Cheng Beng duties

I've been terribly busy this month and only now do I have time to write something about this year's Cheng Beng festival. My family had identified last 31st March for Cheng Beng at the graves of my two sets of grandparents as well as at the Triple Wisdom Temple where the memorial tablet of my parents and aunt is located.

How to do Cheng Beng under these circumstances?

Well, that was the plan. But as good plans occasionally went, there were last minute hiccups. It all started about two weeks prior to the Cheng Beng date. I had already contacted my regular grasscutters on the island to spruce my grandparents' graves at both the Batu Lanchang and Wat Pimbang On cemeteries. The grasscutter at Batu Lanchang said okay, he'd get the grave ready for me. The other grasscutter responded with a thumbs-up emoticon which I assumed that he would do the job as well.

Came Cheng Beng day, I was annoyed when we discovered the grave at Wat Pimbang On was unkempt. Nobody had cleared it of the weeds and undergrowth. My attempts at calling the grasscutter went unanswered for at least six or seven times. Nothing much we could do about it; we'd simply have to call another person to spruce up the grave. But the big question was who? The Wat Pimbang On cemetery was not a popular cemetery. Only God knows why my father chose this site for my grandparents' final resting place. There was simply no other people at that cemetery when we arrived there on that day.

How my grandparents' grave looked like after the weeds
and dried leaves had been cleared and the surface
thoroughly washed. But note the uncleared mess behind
the grave.

Luckily, social media came to the rescue. I posted an appeal and someone responded with a lead to a grasscutter from Batu Gantong who agreed to the job. Of course, I had to pay lots more to get this job done, but there were no alternatives. So finally, on the third of this month, I made the journey - alone this time - to carry out my Cheng Beng duties to my paternal grandparents.

I should add here that this Wat Pimbang On cemetery is in a really deplorable state. Simply no one from the Siamese temple is willing to take responsibility over its upkeep despite the cemetery is located on its ground. Thus, the whole place looks like a jungle. Completely overgrown with weeds and full of uncleared fallen leaves. Luckily my grandparents' grave is located near the southern edge of the cemetery which we could reach by the back entrance. But I pity those people whose ancestors' graves are located in the centre of the graveyard. With the thick undergrowth, those graves can be totally impossible to reach. 

One of my former schoolmates who now live overseas told me that he visited his relatives' graves earlier in March to spruce them up but was attacked by ants that fell from the tree branches. Huge ants, he told me. I wonder whether he has successfully managed to clean them up. 

In the meantime, there was an additional Cheng Beng destination for us this year: that of my father-in-law, at the Nirvana Memorial Park in Sungai Lembu on the mainland. It is going to be a permanent fixture from now on. As this year was the first time we went there with the rest of my wife's siblings, we faced the prospect of facing huge crowds with some trepidation. We decided to go there in the afternoon because we heard that there would be lesser people. We were surprised when able to drive easily into the Nirvana ground at about 3pm. It would have been impossible to do this in the morning, especially on Cheng Beng Day itself, one of the staff told us. 

Meal in Nibong Tebal

This year is going to be the year of re-unions for me. Come this third of May, some of my old friends from the PFS Class of 1970/72 will be meeting up at the E&O Hotel for lunch. I'm hoping to see about 18 or 19 of us at this gathering. Then in August, there'll be this reunion of some 200-plus former colleagues from Ban Hin Lee Bank at the same hotel as well. What will really close the year for me will be The Old Frees' Association's Centenary annual dinner on the 21st of October. I don't know how many will attend, but it will sure be grand. But first, last Thursday, a batch of my former colleagues met up in Nibong Tebal for a meal. Great year for meet and eat, I tell you!

The nyonya kebaya story

A lot of things happened in April. On the 15th, we attended a talk at the Straits Chinese Association on the nyonya kebaya, presented by Kenny Loh who is a well-known designer of nyonya kebaya outfits as well as nyonya manek (beaded) shoes. But basically, this talk was on the nyonya kebaya and nothing more.

My own fleeting interest in this subject is because my nyonya grandmothers wore these dresses during their lifetimes. Almost exclusively, if I can add. Relatives of their generation - my grandaunts - were also dressed in similar attire. To an extent too, my mother and my aunt both also wore the kebayas on and off. Nowadays, the nyonya kebaya is only seen when the modern-day nyonyas wear them to functions or special occasions.  But without Kenny Loh explaining the different types of nyonya kebaya to his audience, the outfits would still remain virtually mysteries to me. But now, I can claim to know a little bit more about it.

Kenny commented that the baba nyonya community in Penang lost their wealth during the dark days of the Japanese Occupation from Dec 1941 till Sep 1945. My own grandparents weren't wealthy but they were comfortable enough before the occupation. Sadly, they were among the countless that lost almost everything by the time the Japanese were defeated. I could relate to Kenny's little tale because it proved impossible for my grandparents to regain their old lifestyle.

