The student leaders in our midst

Together with four other friends, all Old Frees, I've been spending the whole of Saturday and Sunday at Penang Free School where we completed a second Student Leadership Workshop for some selected schoolboys from our Alma Mater.

It would have been a shame if we Old Frees do not contribute to the betterment of the Free School in whatever way we can. And my friends and I - Lim Siang Jin, Dr Cheah Swee Poh, Lim Teik Wah and Loh Lean Kang - thought it best to give our time to coach the potential leaders of our society on some soft skill development.

This workshop was actually the second half of two workshops that we had promised the boys. The first was held in April this year (click here to read my earlier story about the April workshop) and we had been amply encouraged by the response to conduct a follow-up for the same set of participants. At first, we had intended to have shorter follow-ups in May and then June, but time just did not allow them to happen. But finally, everything fell into place and the school agreed to find space for our second workshop.

As Old Frees who had celebrated the School's Bicentenary last year, we felt that the feel-good momentum must be maintained as much as possible and the beneficiaries of the momentum must be the present Frees themselves. My friends and I agreed that there was no point in celebrating for the sake of celebration alone if we could not do anything positive for the School.

Unfortunately, we are in no position to help raise money. We are not influential; we can't raise the millions required to improve the School physically. Neither are we capable to challenge the School in any sportive or recreational activity. The schoolboys will run rings around us any time. However, what we can do is to stimulate their minds intellectually and to guide them along on developing their soft skills.

Thus, these workshops were devised. Credit to Siang Jin for his meticulous planning and eye for detail. Lean Kang is a superb former corporate guy who contributed his experience and brought a lot of practical advice to the leadership workshop. Whereas, Swee Poh, Teik Wah and I reprised our roles as coaches to the boys. (Actually, Teik Wah had stepped in as a very capable replacement for Prof Tan Soo Choon who had some other work matters to attend to.)

I also contributed an after-dinner talk on Dr Wu Lien-Teh to make these boys understand how great a man he was. He saved the world from the scourge of the Black Plague but for all his international achievements, Wu Lien-Teh is only remembered in the School through a House that's named after him. Some of us hold the personal opinion that he was the greatest Old Free that Penang Free School had ever produced, greater than any other Old Free dead or alive!

Coming back to this Student Leadership Workshop, coaching these boys was a joy. It was a pleasure to be surrounded by young impressionable minds. The workshop materials made them punch well above their weights and they responded in a way that made us realise that there will always be a lot of hope for Penang Free School. Like I mentioned five months ago, we have many smart boys in our midst and if they were willing to absorb all new ideas thrown at them and served them back to us intelligently, the least we can do is to continue giving them the direction and encouragement to grow.

Again, I wish to emphasise that if you can touch the life of even one Free School schoolboy, you will have done your little bit for Penang Free School. My friends and I have managed to contribute a bit of our time through four long days with them and we now hope that others will do so too.

Finally, we thank headmaster Omar Abdul Rashid, senior assistant Syed Sultan Shaik Oothuman, The Old Frees' Association president Billy Yeoh and The Old Frees' Association committee member in charge of Alma Mater matters Lee Eu Beng for their support of our endeavours. Billy and Eu Beng actually came by to see for themselves how we worked. Much appreciated, guys, it's all for the School! Fortis atque Fidelis.

Attempting to solve a crossword puzzle

Happy faces absorbing in the information

Molding their minds through actual activity

The boys holding their own group discussions

Below and above, we had the boys reacting to the six coloured hats of Edward de Bono.

Au revoir to this group of boys. We hope to see a batch of new faces next year!

Senior moments

It is so easy to get an international chess rating nowadays. A real FIDE chess rating, not one that's calculated by a national chess federation or given by an online chess portal. A real FIDE chess rating that's recognised everywhere and comes from playing in FIDE-recognised tournaments worldwide.

In the far distant past, like in the 1980s or 1990s, the floor of the FIDE ratings have been gradually reduced from 2200 points to 2000 points till 1600 rating points today. With such a lowered rating floor and a subsequent popularisation of chess among the world-wide population at large, it has now been possible for more people to attain their chess ratings than ever before. Indeed, there are now three different types of international chess ratings: classical chess ratings for long time-control games, rapid chess ratings for short time-control games and blitz chess ratings for quick time-control games.

