD to the ph&co (formerly known as PC Depot) outlet close to the Pacific Megamall. The technician took a look and asked me, "No formatting required?" "Nope," I replied. "Then it will cost you RM20 for the labour charges," he said. "Okay," I said, "please proceed. And while you are at it, please also put in another 4GB of RAM." Everything was done on the spot and the bill came round to RM119. So together with the RM205 that I had paid for the SSD last year, the total cost came up to RM324 only. 

At home, I installed Windows 10 on the laptop and then added in the old Microsoft Office 2003 (yes, I'm still using this old version!) and Kaspersky Internet Suite. That's all she really needs on her laptop. No need for any other urgent bell-and-whistles program. And it is now working fine. No more complaints from her. 

 

Antonin Dvorak's Ninth Symphony

I never realised that I owned six versions of Antonin Dvorak's Ninth Symphony in E Minor until I was looking through my compact disc and vinyl record collection this afternoon. But this is a piece of music that I can never get tired of listening to.

The first compact disc was from The Classical Collection which I was subscribing to in the early 1990s. Every week, a new compact disc featuring works by different classical composers would be released with a magazine. I was collecting diligently but never knew how many compact discs would be there in the series. I only stopped when the numbers proved too many for me. (I stopped at No.45 but should have continued till No.50.) Anyway, this version of the Ninth Symphony was played by the Philharmonia Slavonica with Henry Adolph conducting.

The second compact disc featured the modern American composer, Leonard Bernstein, who was the musical director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. I remember watching Bernstein on black-and-white television in the 1970s. Young People's Concert, I think his programme was called and through his explanations, he made classical music so interesting. Anyway in this compact disc, he took his New York Philharmonic Orchestra through their paces.

The renowned Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker were featured in the third compact disc. A check through the Amazon website revealed that Karajan recorded this work many times; once a decade throughout his long career, so I'm told. I don't know how this 1977 version I possess would rank among the rest of them but it is impressive.

Then there was this version by the Minnesota Orchestra with Sir Neville Marriner conducting. A serious enough recording BUT with a difference. At the start or end of each movement, sonic paintings of nature were inserted, inspired by the Song of Hiawatha. So instead of the silence between movements, there would be soothing sounds of nature like water running through a stream or a thunderstorm or birds chirping. A much welcomed change but purists would certainly baulk at this compact disc. Who cares? 

And the two final versions of the Ninth Symphony were on vinyl records.From The New World was performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with Karel Ancerl conducting at a time when there was still a state called Czechoslovakia, while the New World Symphony was played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of their musical director, Arthur Fiedler.

 

Looking down Seang Tek Road

This is Seang Tek Road. Looking down from the Dato Kramat Road end. My old neighbourhood. Had been staying on this street until 1980. If you look at the double-storey terrace houses on both sides of the road, well, they haven't changed much, if at all, except that some have been converted into businesses where once they were all residential. Even the house I used to occupy has been converted into a restaurant. 

Looking further down the road, there are several new taller buildings, built in the last 30 years or so. Three-storey buildings, four-storey buildings, one apartment building further away, even a pseudo-heritage-looking office block. And that high-rise in the background? No, that doesn't belong to Seang Tek Road. It's located at faraway MacAlister Road but obscene enough to barge its way into the picture. That not withstanding, it's always a nostalgic walk along this road. Can't help it; I spent 26 years of my life here.

Rockwills turns 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Quah Kongsi in 1949

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

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

Eventful July (Part three)

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

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

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

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

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

Eventful July (Part two)

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued....

Eventful July (Part one)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the car broke down.

(To be continued....)

Back to school

Made a return to the old school yesterday after months of self-imposed semi-quarantine due to the Movement Control Order. Was at the school to give a talk to the new intake of Lower Six students. Very receptive as the new boys and girls listened attentively to the story of Penang Free School. Met a few familiar faces among them too.

Loh Lean Kang was the other invited external speaker. He was the motivator between the two of us; I was just in a supportive role to warm up the students but I don't mind. Meanwhile, I was surprised to find The Old Frees' Association president, Lee Eu Beng, there also. He was there before Lean Kang and I arrived, not to give any talk to the students - he did anyway, after being invited at the last minute by the school organisers - but to look at the Pinhorn Hall's facilities as the OFA may want to hold their annual general meeting there next month instead of at the Association. Social distancing and all that would warrant looking for a bigger space so that the attendees can be seated further apart.

The headmaster, Omar bin Abdul Rashid, is already on leave prior to his retirement on the 28th of next month. His role in the School is being temporarily taken over by Ho Nean Chan, the most senior of their Senior Assistants. But I bumped into Omar all the same. He happened to be around as the School was being audited. So we chatted, all four of us, well until three o'clock. I think he looked very relaxed with the pressures of Penang Free School now off his shoulders. Or soon to be off his shoulders.

Hope we are recognisable with the masks covering half our faces. We tried to practice social distancing for this picture but it was not quite possible. But at least, our face masks were socially distanced. 😁

One of the slides in my presentation

Faked in China

Somewhere in China, even wall murals are faked. 

Off-line

I've been off the Internet for a week and only managed to get back online yesterday when Maxis finally did resolve the problem of my home broadband connection. The problem was not theirs to begin with but they took an awfully long time to troubleshoot it.

My problem began with a thunderstorm on 07 July 2020 afternoon. It was raining when suddenly a huge thunderclap sounded without any warning. Boom, and the electricity tripped in the whole house. Learnt later that a flash of lightning had struck an electrical pole outside my neighbour's house. That would be left than 20 feet away from my house. In any event, the lightning tripped not only my house but that of my neighbours. Possibly, about eight houses were affected. The neighbour on my left, the one with the electric pole outside the house, suffered the most damage to his electrical items: router, ceiling fans, electric cooker, The neighbour on my right had a ceiling fan damaged. Others suffered varying degrees of damage. Mine was confined to my Internet connection. My desktop's USB ports may have fried too but I haven't been able to confirm it yet.

Anyway, that same afternoon of the seventh, I made my complaint to the Maxis service and had arranged for their technician to come in on the 10th. He came in the morning, made some tests to the equipment - the cables, modem and router - and said the modem was damaged. Herein the snag. Although the router was supplied by Maxis, the modem was TMNet's. Maxis Broadband rides on TMNet's unifi infrastructure and has to use TMNet's modem. Therefore, to change the modem, the TMNet technician was needed to come in together.

I had to leave it to the Maxis technician to make the arrangements. We'll call you, he said. So I waited and waited. On Sunday - they work on Sunday?? - the Maxis service centre called and said they'd be turning up with TMNet on the 14th morning.

And on the 14th morning, the Maxis technician turned up but alone. A different guy. He diagnosed the problem as the router, not the modem. Maybe that's what he informed back to the service centre because the TMNet personnel did not even show up. Anyway, the Maxis technician changed my equipment to a new modem and quickly set up my WiFi network. It worked like a charm with my wife's laptop, iPad mini and my mobile. I plugged in my Lan cable and presto! my desktop connection came back alive. So everything is back to normal. Mighty glad that almost everything's turned out alright. Now to look into my USB ports...

P.S. My DEC phone is dead but that is another problem.....

Two moons (or five?)

Two images of the almost full moon in July. I said "almost full moon" because technically it is virtually impossible to take a picture when the full moon is at exactly 100 percent. Besides, the full moon occurred at 12.44pm on 5 July 20202 when it was daylight over Penang. We wouldn't have seen it over here.

So all I could do what to take pictures on both sides of the exact full moon. The image on the left was taken on the fifth morning at 6.03am. Initially I was a little reluctant to use it because the wispy clouds were obscuring the moon a bit. But the image was sharp enough. The moon on the right was taken on the fifth evening at 10.22pm. As can be seen from the two images, there were already some very slight blur at part the edges. One side in sharp relief, the other side with a almost imperceptible blur. Perhaps not noticeable until I mention it. Oh, yah, please don't ask about the two different colours because I don't know the answer.

By the way, did I mention that I had also caught sight of the planet Jupiter in the morning of 5 July 2020? No? Well, I'm mentioning it now. Jupiter was just a tiny prick of light in the sky but it was bright enough despite the moon being nearby. It's so much more difficult to take a clear snapshot of Jupiter because the hands cannot be steady enough. Most of my pictures turned out bad with streaks of light due to hand shake but I was lucky with this one shot out of so many duds. I had to brace myself against a fence too and lower my shutter speed to one-third of a second. So here is the digitally-cropped picture of Jupiter from my modest Olympus EPL7 camera and lens, still a bit streaky and oval-shaped instead of round as it should be, but at least the bonus is that three Galilean moons could be clearly seen. The fourth one was probably in front or at the back of the planet and thus cannot be observed at all.

Two names from the past

I would believe that this old image of the staff of Ban Hin Lee Bank Ltd can be found in the House of Yeap Chor Ee, a museum set up by his descendants to remember the old man. At one time, Yeap Chor Ee could have easily been the richest man in Penang. Not only did he run a vast business empire which included this Ban Hin Lee Bank, he owned large tracts of land on the island.

In this picture, taken on 04 November 1939 which was just four years after Ban Hin Lee Bank was incorporated and a year after the bank moved into the beautiful Beach Street premises, the founder was of course seated in the centre. He was flanked by his family members, all also directors of the bank. On his right were Goh Hock Siew (son-in-law) and Yeap Hock Hoe (son) while on his left were Yap Kim Hoe and Yeap Hock Hin (both also his sons). Missing from this picture was his Singapore-based son, Yeap Lean Seng.

The rest of the people were the staff. My former contemporaries from the bank would be interested to know that, standing second from left, was Ong Chin Seng, who had joined the bank in 1935 after completing his schooling. The features were unmistakenly him, no question about it. But in this picture was yet another person whom my former colleagues would know as well: Chew Chik Phoy. The name sprang up as I was scrutinising the names below the picture. There he was, standing right in the centre of the line, directly behind the old man himself.

Banana notes

An intriguing period in Penang's past was the time of the Japanese Occupation. Penang fell to the invading Japanese army on 11 December 1941 and it was not until 15 August 1945 that the Pacific War ended. The formal instrument of surrender was signed in Penang on 2 September 1945.

When I was writing the history of Penang Free School in 2015 and 2016, I was trying my hardest to find out about the Occupation days in Penang: what actually happened in the days, weeks, months leading up to the invasion, and what happened to the school and the people associated with it. I found out quite a bit and a lot went into the book. Whatever was relevant to Penang Free School went into the book.

Now, I have another writing project to complete and again, I've to delve into the period of the Japanese Occupation. It was quite a traumatic yet exciting period, actually, for those who lived through it. In Singapore, the National Archives there had the foresight in the 1980s to talk with their senior citizens to extract memories of the War from them. Not so in Penang, there is little opportunity to find out what happened, how our people suffered. It's too late  to seek out the survivors of the Japanese Occupation that ended 75 years ago; they would be too old to remember anything now. What a waste.

A part of our history that interested me were the currency notes that the Japanese Military introduced: the so-called banana notes because the $10 note featured an image of a bunch of bananas hanging down from a banana tree trunk. The first batch of banana notes introduced into Occupied Malaya, including Singapore, bore serial numbers but the later batches did not. It was a typical case of printing money. Soon the banana notes flooded the country and caused inflation to rocket sky high.

Almost immediately after the War ended and the British Military took over Malaya and Singapore, it was estimated that as much as $750,000,000 in Japanese currency notes was in circulation. By October, a clearer picture emerged. The Japanese themselves estimated that between 7,000 and 8,000 million worth of Japanese notes were issued, and all became worthless after the British Military Administration refused to recognise them as legal tender. As a matter of fact, vast fortunes were lost when the banana notes became worthless.

There was a curious story that appeared in The Straits Times on 08 September 1945. Referring to the banana notes, the writer wrote that the Malays had given the currency a "peculiarly expressive name which is unfortunately unprintable." I posted this story to a Down Memory Lane facebook page to invite comments from the other members. For most part, nobody seemed to know anything at all and frankly, I was getting a little exasperated. Surely, someone would know? Fortunately, someone did venture a plausible explanation and I'd like to think that he was correct. According to the reply given, "If you look at the Japanese Dollar Note then... You can see a bunch of bananas hanging from the tree. In Malay this is termed as Batang Pisang Berjuntai or a rod hanging down...which is a derogatory remark. In the same tone, some might have added other obscene names for the infamous worthless currency."

So there you have it: batang pisang berjuntai. Rude enough, derogatory enough to warrant blushes in the newsroom of The Straits Times in 1945.

astro upgrade

Received a call from an unknown number a few minutes ago. Turned out to be someone from astro trying to tell me something about my decoder box. Spoke in Bahasa Malaysia like a bullet train. "Hold on, hold on," I interjected, "can you speak in English?" So he tried, gamely but appallingly. And suddenly, a female voice cut into our conversation. It turned out that astro was trying to upgrade my present decoder box to an ultra model, whatever that was.