It was actually a packed hall ath the Penang Straits Chinese Association. The empty seats at the front were for the state assemblyman who came to officiate at the junction. Thereafter, he went off, leaving the empty seats behind.

Kenny Loh

The other chappie in the picture was Adrian Cheah who happened to be the graphic designer of my book, Ten Thousand Prosperities. The lady with us was Susan Tan, an ex-colleague from Ban Hin Lee Bank. She is very active in promoting nyonya culture in Penang.

OFA Patron's Night

Thoroughly enjoyed the Patron's Night at The Old Frees' Association on the 17th of this month. The occasion was, of course, the official launch of our OFA Centenary Celebrations by the Regent of Perlis, Tuanku Syed Faizuddin Jamalullail who is an Old Free. His Old Free father, the Raja of Perlis, Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Jamalullail, was supposed to have graced the event but he had already indicated last January that he wouldn't be able to attend owing to a scheduled operation on his ankle. He had appointed his son, Tuanku Faizuddin, as Regent to represent him at our Old Frees' Association function.

Thus, we were all ready - all of us from The Old Frees' Association's Management Committee and the Centenary Celebrations Committee - waiting for our VVIP guests (the Regent of Perlis and the Raja Puan Muda of Perlis) to arrive. Also invited were some 30 or so selected guests who were all life members of the Association. Among them, I am pleased to mention, were Lim Siang Jin and Loh Lean Kang. It was good recognition for the work we have done for the PFS Student Leadership Workshops since 2017.

Apart from the VVIP table, the guests occupied five tables around the hall. We committee members were fairly distributed at these tables. I ended up having to keep an eye - or both eyes - on our oldest guest, Khoo Yeoh Gan Hong, who must be only a few years short of his own centenary mark. Despite his age and unsteady legs, he was having the time of his life, very gamely delivering an impromptu pantun and then following us out to the porch later where the Centenary Celebrations was launched by Tuanku. He unveiled the plaque and sealed up the time capsule.  

Amidst all this fun, I must also mention that the Penang Governor and Chief Minister of Penang, although personally invited to the function in early March, were unable to attend. The Governor did send his regrets, saying he had already committed to a buka puasa event much earlier. A few days before our Patron's Night, the Chief Minister's Office sent a note to say that he would be represented by the Deputy Chief Minister (I), Ahmad Zakiyuddin.

On the night of our function, however, we had our anxious moments when this fella, who called himself the Deputy Chief Minister (I), failed to turn up. Royalty had already arrived and were in our holding room, but this Zakiyuddin was absent. We were prepared to bundle him through another side entrance so that he could wait with the rest of the two Committees until Tuanku made his formal appearance. But I was told that attempts to call his personal assistant went unanswered. He was simply uncontactable. In the end, we abandoned the wait for him and removed his chair from the official photoshoot as well as from the VVIP table. Our function was more important than him. By breaching Protocol with his unexplained absence, he had stood up Royalty and insulted The Old Frees' Association. Till today, there has been no apology of any sort. Sorry if I have to use this term, but he is simply a fucked up, failed politician.

The official photoshoot of Tuanku with the two Committees

Tuanku cutting the anniversary cake

Happy 100th anniversary to The Old Frees' Association

Behind the scene: Shannon and Barath with the anniversary cake

Tuanku agreed to have this informal picture taken at the end of the function

Tuanku Syed Faizuddin unveiling the plaque which was signed by his father, Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin

The three of us from the PFS Student Leadership workshops

Me babysitting the evergreen Khoo Yeoh Gan Hong

Anwar Fazal, who is also the President of the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society, having a nice chat with Cheng Soon Keong from the Management Committee....until he was interrupted

Patron's night

Tomorrow, Monday, marks the exact 100th anniversary of The Old Frees' Association. We were founded on 17 April 1923. To mark this Centenary, the Association has drawn up a phletora of activities for the members, starting with this Patron's Night tomorrow. A lot of effort has gone into its preparation as the Regent of Perlis, an Old Boy of Penang Free School, will be attending. 

We had a dry run to prepare ourselves last Friday and here, we were lining up in the patio to see where we should stand tomorrow evening when taking the official photograph with the Regent of Perlis. The Patron's Night will launch our The Old Frees' Association Centenary Celebrations. 

The Raja Muda of Perlis was appointed the Regent by his father, the Raja of Perlis, who is taking an extensive rest after surgery on his foot. Thus, we - referring to the joint OFA Management committee and the OFA Centenary Celebrations committee - were preparing ourselves ahead of the event. I foresee a lot of Ampun, Tuanku is expected and I must remember not to sembahyang the Regent and his Ku Puan instead.... 

😅

How tomorrow's photography session with the Regent of Perlis will look like:

The stage for tomorrow's big event:

Bogus monk

How would you, as a lay person, distinguish a real monk from a bogus one if you were to meet a man in robes in a public space? 