I never had an international chess rating until 2011. Indeed, I was a qualified International Arbiter long before I was a FIDE-rated player. In 2010, I was persuaded to participate in the Seniors open tournament at the Malaysia Chess Festival of that year. That was the first nine rated games that I played against other FIDE-rated players. Then in 2011, I played again in the Seniors open tournament and could claim another nine rated games, which was enough for me to get my first-ever international chess rating.

But then I stopped playing long time-control chess and only dabbled in the occasional rapid chess tournaments mainly in Penang. My FIDE rating became dormant. This year, however, I decided to play again in the Seniors section of the Malaysia Chess Festival. A six-year gap between my last game in 2011 and my first game in 2017.

Needless to say, there is a lot for me to catch up with. Like I mentioned in facebook, when I looked back on the games that I played in Kuala Lumpur last week, many of my chess strategies and chess thoughts were downright leaky, illogical and if I may add now, stupid. They might have looked logical enough when I was seated across from an opponent at the chess board but definitely, now a total embarrassment. But as one of my facebook friends commented, everyone below 2200 have the same problems, not only me. I shouldn't feel that discouraged. Ah well....

Maybe in a future post, I shall write something about one or two of the games I played in KL last week. They were not complete disasters. In fact, I could say that I was quite pleased with some of my leaky strategies. But that will be for the future. As for my chess rating, I fear that I could have lost some 40 points playing in that event and I should emerge from it with a mid-19 hundreds. But I shouldn't be discouraged about it too. Losing or gaining rating points, that comes with the game. The important thing is to enjoy playing and not over-stressing myself.

Neighbour

Good morning! I woke up suddenly to find our very familiar celestial neighbour, still very full and round, shining directly at me through the window at 5.53am.

Riding for gold - a thirst for adventure

I had an interesting afternoon yesterday. At the last moment, I decided to attend the flagging off of David Wu's two-year cycling quest around the world in an attempt to raise funds for childhood cancer, in collaboration with the National Cancer Society Malaysia. It is an honourable project and he is accompanied on this venture by a young cameraman, Ving Lee.

For quite some time already, Wu had been bitten by this bug which made him want to go out of his comfort zone to raise funds for various projects.

For example, he had attempted to walk solo from Kuala Lumpur to Kelantan a few years back and he raised enough money to rebuild a house for a flood victim there. He had called it his #projectwumah then, an ingenious play on his surname.

Then, in a more ambitious project, he decided to cycle his way to his ancestral home in China, which took about four months to complete. On this venture, he was joined by two other friends who accompanied him into Thailand.

And so this is his latest adventure. Now irresistibly bitten by the travel bug, he decided that it should be nothing less than to cycle around the world to visit the seven wonders of the world. Forty countries, 35,000 kilometers. Originally, he was meant to do it alone but Ving Lee somehow got into the act to accompany him. Lee, I had gathered, is also a cameraman or photographer by profession and we can expect some wonderful pictures from him in the next two years.

Their travels will take them overland through Asia and Europe, and they will fly to the Americas and thence back to Asia to continue their cycling adventure down from China and back home.

Several weeks ago, Wu had expressed some difficulty applying for a visa to enter Pakistan and I had offered him some help to contact the honorary consul in Penang but eventually, I learnt that he had resolved the problem on his own in KL. Good for him.

So there I was at the National Cancer Society Malaysia headquarters yesterday. Just in time to hear the concluding speeches and then the flag-off from the society's premises.

With both Wu and Lee doing their bit to make a difference in this nation of ours, we can all also chip with with a ringgit or two of our money for this worthy fund-raising cause for childhood cancer.

To donate, bank in to Public Bank Berhad account no: 3988587622 in the name of The National Cancer Society of Malaysia.

Heavenly lovers

On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, we remember the greatest love story in Chinese mythology: the cowherd and his fairy princess.

A long time ago, the story goes, a fairy princess - the seventh daughter of a Goddess - descended to Earth and fell in love with a mortal cowherd. They married and had two children

The Goddess was angry and banished the princess back to heaven and forbade her to return to her lover, separating them with a wide river that is depicted by the Milky Way.

