Seventh student leadership workshop, session 2

Finally, Lean Kang and I have completed the latest round of the student leadership workshop at Penang Free School, with assistance from Sue Hay, Yan Tatt and Mohamad Afan. The first weekend of the workshop was held last month and this month, we proceeded with the second weekend. Unfortunately, three of the participants in Lower Six were unable to join the group of 20 Form Four pupils as they were in the midst of their end-of-year school examinations. We shall try to fit them in later in the year so that they can complete both weekends.

Our experiences with this batch of Fourth Formers were not typically different from the other workshops that we held in previous years. Initially, they were quite reserved but by the end of the second day of the first weekend, we had opened them up and lowered the barrier between coach and students. Thus, they arrived for the second weekend completely relaxed and with minds that were eager for more information. We derived quite a lot of satisfaction from this particular group.

As usual, we had the Headmaster come around to present certificates to the participants. I've got to say this about Headmaster Syed Sultan: he was very supportive of the leadership workshops and we, in turn, were very glad of his continued belief in our workshop and training methods. It's a relationship which we hope will carry us through to the eighth workshop during the 2023 academic year.

PCA's golden jubilee

I'm attempting to catch up on a piece of old but meaningful news. Last December, the activities of the Penang Chess Association returned to normal as it resumed holding its 14th Penang heritage city international chess tournament in conjunction with the annual Penang Chess Festival. But what was very significant about last year's Penang Chess Festival was that the association was also celebrating its Golden Jubilee or 50th anniversary simultaneously.

Yes, that is very correct. The Penang Chess Association was 50 years old in 2022. When I attended the inaugural meeting of the Penang Chess Association as a junior member at the Penang Library in March 1972, the furthest thought in my mind was to celebrate the Golden Jubilee 50 years later. But there I was, proudly standing on the stage of the Heah Joo Seang Hall of the St Xavier's Institution on the 18th of December, to give a short shoutout about the association's early years to mark this historical occasion.

1972 MSSPP chess competition at Han Chiang Primary School

There were many thoughts that crossed my mind when I stood there on the stage but knowing that time was limited, I could not say everything that I wanted to share with the chess-playing audience and especially the parents of the junior players who, I'm sure, know absolutely nuts about the Penang Chess Association's long history. 

For example, the fact that among all the founding members at that inaugural meeting 50 years ago, only I remained as the Penang Chess Association's sole member-in-benefit. The rest of the founding members had either passed away or let their memberships lapse with time, which was a pity because among them were several friends who are still around in Penang or living elsewhere, though no longer playing chess.

1972 MSSM chess competition at Dewan Sri Pinang

Another significant item that I did not mention was that together with the Penang Chess Association celebrating its Golden anniversary in 2023, two other chess events in the country could also commemorate their 50 years but it went unnoticed. When nobody remembered them at all, it becomes a waste! And what a great waste; it was a missed opportunity to celebrate 50 years of the MSSPP and MSSM chess competitions which both began in 1972 too! To be exact, the first MSSPP chess competition was played at the Han Chiang Primary School in June 1972 and the first MSSM chess competition at the Dewan Sri Pinang in December 1972. Both started off as team events and the respective individual competitions were added in the Malaysian schools itinerary a year later. Being my final year in secondary school, I was lucky to have featured in both of these inaugural events. In the MSSPP, Penang Free School was first among eight participating chess teams while the Penang chess team came second in the MSSM.

It was also left to Hamid Majid, the Penang Chess Festival's coordinating Chief Arbiter, to add another snippet of information after I finished speaking. He said that after the dark days of the later part of the 1980s when the Penang Chess Association fell into a deep slumber of inactivity, it was left to me almost singlehandedly to revive it. From 1990 onwards, there was no more looking back for the association.