To me, there are three clear signs:

1. A real monk would be accompanied by a helper (called a kapiyah) who would collect the alms presented to him.

2. A real monk would never accept any money as alms; only food or foodstuff which would be collected by his kapiyah.

3. A real monk would never go on his alms rounds after his midday meal.

Thus, I was surprised today to see his man in robes standing with an alms bowl at the Batu Lanchang market food court at around 1pm. Seeing him standing alone with no kapiyah in sight sent my suspicions working overtime. There are too many of them roaming the market place on the island and the mainland. Worse still in this case, he was standing right next to this banner telling people to say No to giving money to bogus monks.

One of my old friends related to me that last February. he encountered two fake monks in a coffee shop behind Chowrasta market. They noticed him taking pictures and came to ask him to erase the pictures. But he stood his ground and threatened to call the Police on them.

Timeless friendships

Well, it's time to get ready for the exBHLBankers' latest get-together or reunion in August! I can't quite remember how many times we have had our big reunions since Ban Hin Lee Bank (or BHL Bank) was taken over in 2001 but in my opinion, they are just not often enough. Thus, every big reunion should be treated by everyone of our old colleagues as opportunities to renew our old friendships. As many as possible should try to attend. And it is no laughing matter that we are still largely atuned to one another after all this time. It struck me, when I first posted about this reunion on my facebook, that if Ban Hin Lee Bank were still around today, the establishment would be 88 years old. 2023 would have been an auspicious year for a now non-existent bank. So here we are, we shall celebrate the 88th anniversary of a non-existent bank come this August 2023. 😄

Venue: Macalister Ballroom, E&O Hotel

Highlights: Buffet dinner Lucky draw Table draw Door gift

Cost of dinner: RM150 nett per pax, as charged by the hotel.

Good news! We pay only RM100 nett per pax. Everyone, including spouse, gets a RM50 subsidy. Those who were of messenger level in the bank will be fully subsidised (but they need to register and confirm their attendance).

Registration is by payment: 1. Pay to Johnny Phun Chye Jin (CIMB Acct No: 7022955638) 2. Send a a copy of the transfer to Johnny (016.4404066) by WhatsApp. Include your name, especially if your bank account name is different from your facebook name, and your last branch in BHLB.

Early Birds registration with payment: 

The first 50 registrations will receive an early bird gift. We will go by payment order.

Please spread the news and encourage your friends to participate to make this a success!

Too big for my wall

Nope, this wall clock does not belong to me. I had just brought it back from the clock shop, Tat Seng, in Bukit Mertajam. They had donated this clock and another slightly smaller one to the Nandaka Vihara meditation centre quite some time ago and the mechanism on this one had become faulty. Traced to a leaky battery that had corroded the contact points at the back of the clock. The clock shop had offered to change the mechanism and I had brought the clock to them. It was ready to be returned to the Nandaka Vihara but first, it found a place in my house for overnight storage. I hope the workers at the meditation centre will be more diligent with changing the batteries from now on. It's easy to be lazy with their duties especially when things don't belong to them personally.

Exchanging keys

From the 17 September 1935 copy of the Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, an old defunct newspaper from Penang, comes this story about that old Penang millionaire, Yeap Chor Ee. I believe this story could have been timed to coincide with the date of Ban Hin Lee Bank's incorporation as a limited company. Same year, same month, same day. Previously, it was a private community bank operating as a sole-proprietorship with all the personal risks shouldered solely by the owner. To me, the section on his banking business made the most interesting reading. The rest of Yeap Chor Ee's history is more or less widely known but that little snippet of him exchanging safe keys with his son, Lean Seng, in Kuala Lumpur, well, that was quiet something new to learn! Happy reading....

ROMANTIC CAREER OF MR YEAP CHOR EE

The announcement that Messrs Ban Hin Lee and Co, the well-known bankers of Beach Street, Penang, intend converting the business into a limited liability company marks another milestone in the romantic career of its sole proprietor at the present time, Mr Yeap Chor ee, now easily Penang's wealthiest citizen. Truly Mr Yeap Chor Ee's rise from poverty to affluence is one of the romances of Penang, one of the romances of the Chinese in Malaya. There have been other figures almost as romantic as him, Foo Choo Choon, the Tin King, for instance, but whereas Foo Choo Choon ended his days in comparative penury, nothing like that sort is likely to occur to Mr Yeap Chor Ee who has laid the foundations of his prosperity on solid structures. Today he is the recognised Sugar King; the biggest landed proprietor of Penang, deals largely in tin and has a banking business as safe as the Rock of Gibraltar.