But one of the other Gods then took pity on the lovers and decreed that they could meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month. On that day, a flock of magpies would form a heavenly bridge to connect both sides of the celestial river, thus allowing the fairy princess to be reunited with her cowherd.

As the Chinese day formally begins at 11pm every day, my family will worship the Chinese lovers every year at 11.30pm on the sixth night of the seventh lunar month. So it shall be tonight too.

Penang Street

Fancy that. In the eastern London Borough of Tower Hamlets, there is a short, quiet road that is named after Penang. Our little island is remembered in England; this is a part of England that is forever Penang! Unfortunately, I don't see any other Malaysian state similarly honoured although there is a Singapore Road to the west of Greater London. Penang Street is a quick four-minute walk from Wapping Station. 

The Farthing Fields end

The Prusom Street end

Uninterruptible power supplies

I'm a firm believer of using the uninterruptible power supplies to connect up the sensitive computer equipment and electronic devices in the house for fear of having them fried during violent thunderstorms or sudden power blackouts. However, it still surprised me to discover that I have not one but three UPS units lying around. Just very recently, I was forced to replace the rechargeable batteries inside these UPS units as one by one, they decided to give up their ghosts. One by one over a period of several weeks, their alarms began sounding off, indicating the end of their battery life. I had no choice but to replace them. Now I'm left with the question of disposing these old batteries. Where can I go to dispose them off? I can't simply chuck them away in the rubbish bin.

Kalama Sutra

The Kalama Sutra, as taught by the Buddha.

Over a period of about three weeks, I had been posting these messages every few days on my facebook page and I must say that they did strike a chord and went down well with many of my friends. Actually, my opinion is that these are all very down-to-earth lessons from the Buddha, advice that are equally applicable to everyone from all walks of life. People should not look at them solely from the religious point-of-view. 

Abdulla 37, again

Eight years ago, I tried to uncover some information about the notorious Abdulla 37 and got no-where. All that I ever achieved was some nonsense that read like this:

Last week, I saw an old facebook story by one of my friends in Singapore. I don't know where he got his information from but I felt that it was too important not to reproduce it here. Worthwhile stories on facebook tend to get buried through time but at least on blogs such as mine, you can still dig them out. Here it is, saved for perpetuity:

The Famous ABDULLA 37. Apparently, Singapore and Penang used to have two famous ladies of the night named after this cigarette brand. One plied her trade in Keong Saik Street in Singapore, the other along Chulia Street in Penang. Met a former mamasan who knew the Abdulla 37 lady of Penang. She was reportedly about 18 years old in the Sixties, much prettier than the famous Rose Chan and used to ride in a trishaw, the trishawman being the pimp who will be her bodyguard as well if the client misbehaved. The Abdulla 37 in Singapore was rumoured to have married and gone off to Penang to live whereas there is no word about the one in Penang except that unfortunately, she died of cancer. Wonder if they were one and the same lady? The cigarettes would be packed in gold leaf and the unfiltered brand of cigarettes in those days was Capstan.

Thanks, Stephen, for poking your nose where it's not supposed to be!

Drummer boy

The Swee Cheok Tong (瑞鵲堂) was invited to attend the 25th anniversary dinner of the Youth Section of the Chay Yeong Tong Sin Quah Chuah Chong Soo (济阳堂辛柯蔡宗祠) last night. My apprehension in attending such dinner functions was somewhat tempered when I learnt that my vice-president would also be seated at the same VIP table as me. Well, not the VVIP table - that would be left to the officer-bearers of the Sin Quah Chuah main committee - but still considered important enough to be seated with the representatives of other Chinese associations from around the country.

What I didn't expect was to be invited up on the stage to participate in a drum session. They had to call my name for me to realise that I would be required to be present together with a host of other "drummers." Oh well.... Anyway, the appreciation gift will be kept at the Swee Cheok Tong later when we have one of our committee meetings.