This opening ceremony also included speeches by former PCA President Dr Choong Sim Poey, present PCA President See Swee Sie, MCF President Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah Sanusi and Penang State Executive Councillor Soon Lip Chee, and a fascinating video presentation that took viewers through the 50 years of the Penang Chess Association. Naturally, this took up quite some time and consequently, the first round of the Penang open was pushed back by about at least an hour. Fortunately, that was the only delay suffered by the Penang Chess Festival as subsequent rounds in the following six days all started on time without any hitch. The Challengers section was played in the main school hall while the Open section took place in the smaller Karpal Singh Hall. 

Finally for the sake of documentation, I'm repeating in this blog my private words to the PCA President regarding the running of the Penang Chess Festival:

Dear Swee Sie, congratulations to you and your team on organising a most memorable Penang Chess Festival this year. Knowing the financial challenges that you faced, it became even more impressive to see how your team had pressed ahead with this event. The Penang Chess Festival turned out to be quite emotional for me in the sense that never in my wildest dreams could I imagine that in this Golden anniversary year, I would be the last Founding Member left standing. I wanted to speak more on the stage but I had promised myself to keep within five minutes. May the progress of Penang Chess Association continue for the next 50 years! You did an excellent job getting almost everyone that mattered to come together on this landmark occasion. It was a moment of significance. Congratulations again!!

A brief ceremony to recognise the main contributors to the Penang Chess Association

Penang State Exco member Soon Lip Chee making the ceremonial first move 

Catching up with Tan Kai Ming, Dr Choong Sim Poey and Tan Hock Lye

MCF President Akramsyah, PCA President See Swee Sie and Fide Arbiter Hamid Majid

The Challengers section

The Open section took place under the watchful eyes of Karpal Singh

Chinese New Year musings

And so, Chinese New Year day; the first day of the Year of the Water Rabbit, has landed on us. It is time, finally, for me to take a little personal breather and attempt to wake up a little later than usual. A small luxury considering that the past one month, and especially the last week, has been pretty hectic as we tried to catch up with our spring cleaning. Admittedly, we didn't manage to get everything that we wanted done and there are still parts of the house which have not had a brush or mop touching it in the last month. But this has been unavoidable as we had to contend with the rush to repaint the kitchen and repair our damaged kitchen cabinet tiles and plaster ceiling. In addition to that, the painters were rather unprofessional and not as meticulous as we liked. As a result the main contractor had to step in to rectify the sloppiness himself. Every time the contractor and his men came in, I had to spend time mopping the floor after them. This has been very tiring work for me but it had to be done.

For the four or five days prior to Chinese New Year, we had been waking up very early in order to go marketing. By about 6.45am or seven o'clock, we would already be at the market. If you think that at this time in the morning the market would not be busy, then you should think again. The place was bustling with activity. People were already doing their marketing rounds for Chinese New Year foodstuff. All the vegetable sellers and the dried foodstuff stalls were doing roaring business. People were jostling with one another to pick out their choices. The fishmongers, chicken and pork sellers were equally busy. At this time, don't ever think of buying any pig stomach for the too tor soup. All would have been snapped up already. 

I remember a very long time ago, my mother and my aunt would say that all these rush-rush activities at the wet market would last only until two days before Chinese New Year. On Chinese New Year Eve itself, the place would suddenly become quiet and less busy as shoppers would have already finished with all their purchases and the traders would be hurriedly clearing up their stalls in anticipation of going back early to prepare for Chinese New Year themselves. But no more. When I arrived at the market yesterday morning at 6.30am, the place was just as busy as the days before. Apparently, this tradition of a quiet market on Chinese New Year Eve no longer applies. People still thronged the market to do their last-minute purchases, perhaps hoping for the freshest foodstuff.  

Yesterday, I busied myself with cleaning both cars and after lunch, went about to give the marble statue of Kuan Yin her traditional end-of-year bath with perfumed water. Also tidied up the joss-stick urns which tended to overflow rather quickly with the joss-stick ashes. While my wife busied herself in the kitchen to prepare the food for the reunion dinner, I spent the afternoon preparing the worship joss paper for burning later at night. I've already given up the practice of folding paper gold ingots - it's just too time consuming - and opted for a simple design. Meanwhile, my daughter went to collect a tray of yee sang from a supplier. It was going to be the first time we would have yee sang at home. We don't believe tossing the yee sang would make any difference to anything but it would be all in good fun. After all, it's quality family time.