OF HUMBLE BIRTH

Mr Yeap Chor Ee is a man of humble birth. A native of Fukien, he came to Malaya about 50 years ago, when Malaya was still jungle and entirely undeveloped. About 32 years ago he settled in Penang and owned a small barber's shop. That barber's shop gave way to other small businesses. Some time between 1890 and 1900 he started to deal in the brown sugar trade and from that time he has never looked back. The main industry in Province wellesley was then sugar planting, no fewer than four mills being in operation. From 1900 to 1910 Mr Yeap Chor Ee confined his attention to white sugar. Then came the rubber boom, and sugar plantations were turned into rubber estates. One dollar shares in the sugar plantations became ten dollar shares in rubber estates. That meant the end of the sugar industry in Province Wellesley. Later Mr Yeap Chor Ee turned his energies to tapioca and other trades, extending the scope of his activities and increasing his wealth.

THE BANKING BUSINESS

We are not quite certain when Mr Yeap Chor Ee started his banking business, known as Ban Hin Lee; but it is now well-known throughout Malaya. Mr Yeap Chor Ee has always controlled the Penang business which is regarded as the head office, while the Singapore business has been in charge of a son. Several years ago Mr Yeap Chor Ee, in the course of a case in the Police Court, revealed how carefully he conducts his business. Mr Yeap Chor Ee occasionally used to visit the Singapore Branch. When he did that he notified his son at Singapore. The son had to leave Singapore by the night mail just as the father left Penang. They met at Kuala Lumpur for the purpose of exchanging the keys of the safes. Mr Yeap Chor Ee took the Singapore keys with him, while his son had to continue to Penang with the Penang keys. The same process was repeated when Mr Yeap Chor Ee was on his way back to Penang. That was, of course, several years ago, before Mr Yeap Chor Ee's other sons began to help him in the firm. Now, they all work at his banking firm.

THE TOUCH OF MIDAS

In recent years Mr Yeap Chor Ee's wealth has accumulated with such strides that he has become known as the Chinese with the touch of Midas - everything he touches turns to gold. A couple of years ago, before the Tin Control Scheme came into operation, Mr Yeap had bought a great deal of tin, which he stored up until better prices set in. Tin went up and he made an enormous of profit. About a year ago he bought Homestead, Northam Road, the most palatial residence in Penang, on which Mr Lim Chin Guan, then in his hey-day, spent a fortune. Mr Yeap Chor Ee obtained it "for a song." Today he is easily the richest man in Penang, and his fortune is expanding with a vengeance. He donated $10,000 to the Penang Jubilee Fund.

Mr Yeap Chor Ee is one of the most careful and frugal men, and that is the main reason why he has amassed such a great fortune; unlike Foo Choo Choon, who spent his money with a lavish hand. In spite of his colossal wealth Mr Yeap Chor Ee still remains the humble individual who prefers a ricksha to a car, a plain white tunic suit to palm beach. One other fact about this remarkable man is that he does not know a word of English and transacts most of his business through interpreters.

Hits and misses

We never had our bak chor mee in Singapore. That was my initial plan when we went down to Singapore in February but like all plans go, it was subjected to change once we got there. Neither did we get our chilli crab there. What happened was that a few days before my gang of brothers and sisters-in-law in Penang were due to fly south to Singapore to visit my brother-in-law there, we received word that an aunt there had invited all of us to lunch on the second day of our stay. But with no further details, our plans became awry.

It was an invitation that was impossible to decline. Everyone had to accept. After all, this was the family of my father-in-law's youngest brother in Singapore. We had plans to visit them but they had better plans for us. Anyway, it would be a fabulous opportunity for my wife and her brother and sister to meet up with their Singapore cousins. It wasn't like they were staying in Penang and we could pop around the corner to visit them. So in accommodating them, that put a clanger in all our feasting plans. But we still had our makan moments....

This was our first meal in Singapore at a Chinese coffee shop in Ghim Moh. Belachan chicken wings. One of many dishes ordered by our sister-in-law there. I must say that the wings - and other dishes- tasted delicious. Maybe it was because we were famished. Very famished.

We were in Chinatown. We wanted to see the last of their Chinese New Year street lights there but we saw very little. Frustrated, we walked around and landed at this shop in Tiong Bahru that sold chicken rice. It's supposed to be well-known, this Tiong Bahru Hainanese chicken rice. Even claimed to have a bib gourmand award from the Michelin fellas. In my opinion, their reputation is a little over-rated.

Although the portion was generous enough and there was an endless flow of soup if one is so inclined to drink and drink it, I found the chicken meat to be a bit too dry to the extent that it had lost its succulence. So I can't claim to be impressed with this coffee shop despite their reputation. There must be better chicken rice stalls or shops elsewhere!

Oops, walking aimlessly around Chinatown after our dinner, we suddenly found ourselves entering the Maxwell food court. We were supposed to have this place in our itinerary on the following day and yet, here it was right in front of us. So we went in to look around. I showed them the Tien Tien chicken rice outlet which was in the midst of clearing up after the day's business. Anyway, we wouldn't be able to eat any more chicken rice for the day. We bumped into this stall and my wife and my nephew had the experience of deep frying the mini hum chim peng themselves. Five pieces for one Singapore dollar. We ordered 10 pieces to take away.

This I liked, the satay centre at the Gardens-by-the-Bay. Its uniqueness was that it sold pork belly satay. Everyone of us thought that it was heavenly. This is not something that we would see at satay stalls in Penang: pork satay, yes, pig intestine satay, yes, but pork belly satay, no. 

On the second day of our stay, we had breakfast at the Ghim Moh market's food court. A very traditional food court. I turned my attention to their chwee koay. I had it before and it tasted very good. But in this visit, it tasted kinda bland. Not as delicious as before, unfortunately. Oh yes, a word of caution for anyone from Penang searching for good popiah here. Don't bother. Unlike the Penang version, the version we are all so very familiar with, the Singapore popiah is all dry. Definitely not to our liking! I'd give it a BIG miss.

Two pictures of chicken rice in one story. But this one's from a stall at Food Loft in Geylang. stall by the name of Teik Kee which serves roast pork, char siew, roast duck etc. I opted for their chicken rice since it looked so irresistible and I did not regret it. In my opinion, one of the better sources for chicken rice in Singapore. My brother-in-law chose their roast pork and char siew rice and did not regret it either. 

For breakfast on the third day, I was rather apprehensive of the choices at the Ghim Moh market food court and opted for a simple roti telor. But then I saw that the same stall was offering mini roti chanai too. So I ordered a plate too. This mini roti chanai was nothing different from an ordinary one. It's just that the hawker had sliced up the flipped dough into five parts and made mini pieces out of each of the parts.

Quick lunch at the Changi airport before heading home. I ordered the prawn paste ramen from Woke Ramen. Can't say that I enjoyed the bowl. Maybe it was because I was too anxious about making sure that we did not miss the flight. While everyone else were taking their sweet time to finish their food, I kept looking at my watch. Would we make it to the gate? Luckily my mother-in-law was on a wheelchair which I could push ahead while the others caught up with us. Anyhow, we did make it to the gate before it closed.

LYF One-North

During my recent visit to Singapore, my group of travellers stayed at the very hip LYF One-North Hotel which was about a 15-minute walk to my brother-in-law's place in Ghim Moh. Located right next door to the One-North MRT station, thus making it very convenient for hotel guests. The place looked decent enough when I made the booking for three rooms and indeed, when we checked into the hotel, it surprised me and brought out our smiles. First impressions: nice lounge area, very polite and helpful staff to assist with our check-in, amenities included a swimming pool, an amphitheatre, a fitness room, laundromat, barbeque area and a well-equipped kitchen for anyone wanting to cook. 

Overall, a nice, clean environment. As I understand it, the hotel caters to a growing community of 400 companies, 800 start-ups and 50,000 professionals such as technopreneurs, creatives and self-starters. It is a vibrant cluster that hosts prominent research and knowledge-based organisations, startups as well as business schools. 

But as I said elsewhere in this blog, my group consisted of in-laws here on a short holiday stay. I only happened to bump into LYF One-North because it was recommended by my brother-in-law in Singapore. The studio rooms were rather small but that was no issue with us as we were out of the hotel for most of the time. We found them functional: comfortable bed, nice showerheads, wash basin outside the toilet and ample points to recharge our mobiles, even beside the bed. But there was no refrigerator in the room. Have to use the shared refrigerator on each floor and for this, there's a need to trust your food or belongings with the other guests well...people that you do not know at all.

I noticed that the rooms lacked complimentary drinking bottles and I did mention this in the feedback form. The reply from the hotel was, "To share, lyf is a co-living brand designed and managed by millennials for millennials, the millennial minded and the next gen travelers. It signifies a new way of living and collaborating as a community, connecting guests with fellow travellers and change-makers. While we do not provide complimentary beverages, as a co-living service residence, we have a social kitchen within the property which our guests are encouraged to use during their stay. The social kitchen is available 24/7 for the convenience of our guests coupled with vending machines that display an array of beverages and snacks. In addition, our lyf residents enjoy exclusive discounted rates at reputable food and beverage establishments within the one-north vicinity and our lyf Guards are always on hand at our Say Hi! counter to render any assistance to our guests as needed." 

So I get it....a hotel for millennials and run by millennials. I'm not one, unfortunately, the time has passed me by. Values have changed with the changing times. No wonder I noticed several millennials with laptops doing their work in the hotel's co-working lounge. The lobby has become a mobile workplace and replaced their cubicles in offices. 

Would I stay here again? I think so. The main drawcard would be the proximity to the MRT station. Practically a case of hopping-on, hopping-off after a long day of walking our feet off.

Gutsy lady

I met a very special person yesterday: Dr Jemilah Mahmood, the gutsy founder of MERCY Malaysia, who was in Penang to receive the second Dr Wu Lien-Teh award for Leadership in Public Health. Later, she delivered a very absorbing lecture on her pet subject of Planetary Health. 

I had heard about MERCY Malaysia - she's no longer heading this humanitarian aid organisation, by the way - long before the organisation's involvement with the Acheh earthquake relief work in 2004. A brave lady indeed, she was even shot at and injured while delivering medical aid to Iraq a year earlier. (I didn't ask about her injury but I was told that she treated herself for a wound on her hip before continuing on with her work.) Needless to say, but I'm saying it anyway, it was a very big thrill to have met her finally! 

Cutting it very close

It has been 10 days since I returned from a very short holiday in Singapore. How short was it, you may ask. Well, is a three-days, two-nights stay considered short enough? In my opinion, yes, because there are lots of things to do in Singapore. Of course, many people will dispute me saying this but all I can say to them is that you've got to make your own time interesting. If not, then your holiday will be boring.

Anyway, what happened is that my brother-in-law and his wife and kid, my sister-in-law and her husband, and my wife and I flew down to Singapore with my mother-in-law after months of persuading her to go visit her eldest son there. To my mother-in-law, two nights to anywhere outside Penang would be considered very long for her already. Ideally, she would prefer to fly into Singapore in the morning and return by night time. She is that homely a person. And the danger with her is that she was liable to change her mind at the last minute. We told her no way could she back out from the trip because the flight tickets have been bought and the hotel rooms booked. So finally, the extended family vacation for the eight of us became a reality. 

We went on Friday and came back on Sunday. There were anxious moments for my wife and I before the two flights. On the day of our departure, we were supposed to pick up my brother-in-law and family from their house in Bandar Tasek Mutiara at 6.30am. But horrors! Something went awry with the alarm clock and my wife woke me up ay 6.25am. We're late, we're late, she told me frantically. Her mobile alarm did not go off and for some strange reason, my own mobile phone went into a reset mode. Whatever sleep vanished from our eyes. We phoned her brother and told him to drive separately to the airport. We would join them there. Luckily, we had fully packed our bags the night before, It was only a matter of us washing up and loading up the luggage into the car. We did all that within 20 minutes. We left the house and hoped that there would be no traffic congestion on the Penang Bridge or the roads around the Bayan Lepas Free Trade Zone. There were none.

The other anxious moment was our return on Sunday. We cut it too close going to Changi airport. Our flight was at 2.55pm and I hadn't even printed our boarding passes. But I finally managed to get it down by 1.15pm. Then it was a rush for lunch which we managed to complete by two o'clock. I was a nervous wreck and had no appetite to complete my meal, but the rest of my group was oblivious to it. Afterwards, we had to rush to the boarding gate. I asked my mother-in-law to sit in a wheelchair and we followed my brother-in-law in search of the gate with the rest in tow behind us. As luck would have it, the gate had to be he farthest away. Except for five more persons lingering there, there were no more passengers. I heaved a big sigh of relief when everyone of us boarded.

Friendship, probate and rain

I met up with my old school pal, Shaun, last night. Our friendship goes back more than five decades. We had known one another since our Form One days at Penang Free School. Last week, he had invited my wife and I to join some of his relatives and friends for dinner. Where I was concerned, it was to thank me and another person for going through the hassle of signing statutory declarations as witnesses to his parents' wills. It was no hassle, I protested, because when I chose to become a witness for their wills 20 years ago, I knew what to expect. 

Basically, the Grant of Probate must be obtained from the High Court. From what I learned from my friend, he had been flying in and out the country several times in the past two years in order to settle his parents' affairs. Last Friday was the hearing for his mother's Probate. The Judge examined his identification papers in order to ascertain his status as the executor and beneficiary.

Dinner over, we have to drive back to the mainland in a pouring rain. The rain was light enough when we left the New CRC Restaurant but towards Scotland Road, the rain grew heavier. It was a crawl once we reached the Lim Chong Eu Expressway, traffic flow reducing to as slow as 20kph at one stage. When I reached the end of the Penang Bridge, I made a decision to use the old Federal Highway to get to Bukit Mertajam.

The North-South Expressway was my normal route but I did not want to use Chian Heng Kai Road at night, certainly not in the pouring rain, because the road had been recently resurfaced and the contractor was slow to redraw the traffic lines. It would have been mighty dangerous for me to drive on a dark unmarked road with no street lights.

So I chose the old Federal route instead. I had another decision to make as I reached the Bukit Tengah roundabout. Should I proceed to the roundabout or should I take the flyover? Both directions would allow me to reach home at about the same time. Then I noticed a long queue of cars going to the roundabout while the way to the flyover was clear. No big decision for me to make here as I drove by the queue; flyover it was. 

However, by the time I reached the top of the flyover, as it curved right, the traffic had slowed down to a crawl. A second crawl for my drive back home. There was no turning back. I had to join the lanes of traffic. When I inched towards the end of the flyover, I could see all the vehicles slowly converging into a single lane. Much of the road was flooded and nobody knew how deep was the water. Nobody wanted to find out too. So all lanes began converging into one and we drove along very slowly and keeping a fair distance between cars. Pretty soon, perhaps driving some 200 to 250 metres along this stretch, it became safe enough to drive normally again. By now, the clouds had more or less cleared away and the rain became a trickle.

But there again an anxious moment when almost reaching home. Would I have to drive through another stretch of flood waters at Kampong Baru? Thankfully, not. No sign of floods here unlike the last time when I drove in the pouring rain. And so, we made it safely home. A normally uneventful one-hour journey became almost one-and-a-half hours for me last night. 

Seventh Wu Lien-Teh annual lecture

I am posting this message on behalf of Anwar Fazal who is the President of The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society in Penang which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The message concerns the society's seventh annual public lecture in commemoration of Dr Wu Lien-Teh's 144th birthday.

The recipient of this year's Dr Wu Lien-Teh Award for Leadership in Public Health, Prof Dr Jemilah Mahmood of Sunway University, will give her lecture on “Planetary Health or Accelerate Our Extinction - We have a choice”.

Date:
05 March 2023 (Sunday)
Time:
2.30pm - 4.30pm
Venue:
Penang Institute, 10 Jalan Brown, 10350 George Town, Penang
Admission: Free
(Venue opens for entry and registration at 1400pm onwards only)
Deadline for registration:
02 March 2023

Registration:
For physical attendance, please fill in this form at https://forms.gle/y4FBur2LhXKVFw7c7
There are only 60 seats available on a first come, first served basis.

For virtual attendance, there will be LIVE streaming on Facebook (@PenangInstitute) and (@wulientehpg) and on YouTube (@penanginstitute)

It is to be noted that last year's recipient was the Director-General of Health, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. Regarding Prof Dr Jemilah Mahmood, some people may recognise her name as the founder of Mercy Malaysia which lends a helping hand with humanitarian medical relief wherever disasters occur around the world. She's truly a well-respected figure.

Centenary plans

The Management Committee of The Old Frees' Association met with the Penang Free School headmaster, Syed Sultan, at his office two days ago. I was invited to join in the meeting by virtue of my being in the OFA Centenary Committee. The meeting with the headmaster was to discuss the Centenary celebrations which would involve the school, and there were many.

The most immediate one will be to continue with the revival of the Cheeseman Elocution Contest. It had been reintroduced in the school after a hiatus of many years. I wouldn't know how many years have gone by but it would be suffice to say that it had been far too long. I'm told that there was a contest last year to test the water but this year, as part of the OFA Centenary, there'll be an attempt to make this contest larger. As such, the OFA proposed opening a new category for the pupils of Forms One to Three to encourage them to begin speaking in public. Previously, the contest was only for those from Forms Four to Upper Six. The tentative date for the Cheeseman Elocution Contest is 10 May 2023.

It will be in September that the schedule for the celebrations at the school is fullest. On the second of the month, there'll be music and drama in the Pinhorn Hall as the Old Frees put up a show reminiscent of the school plays of the past. Then on the 16th and 17th, the school field will be occupied with football and hockey matches. Come the 24th of September, the Pinhorn Hall will be used again for the Centenary chess competition, and that's where I come in. More details about the chess competition will be made known later but for the moment, the date is finalised.

Lunch tête-à-tête

The committee members of Wu Lien-Teh Society had lunch today with their Honorary Advisor, Cheah Cheng Hye.

From left to right, Ong Siou Woon, Cheah Cheng Chua, myself, Ooi Geok Ling, Cheah Cheng Hye, Alison Chong, Anwar Fazal, Clarence Liang, Eva Cheah and Dr Hor Chee Peng

Moon Venus conjunction

I popped out of the house at about eight o'clock tonight and saw this thin crescent moon right beside Venus. I know that Jupiter is nearby too but I couldn't find it for the clouds over my area of Bukit Mertajam.

School badge

I was at Penang Free School this morning for a meeting with the Headmaster, his Senior Assistants and several teachers. Thereafter, I requested and was given one of the school's new metal badges. I remember that the badges were launched last year at the school's Speech Day on the 21st of October. During its launch, it was announced that the metal badge was being introduced to phase out the cloth badges on the boys' uniforms. As a symbolic gesture of a return to an old school tradition, a metal badge was pinned on the School Captain. Well and good, I thought to myself. And then I heard something else; that in the past, the metal badge had always been worn by the pupils. That raised my eyebrows because I knew this statement wasn't correct, in part because recalling the past is usually limited to remembering only one's personal history. In my own past, we never had a badge, cloth or metal, on our school uniforms, not until I was in Lower Six. There was a lot of resistance to this change but unfortunately in the end, the weight of authority prevailed and we were forced into using one. 

I kept my counsel because I didn't want to take away the triumph of having the hideous cloth badge replaced. I would prefer metal over cloth any time or better still, no badge at all. But today, four months later, I need to set the record straight and for this, I shall have to refer to my own book on the school's history, Let the Aisles Proclaim.

From 1971 to 1974, KG Yogam was Headmaster of Penang Free School. Very soon after settling into this position, at his first meeting with the Board of Governors, he got the Board to agree on something rather controversial. It had appeared on pages 246 and 247 of this book:

He also told the Board that he wanted to adopt the use of school badges by all pupils so as to instil in them a sense of belonging to the Free School. This last matter did not sit well with the Free School boys who had long enjoyed the privilege of not having to wear one. The Free School boy was known for his pristine white school uniform: a white shirt unblemished by a school badge and paired with either a white pair of shorts or trousers. Soon after, a letter appeared in the School Newsletter, couched in a language to remonstrate to this Headmaster that he was ignoring one of her traditions:

Since Reverend Hutchings founded this school where only the best will do, there never was a need for Frees to be identified with a cheap form of advertisement stuck to their left-hand pocket. This advertisement is what is now being introduced for all students of this immortal institution whose members are acknowledged and recognised, not by the badge but by the way they conduct and behave themselves in public. This unwritten rule goes with the 154 years of our existence and never should it be changed. It is part and parcel of this institution which was founded on traditions. Just like British Law which is unwritten, there is a school rule, unwritten, which does not require Frees to wear badges. This passage is written to express the feelings of the silenced majority.

FORTIS ATQUE FIDELIS

(We do not need a school badge 

to remind us of this motto of ours) 

The Headmaster was livid. Never before had he encountered such defiance. But then this was no ordinary school but one where the pupils were expected to uphold truth and be fearless. Nevertheless, he demanded that the distribution of this issue of the newsletter be stopped. He called in the editor and told him that all the copies would be burnt, just because of this one offending letter. As the Headmaster, Yogam had his way but fortunately, at least one copy of this issue had survived his wrath to bear evidence of this episode.

The source of information was the minutes of a Board of Governors meeting in 1971. Also, I can reveal now that the author of that defiant note in the August-September 1971 issue of the Penang Free School Newsletter was Sukhinderpal Singh, today a senior lawyer in Penang. He was in Form Five then and thus, one year my junior in school. Today, every Penang Free School pupil owns a metal badge. In my visits to the school since the Speech Day, I've noticed that the boys are pinning them on their school neckties if their shirt pockets still have the cloth badges sewn onto them. With the new academic year starting on 20 March 2023, I'm looking forward to seeing new Form One boys being the first batch that wears the metal badges exclusively.

Bragging rights

With the PCA President on the left, our WP2W team comprised
Poh Yu Tian, myself, Leonardo Alidani and Joshua Ng Shao Wen

Here's more catching up to do. I've to say something about the Penang Chess League last December, held after a hiatus of two years owing to the Covid-19 lockdown. Due to some scheduling difficulties, this annual team competition was held on 24-25 December which meant that many people could not take part. They were either on vacation or celebrating Christmas. 

My chess friends from The Old Frees' Association couldn't come together to form even a team of four players and as such, we were forced to sit out this competition. I was resigned to become just a spectator last year but quite suddenly on the eve of the event, the President of the Penang Chess Association called me to ask whether I was interested to play as a last-minute adhoc team had formed and they were short of a player. Yes, definitely, I would be interested to play, I told her, but be warned of my erratic form. Would my unknown team-mates mind? Never mind, she replied, just come and play. So, after the closing ceremony of the Penang open chess tournament, I went seeking for my team and lo-and-behold, found it to be such a mish-mash of diverse chess characters. 

One, Leonardo Alidani, was a Filipino who had finished playing in the Challengers section of the Penang open. He was top-seeded but couldn't win the event although a week later, he won the Challengers tournament at the Johor open. Two, Joshua Ng, who was from Penang Free School but now doing his Form Six at the Sekolah Menengah Zainal Abidin. Anyway, he had represented Free School at the MSSPP chess tournament in 2021 and in his SPM examination, was the best performing student from Free School, a straight A+ student. And third, a big surprise, 13-year-old Poh Yu Tian. A lot has already been written and said about Yu Tian on this blog and it is needless for me to add more in this particular story except for one new comment. I'm particularly pleased and proud that my bragging rights now include saying that I once led a chess team which included Penang's strongest player of the day, Fide Master Poh Yu Tian. 

Anyway, the first day turned out quite excellently for me, winning my first two games. But then on the second day, my erratic form surfaced and I salvaged only a further half-a-point from six games. However, my team-mates carried the day, Yu Tian winning all his eight games, Joshua scoring 6½ points and Leonardo 3½. Overall, we (the team) finished in sixth position.