Simon Junior and Patrina

I thought calamity had struck me a very long time ago when I managed to spoil one of my prized 45rpm records. Due to some mishap - I have forgotten what had happened - the record cracked and an edge had chipped off which left it in an unplayable condition. Imagine the heartbreak that followed. This was a rather unique song by a local Indian singer named Anura Simon. He went by the stage name of Simon Junior and had released quite a number of 45s singing Chinese songs with English lyrics. But he was also a member of a Singapore band called Maurice and the Melodians, playing drums. In the 1960s, Maurice and the Melodians were a popular A-Go-Go instrumental band that backed countless Chinese singers.

By some good luck I laid my hands on a replacement copy of this same 45rpm record more than four years ago when the family of a late friend gave me the latter's record collection to me after he died. I didn't notice the record's presence until several months had passed when I finally sat down to go through my new treasure chest. Hey, here was the record again and this copy was intact.

Wimbledon underwear

I read this commentary in the online version of the UK's The Guardian newspaper. It was about the Wimbledon dress code whereby all players were required to wear white on the courts:

Of all the rules at Wimbledon – and there are many – surely none is more outdated than one referring to players’ clothing. Not the part that insists they should wear “almost entirely white” attire, something players do not mind. But rather the one that refers to the colour of their underwear and how visible it is during play. First Venus Williams was asked to change her pink bra in a first-round match, which drew a suitably clipped response to a media inquiry: “I don’t like talking about bras in press conferences. It’s weird.” On Wednesday, four junior doubles players were asked to change their underwear because it could be seen under their white shorts, and on Thursday the 18‑year‑old Austrian Jurij Rodionov was asked by a supervisor to show her his underwear. “Yesterday I wore black pants and nobody said anything and today I wore blue and suddenly it’s a problem,” he said. “It was a big surprise for me.” Rodionov said Wimbledon provided him with two white pairs. “One was a little bit too big but these ones were OK,” he said. Asked if the rule was outdated, he said: “Wimbledon is always special. Maybe it’s a little bit too much but I like that the players only have to wear white. It’s tradition.”

There seemed to be an interesting thread about this dress code thingy, especially when it concerned Wimbledon officials demanding players to show them the top of their underwear in order to verify the colour, like in this story:

Junior player told to change underwear after falling foul of rules
A junior player at Wimbledon was made to lower part of his shorts to reveal the colour of his underwear on Thursday as part of a crackdown on non-regulation clothing. Play was delayed for at least 10 minutes when Austrian junior Jurij Rodionov was ordered off court to change his non-white underwear because it contravened Wimbledon’s strict dress code. In a bizarre scene, the 18-year-old had to pull down his shorts a little at the request of a female official so a call could be made. After the game, he said it was a “big surprise” as he had worn the same dark underwear in his first game and they had gone unnoticed. 

Of course, this news report did not go unnoticed and it prompted a reader to make a little wisecrack (sic) of his own in the newspaper itself:

Durian interlude

Hopefully, this will be the start of something fresh at the Swee Cheok Tong (Quah Kongsi): an annual fun get-together for the members apart from the more staid annual dinners or committee meetings. On Sunday, I had arranged for the committee and their family members to go for a durian eating session in Relau on the south-eastern part of the island. Although we have 16 committee members in total, only seven responded to the outing. Two others pulled out eventually at the last minute, leaving only five members. Still, I managed to round up 10 people who, together with our host, then sat down for lunch before we opened the fruit. Everybody did enjoy themselves and I would want to get this group together again next year, hopefully with a better response.

Steppenwolf - For ladies only

I remember that in my late teenaged years - I could have been in Upper Six at school - I had borrowed this record, For Ladies Only, from a record shop in Campbell Street (Wing Hing Records, to give the shop its name). Steppenwolf was a Canadian band and some of their well-known songs had included Born to be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride. As I was familiar with those tunes, I had brought home the record with some anticipation. Imagine my surprise when I opened the gatefold - in those years, albums were all plastic-wrapped until bought - to find a picture of a car along Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Not any ordinary car but THIS car. I like to imagine that this car is still around somewhere in the United States but I would wonder how much preserved the vehicle is now. Who owns it? Is it still usable? Does anyone still drives it around?

Unfortunately, I had to return the disc to the shop after a few days because after all, it was borrowed. It was not until decades later when I went back to listening records that I managed to track down the album from a second-hand store. Such was the deep impression that the inner gatefold cover had given me! Although the cover wasn't in tip-top shape, the record itself was still in decent condition. Dusty but nothing like a good cleaning could remove but most importantly, no scratches and very little pops and crackles.