So what's the benefit to me, I asked. Firstly, it's free, she replied. Secondly, it would enable me to record up to 1,500 movies from astro whereas my present box only allowed 200 movies. That's great, I told her, but I haven't even recorded a single movie on my decoder box. Why should I want to upgrade? Well, she replied, it will give you the capability if you want to. Almost sold me on this reason alone but wait....I've one more question.

And will I need to extend my contract with you, I asked. I know their tricks, you see. I was hoping that she'd say No but she said Yes. Yes, she replied, your contract will be extended by two more years. Mmm, thanks but no thanks. It's a good try, astro, but I don't want to record movies from you and I certainly don't want to be tied down to another contract.

No need for alarm

In case people are getting excited or alarmed over a message from Joey Yap that has been making its rounds in social media yesterday and today, let me say that solar eclipses are nothing out of the ordinary. Solar and lunar eclipses are natural phenomena that happens several times in a year. But we do not notice them much because the eclipses are not visible in every part of the world and if they do, the eclipses are not total but only partial, which leave a lot of people disappointed if they tried to look at them.

Interestingly, Joey Yap wrote two messages in his facebook. He's the world's foremost expert on metaphysics; so everything he says is related to his knowledge of the subject. The first was that "It's very rare for an Annular Solar Eclipse to happen on the SUMMER SOLSTICE day! Annular means there is a FIRE RING around the Moon. The areas most affected by this eclipse are Congo, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Pakistan, India, Xiamen China. The rest of the world above and below these countries, are only partially affected." And his second message said, "June 21 is an annual solar eclipse, which means at a certain angle you can see a Ring of Fire . In most tradition of metaphysics (western or eastern), solar eclipses are not a good omen. There are reasons of course. However, this June’s eclipse is not the worst (as compared to the one coming in December). I will explain fully on my voice message in telegram. Different countries will have different timings and different animal signs may be immune and or be affected if exposed."

To his second message, I had responded with a "Malaysia is not particularly affected by this solar eclipse. Only about 10% of the sun will be covered by the moon and in the context of the sun being the most dominant object in the sky, there's practically no difference in brightness over Malaysia. In the higher latitudes such as Myanmar or northern Vietnam, there may be a more significant difference. But the path of totality will pass over Taiwan and a large swath of central China." (Joey Yap gave my comment a thumbs up.)

What I wrote was true from a non-metaphysics point of view. There is nothing to be alarmed about. We won't even notice the partial eclipse. But a person living closer to the path of totality will experience a more surreal dip in temperature as well as the intensity of the sunlight. Those within the path of totality will see the ring of fire as the moon's elliptical orbit presently takes it further away from the earth and thus visually a wee bit smaller than its average size in the sky, will not completely cover the sun. There will be a narrow band of light surrounding the moon.

And the path of totality? It can be seen here from this diagram which I've obtained from the timeanddate website. The path of totality is a very narrow corridor starting from somewhere around the Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean and cutting a swath across Taiwan, central China, northern India, central Pakistan, across the southern part of the Saudi Arabian peninsula and into central Africa where it ends in northern Congo-Brazzaville. Apart from this narrow corridor, it will be a partial eclipse for everybody else. The Americas, New Zealand and much of Europe and Australia are not affected at all. So I repeat, no need for anyone to get so alarmed over nothing. It's just a regular celestial occurrence.

P.S. The last time that Malaysians witnessed a solar eclipse was last year, in November. People, especially the local astronomers, were flocking to Tanjong Piai at the southern tip of the peninsula where totality was experienced. Elsewhere in Peninsular Malaysia, it was only a partial eclipse. So you see, solar eclipses are not so rare after all. But as Joey Yap said, for it to coincide with the Summer Solstice, well, that makes it rare enough. The Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere is the day when the sun, making  its apparent journey northwards, touches the imaginary latitudinal line known as the Tropic of Cancer and then reverses its path southwards towards the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere six months later. Stonehenge in England is a popular spot to watch the rising or setting sun on this Solstice day although I don't know how the Covid-19 pandemic will affect those summer revellers travelling there this time.