Apart from this tray of yee sang, our reunion dinner also included a roast chicken, scallops, the traditional too tor soup, lobak and roast pork. No bringing out the jiu hoo char this time as we felt that we already had ample food on the table, although this Chinese New Year dish had been cooked days before. Neither did we cook the prawns but I guess my daughter and son did not miss this dish much. 

Dinner over, I again gave the house a quick mop before readying myself with preparing the fruits for worship. I settled down for the tedious task of glueing strips of red paper around all the fruits. But my wife reminded me that we did not have to do so this year as custom dictated that during the first year of my father-in-law's demise, we need not celebrate Chinese New Year in the usual manner. Thus, no strips of red paper gummed around the fruits. In fact, she told me that we shouldn't even hang the traditional red cloth banner over the front door too. Well, it's fine with me although I have my own opinion about this. Not having to deal with the fruits meant that my task was considerably lightened. Nevertheless, I really didn't know where my time went because soon enough, it was time to prepare the altars for worship. Deadline as 11pm as we Chinese believe that a new day begins daily at this time. So soon afterwards, we commenced with our worship. And suddenly all around us, households were letting off their fireworks and fire crackers to welcome the Year of the Rabbit. Happy Chinese New Year!

Fire

My kitchen has received a new coat of paint. The wall and exhaust fans have been replaced. The only remaining jobs in the kitchen yet undone is the replacement of a few pieces of kitchen cabinet tiles and well as some cabinet doors. The reason for this spruce up? Not because of Chinese New Year next week, that's for sure, although the urgency to have all these things done quickly was a factor. Rather, these activities were a result of a gas explosion in the middle of the night on the 10th of December last year.

We were upstairs sleeping when three or four muffled explosions woke us up at about 2.30am. At first, we thought nothing of it but then, something told me to go downstairs to investigate. The first thing I saw was the curtain at the doorway between the living room and the kitchen in flames on the floor. I skipped into the kitchen and found a rattan lampshade in flames. Also on the floor, some plastic bags were burning. I rushed back into the living room, picked up the remain piece of curtain, wetted it and then doused the flames which by then were burning down. The only good sign was that there was no smell of gas. Nevertheless, I glanced at the gas cylinder tank and decided to remove the regulator cap immediately. It was warm and the hose that connected it to a standalone stove had melted in part. 

We were shaken by the event and spent the next hour outside the house. After we were sure that it was safe to go in, we tried to go back to sleep. As if sleep was still possible. The next morning, the full extent of the explosion was clear:

• Gas cylinder tank blackened by soot on one side
• Gas cylinder regulator cap damaged
• Gas hose half-melted
• Wooden chopping board placed on top of the gas cylinder burnt halfway
• Marble tiles for kitchen cabinet top and wall found sooted, cracked, loosened and/or bent out of shape
• Certain floor tiles stained with burnt marks
• Paint on frame of back door burnt black and peeled
• Exhaust fan completely destroyed
• Gas stove (one burner) completely destroyed
• Window curtain completely burnt
• Six pieces of wooden doors for kitchen cabinet damaged
• Blades of table fan melted out of shape
• Rattan lampshade completely burnt
• Wooden stool partially burnt
• Blades of wall fan melted out of shape
• Casing of ceiling fluorescent light damaged
• Plaster ceiling cracked and peeled
• Doorway curtain completely burnt
• Kitchen walls and kitchen ceiling darkened with burnt marks
• Kitchen plants destroyed
• Flower pot in kitchen found cracked and broken

I quite marveled at the relatively small extent of the explosion and fire. The damage was quite contained within the kitchen; I would suspect thanks to the curtain that separated the kitchen from the living room. If not for this curtain, the gas could have escaped into the living room and any flame could have consumed the living room too. Gas being light, the flames had scorched the upper part of the kitchen walls and the plaster ceiling.

I remembered that we had taken an insurance policy on the house. So we contacted the insurance company and was put in touch with the insurance adjuster. First thing asked was whether the fire brigade was called. No, we said, because the damage to the kitchen was not extensive and it was practically over by the time I had come downstairs. We were advised to place a Police report then, which we did on the same day. One or two days later, the adjuster came to the house to inspect the kitchen and told us that the insurance could not cover non-fixtures. Okay, far enough, because that was the policy we had bought anyway. But I need a note to remind myself hat I would have to buy a separate policy to cover the movable items in the house. In the meantime, I had to get quotations to repair the damage to the kitchen - painting the walls and ceiling, replacing the damaged kitchen cabinet doors, replacing too the cracked marble tiles of the kitchen cabinet.

And so it has been a traumatic month for us, the fire coming 12 days after my wife fractured her little toe. It's been six weeks since her accident. Her fracture is healing well according to the orthopaedic surgeon and she can go about her business without any more pain. I can only hope that there won't be any more unpleasant surprises to come.

All that remained of the curtain that separated the living room from the kitchen

Cracked flowerpot in the kitchen. All my plants destroyed.

My destroyed rattan lampshade bought from Vietnam three years earlier

Blades melted beyond redemption

The marble tile next to the gas cylinder tank was singed black with soot and cracked in separate parts

Chopping block partially destroyed

Stove top destroyed

Li Chun (立春), 2023

Li Chun (立春) or the Coming of Spring comes around but once a year and for this year, it will arrive upon our doorsteps, or rather, our rice bucket, at 10.44am on 4 February 2023. This will correspond with the 14th day of the first Chinese lunar month. The Hokkien and the Baba Nyonya communities in Penang will invariably refer to this first day of Spring as Jip Chun instead of Li Chun. 

But what's so special about Jip Chun or Li Chun? It has no religious significance but we Chinese acknowledge this date as the day when the sun crosses the 315° longitudinal line in the sky. Of course you don't see this imaginary line but it is there, all right. For astronomical and perhaps astrological purposes as well, this longitudinal line has always been there.

Right after this time on Jip Chun day, it is traditional for me to paste a new Chun (春) character on the rice bucket and then fill it up to the brim with rice to signify abundance for the coming year. 

This year, however, I had to really clean out my rice bucket to rid it of the rice weevil and its eggs. The last packet of rice must have been really infested with the eggs because although I didn't see any sign of any weevil at all when I purchased it from the supermarket. But soon enough, I noticed that the rice was gradually being attacked and the weevil came crawling to the surface whenever I opened the lid. It reached a stage where we decided to throw away the rest of the uncooked rice. To my horror, the bottom of the bucket was coated with a thick crust of rice dust. So everything went off into the washroom where I gave the bucket a good wash followed by drying it out under the sun and subjecting it to a good vacuum subsequently. Hopefully, my new stock of rice will be spared this infestation.

By the way, I've been writing diligently about Jip Chun in this blog since Year 2007 and if anyone wants to find the historical dates and time, the information is all here:

Li Chun, 2022
Li Chun, 2021
Li Chun, 2020
Li Chun, 2019
Li Chun, 2018
Li Chun, 2017
Li Chun, 2016
Li Chun, 2015
Li Chun, 2014
Li Chun, 2013
Li Chun, 2012
Li Chun, 2011
Li Chun, 2010
Li Chun, 2009
Li Chun, 2008
Li Chun, 2007

Audience with the Raja

Everyone looking their best with an OFA necktie. Seated to the right of the Raja of Perlis: Alex Tan and Andrew Lim. Seated to the left of the Raja Muda of Perlis: Enrique Tan and Raman. Standing, left to right: See Liang Teik, Roy Chai, Lo Liang Kheng, Ezuan, Quah Seng Sun, Barathkumar, Ivan Ooi (from OFA KL and Selangor) and Cheng Soon Keong.

At the entrance into the Royal Gallery

The Old Frees' Association is 100 years old in 2023, having been established on 17 April 1923. Last year, I was invited to join an OFA Centenary committee that was formed to look into ways of marking this once-in-a-lifetime occasion. On Monday last, a joint contingent comprising members of the OFA Centenary committee and the main OFA management committee was granted an audience with the Raja of Perlis, Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Jamalullail. 

Tuanku is an Old Free - I had described him as our Royal Alumnus - and has been the Royal Patron of The Old Frees' Association since 29 May 2002. His father, the previous Raja of Perlis, Tuanku Syed Putra Jamalullail, had also studied at Penang Free School and it is to be noted that so did his son,  the Raja Muda of Perlis, Tuanku Syed Faizuddin Putra Jamalullail. 

The purpose of the audience was to invite the Raja of Perlis to grace the OFA's Members' Night on 17 April 2023 during which time the OFA Centenary celebrations would be launched. I am happy to say that Tuanku was very happy with the invitation but as he could be recuperating from a minor surgery, he suggested that the Raja Muda would be his representative.

While waiting for the two Tuanku's to arrive

We had a very pleasant one-hour private audience with their Royal Highnesses at the Royal Gallery in Arau, Perlis. The Raja was informed about our Centenary activities and especially, about an intended golf tournament and a bicycling event around George Town. The Alma Mater was never far from his mind and he wanted to know about the school's progress.

Then came an interesting question. He asked about the sports houses we all were in at school and it turned out that Wu Lien-Teh House was in the majority. By a coincidence, both the Raja and the Raja Muda were also from this house. Myself, quiet all this time, could not resist piping up to tell him that since 2012, there exists in Penang a Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society which seeks to promote the name of this good doctor around the globe. And having already opened my mouth, I also blurted out that the PFS student leadership workshops have been conducted since 2017 and they stopped only for the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. All mentioned rather spontaneously, I must reiterate. I wouldn't have said all these if not for that Wu Lien Teh House moment!

Anyway, we were invited to join their Royal Highnesses for a royal luncheon at the Royal Gallery. Dome-style nasi hidang but there was also a plate of ikan jenahak pangang topped with a special sauce. An excellent dessert came and went, followed by coffee which proved undrinkable unless one had a very, very, very sweet tooth. As for me, one small sip was all I was brave enough to have.

After lunch, we were invited to tour the Royal Gallery which housed Tuanku's family's personal effects as well as gifts and decorations that had been presented to him. We were told that the exhibits in the gallery comprised maybe only about a fifth or sixth of what could be displayed. The impression is that only the most significant was on display here. Among them we found that the copy of Hutchings Times that was presented to Tuanku during the Penang Free School Bicentenary celebrations had been framed and mounted in the gallery. 

The Hutchings Times properly framed for display in the Royal Gallery

A framed water colour painting of the OFA building by artist Khoo Cheang Jin which was presented to the Raja of Perlis

Two views of the same moon

Last Friday was the first full moon of 2023. It was also the final full moon of the Chinese lunar calendar. Thus, there's no need to be reminded that Chinese New Year is only 16 more days away. Here, I have two views of the same full moon. I took the one on the left using an Olympus camera fitted with a basic 40-150mm zoom lens set at its maximum focal length and the resulting picture digitally enlarged and manipulated. The picture on the right was taken by someone named Andrew McCarthy from halfway round the world - he lives in the United States. As can be guessed quite correctly, astrophotography is his hobby. I am always blown away by the sharpness and quality of his pictures which he posts regularly on facebook and instagram. My amateurish efforts cannot compare with his professionalism. But what I'd like to highlight here is that the moon is not exactly grey, black or white. McCarthy's picture showed this up quite clearly. There are distinct areas of blue and also areas with reddish tinge. Although my picture was miserably blur - partly due to weather conditions over Penang - I was surprised to see faint patches of blue too. Not too bad, eh, for my little camera, I must say.

First reunion of the year

I was invited to join some friends from the PFS Class of 1971 for dinner last night on the island. Had a whale of a time renewing my acquaintance with the whole lot of them! Made some new friends too. Plus, there was the bonus of meeting up with a few former colleagues from my Straits Echo and Ban Hin Lee Bank days. Khoo Boo Teik and Balakrishnan gave interesting reminiscences about their time at Penang Free School but the spotlight belonged to Lim Guan Eng. Of course, he mentioned the recent General Election but he also talked about the setting up of the Penang Digital Library during his tenure as the Chief Minister here. To cap the occasion, I was asked by the host, Cheah Cheng Hye, to lead the Old Farts, I mean, the Old Frees through singing the School Rally. No decent Old Free would want to be seen with a copy of the lyrics and thankfully, none was required. I must have had led the singing with a lot of gusto because soon afterwards, someone suggested that I take up the microphone for a bit of karaoke session. Horrors! Not my cup-of-tea.

Incidentally during the after-dinner camaraderie session, Cheng Hye was mentioning Boo Kooi's point about we all belonging to the May 13th era. I reminded him not to forget that two years earlier in 1967, there was this hartal in Penang. He hadn't forgotten it, Cheng Hye said. In fact, he opened up to say that he was almost killed during the curfew period. At the tender age of 13, he was selling pineapples near the Sia Boey market after school hours. At the height of the hartal, he was rounded up and jailed for violating curfew. Seeing that he was a mere boy, he was released the next morning and given a curfew pass to allow him to return home. "I was terrified and kept holding up the pass above my head until I reached home," he recalled. 

In my opinion, the hartal shook Penang far greater than the May 13th incident. Initially meant to be a peaceful attempt, led by the Labour Party under Lim Kean Siew, to protest the devaluation of the old Malayan dollar and the rising inflation, thugs and gangsters emerged in great force to create havoc on the island. The City Council buses were singled out for stoning and mobs attempted to overturn them. The Police were unprepared for the violence and the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) were called in to maintain the curfew.  

Now, just a little explanation how I ended up with this bunch of fellas from the Class of 1971. Agewise, I should belong with most of them. We had started our Standard One in one of the various primary schools in 1961 - I was at Westlands Primary - but because I landed in an express class in Standard Two, meaning I jumped to Standard Four in 1963, I ended my education a year ahead of them. But as I said, we are all generally of the same age despite me being one year their senior in the Free School. The marvel of last night's dinner was that I met two persons who were with me in the same Standard 1E class and therefore they counted as among my oldest of friends. Can you imagine that?

Cheng Hye bought five copies of Let the Aisles Proclaim from me in 2016. I simply had to give him a copy of Ten Thousand Prosperities this time.

Happy New Year 2023

 

My 𝘊𝘰𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘪

I began cultivating some interest in orchids sometime in the early part of the last decade when I stopped writing my chess articles for The Star newspaper temporarily. Along the way, I picked up an orchid plant from, if I'm not mistaken, a nursery somewhere in Sungai Petani. This Coelogyne rochussenii took pride of place in my front patio but for about four or five years, it grew but never flowered. In exasperation, I almost threw it away. Then I decided to tie it around the tree outside the house. The plant didn't die but continued growing and attaching itself to the trunk permanently with its new roots. But it still didn't flower. Recently for weeks, there was a prolonged cool and rainy spell in Penang. Suddenly, I noticed that the orchid plant had thrown out two(!) short flowering stalks. So finally, after more than 10 years, the plant has flowered. I'm happy enough to see the flowers but boy, it needs patience. A great deal of patience. More than 10 years of patience. I would have grown several feet of beard already, if I had not cut it off regularly....

US Potatoes cooking demo

The promoters from US Potatoes were back in Penang last week and in a jam-packed afternoon session at 218 Macalister, they brought along a dietician-nutritionist to bolster their mandatory and ever popular cooking demonstration. 

Georgen Thye was the dietician with more than 10 years of experience in nutrition and dietetics. He founded Georgen Cooking, a platform that aims to make healthy eating and cooking easy and fun. He sits in the editorial advisory board of Health Today magazine and is a council member of the Malaysian Dietitians' Association. He is featured regularly in the local media, including on TV and radio. 

Georgen kicked off the session with a fascinating talk on nutrition (what else?) and brought home the point that the potato is a healthy food. For example, the potassium content in potatoes is three times more than that in bananas. And I was surprised to learn that the potato can provide 38.5% of our daily requirement of Vitamin C. Of course, all these numbers do not tell you the whole story because at the end of the day. it also depends on how much potato you need to consume to achieve these figures. 

Although Georgen didn't term himself as a celebrity chef, there was no doubt that he could show his familiarity with the kitchen by whipping up some simple but interesting snacks that used potatoes, in particular, US Potatoes, as a main ingredient. His main demonstration was to make crispy US Potato snowflakes.

The appearance of Chef Federico Michieletto was the obvious highlight of the session. I must say that this Italian chef was not unfamiliar to me. In a previous US Potatoes cooking demonstration here, he had been one of the featured chefs. Last week though, he was the ONLY chef. Thus, all eyes and ears were trained on him. Chef Federico has lived in Malaysia for 15 years or so, and well settled down as the Executive Chef of Equatorial Kuala Lumpur. For his cooking demo in Penang, he had devised two recipes. The first was a Homemade US Potatoes Russet Gnocchi while the second was a US Potato Frittata.

By the way, I bumped into a number of friends at the cooking demo. It so happened that there was quite a number of ladies around. Actually, they quite filled up the room at the 218 Macalister. I found out later that they were from the Rose Charity, Penang Women Chamber of Commerce, the Joyluck club and the Penang State Chinese Association, the last mentioned now serving as the de facto baba-nyonya organisation in the state.

Corner kick

So much have happened to my wife and I in the last two and a half weeks or so. I'm actually having some difficulty deciding how to begin this narrative. But I think the best is to start from the very beginning. 

Anyway, in the morning of the 29th of November, my wife stubbed her little right toe against the corner of our bed. It was quite loud, or at least, I thought that it was quite loud. She was in the bedroom and I was outside at my computer when I heard a loud crack from the room. Rushed in to find my wife clutching at her little toe. We had stubbed our feet many times against the bed and we thought this time would not be any different. But it was not. 

By the afternoon, she complained of a nagging pain that wouldn't go away. The doctor's X-ray confirmed that there was indeed a hairline fracture. The following day, we consulted an orthopaedic surgeon at the private hospital and her toes were immediately bandaged up. It would take about six weeks for the fracture to heal partially, the specialist said, and three months for it to heal totally. Our hearts sank. We had planned for an overseas holiday and now, it was completely shattered by this little bad luck of a freak accident. Worse was that we had already paid for the holidays and it was impossible for us to get all of our money back. The stumbling block were the airline tickets. Cancelling the tickets would come with a hefty loss as obviously, the full amount won't be reimbursed. We made a frantic search for our replacements and luckily, we did find two persons to go in our place. Still, it was a monetary loss to us.

My wife had a follow-up appointment with the surgeon two days ago and luckily, the good news was that her toe was healing well. The bandages have come off and she can now put her weight on the whole foot. There'll still be a final check-up in another three weeks' time.

PCA 50th anniversary

It's not mentioned in the above image, but the celebration of the Penang Chess Association's golden anniversary will be held this Monday, 19 December 2022, at the school hall of the St Xavier's Institution at 2.30pm, where this year's Penang heritage city chess open tournament will take place daily until Christmas Eve. 

Why use the SXI as the tournament venue? It's because after the pandemic lockdown of the past two years, the Penang Chess Association is forced to cut down on expenses when carrying out their activities. Previous editions of this annual event were played at the Red Rock Hotel and I understand that the fees of using their old cinema hall were very expensive. Thus, the need to seek an alternative venue. The school hall here fitted the association's needs as it is cheap and centrally located.