Side One: For ladies only, Sparkle eyes, Shackles and chains, Tenderness
Side Two: The night time's for you, Jaded strumpet, I'm asking, Black pit, Ride with me, In hopes of a garden

Pasar malam

I can't remember when was the last time that I had went to the Friday pasar malam in my neighbourhood but after all these years of absence, we went there yesterday and were surprised by the wide variety of street food available. The stalls would start appearing at Cangkat Damai in Bukit Mertajam as early as five o'clock and in my opinion, the best time to go the pasar malam would be around 7pm when the road is not so packed.

The pasar malam is not only about food. There are traders selling all sorts of household and other stuff, but what I'm going to show here are just the street food vendors

The food must be pretty good to have so many people waiting patiently so early in the evening.

 Taiwanese burger, according to this hawker's signboard

 Fruits galore

 Taiwanese sausage

 One of three stalls selling koay kak

 This Pak Cik sells the ever-popular Malay version of pan cham koay

 More fruits on sale. The going price for the chempedak was RM10 per kilo which was immensely exorbitant considering that at the market last year, I could buy the Chempedak Champion for RM7 per kilo.

 The Malay lekor, which is more popular on the east coast rather than here.

Care for Vietnamese popiah? 

Now, this is something that's very rarely seen. Marinated pork wrapped in a thin layer of pork fat.

Of course, there must be the kampong durian

Uhmm...I wouldn't know what to call these fried stuff but the ones in the foreground are yam balls.

The Three Degrees

Historically, The Three Degrees have been around since 1963. However, they only broke into the big time with their album on the Philadelphia International Records label. In Malaysia, this record was distributed by CBS Sony and thus, it sported the well-known black walking eye logo of Columbia Records.

Although the cover art of the album showed an innocuous picture of the three girls of the popular band, within the gatefold cover was a very racy picture of the trio in body-hugging translucent material. Since the album was all plastic wrapped at the record shop, I had no idea of what was inside. You can just imagine the reaction when any purchaser of this album tore away at the plastic wrap to reveal the concealed picture. As for me, I was more delighted than shocked.

Side One: Dirty ol' man, Can't you see what you're doing to me, A woman needs a good man, When will I see you again
Side Two: I didn't know, I like being a woman, If and when, Year of decision

Philadelphia classics

MFSB was one of my favourite group of musicians. This was the orchestra that backed many artistes from the Philadelphia International label. If I remember correctly, I have some four or five of their own albums. In particular, I've owned this double-LP album for such a long while. I think that it was in the late 1980s that I first saw it in a record shop at KOMTAR here in George Town. I had a cassette tape made of the songs but eventually, I ended up buying the record itself. I've also a compact disk of the same album which I hunted down through amazon.com years later.

Anyway, I brought this album out from my cupboard this afternoon. Gave it a quick look-over, saw and thought that the record surfaces were still clean enough for the turntable and thus, decided to give it a spin. Bad decision. The moment the stylus touched the spinning surface, all the pops, hisses and crackles came through in all their loudness. No way could I enjoy the music with all the distraction.

The only solution was to clean the records to remove all the dirt that was the cause of all the surface noise. But I also knew that there was no guarantee that I would succeed totally. Still, no harm in trying. So that was what I did: I subjected the records to my time-tested method of cleaning them, a video of which I uploaded to youtube about seven years ago and had attracted some 49,645 views to date and several comments from people who were more obsessed with my bare feet than my record-cleaning technique.

Anyway, I did manage to dislodge a layer of brown gunk from the records. But after the gunk was removed, I must say that all the noise has also disappeared. Not only was the surface completely restored to black and shiny, the record looked like new. An almost mint condition. Wonderful stuff, my do-it-myself manual record cleaner.

Side A: Love is the message (MFSB), TSOP (The sound of Philadelphia) (MFSB, featuring The Three Degrees)
Side B: Dirty ol' man (The Three Degrees), I love music (The O'Jays)
Side C: Don't leave me this way (Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes), Love train (The O'Jays)
Side D: I'll always love my mama (Intruders), Bad luck (Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes)