Fantastic cultural initiative

Penang has taken what may well be its most meaningful cultural preservation step since the UNESCO recognition of George Town’s heritage zone in 2008 by officially gazetting 50 heritage items covering historical sites, cultural traditions and some of the state’s most beloved local food.

State tourism and creative economy committee chairman Wong Hon Wai described the move as a major milestone in protecting and sustaining Penang’s cultural heritage. Under the Penang State Heritage Enactment 2011, the state has now gazetted 15 heritage sites, seven intangible cultural heritage elements and 28 heritage food items.

What struck me most was the fact that although the enactment was passed back in 2011, no official state-level cultural heritage gazettement had actually taken place over the past 15 years. This year, however, the Penang government finally turned legislation into concrete action by formally recognising these cultural treasures and laying down a stronger institutional foundation for their preservation.

Among the heritage sites gazetted are Fort Cornwallis, Kapitan Keling Mosque, Penang Free School, St George’s Church, Penang State Museum building, Acheen Street Malay Mosque and Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi. On the mainland, the gazetted sites include the Cherok Tok Kun Inscription Stone, the Guar Kepah Archaeological Site and Leng Eng Seah Association. There should be many more to add into this list later but this can be considered a good start for the moment.

The intangible cultural heritage list includes nasi kandar culture, kopitiam culture, the Thaipusam and Chingay processions, the St Anne’s feast in Bukit Mertajam and the Penang Tanjong dialect.

As for food, some of Penang’s most iconic dishes have now been formally recognised as heritage items, including asam laksa, char koay teow, nasi kandar, chendol, roti chanai, putu mayam and pasembor. (See the full list below.)

To me, this is about far more than tourism or branding. It is about memory, identity and continuity. Penang’s multicultural heritage did not emerge overnight. It was shaped slowly over generations by different communities, faiths and traditions living side by side and influencing one another.

I also appreciated Wong’s point that cultural heritage can act as a bridge for national unity. When people see their languages, celebrations, food traditions and places of worship respected and protected, it deepens mutual understanding and strengthens the sense that these shared histories matter.

There is also the wider international dimension. Some of these intangible heritage elements could eventually be nominated for UNESCO recognition, allowing Penang’s cultural treasures to gain wider appreciation on the global stage. More importantly, formal recognition helps establish and protect historical and cultural ownership more clearly at a time when regional food cultures are increasingly commercialised and occasionally appropriated by neighbouring countries as part of their own national identity. Penang, perhaps more than most places, has reason to be sensitive about such matters.

In the end, preserving heritage is not about being possessive. It is about acknowledging origins, respecting authenticity and ensuring that future generations still know where these traditions came from and why they mattered.

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The full list of Penang's heritage food items gazetted by the Penang government: char koay kak, kerabu bihun, hokkien mee, mee jawa, mee sotong, mee udang, nasi kandar, roti benggali, pasembor, oh chien, air batu campur (ABC), ais kepal, chapati, chendol, char koay teow, kari kapitan, keema, asam laksa, martabak, masalodeh, mee goreng mamak, muruku, penderam, putu mayam, roti chanai, teh tarik, tosai and yong tau foo.

Fast delivery

I continue to be impressed by iHerb’s delivery service. Perhaps it is because customers are obliged to pay a slightly higher fee to use their recommended courier companies for international deliveries, but whatever the reason, the system seems to work remarkably well.

When I made my latest purchase on the 20th of May, I became a little uneasy after not receiving any shipment notification until the 23rd. Three days for iHerb to pack the items and prepare them for dispatch! In the past, I had noticed that orders were usually processed by the next business day, so this delay caught my attention. Since I was due to go out of town on Friday, I started wondering whether the package would arrive in time.

But the moment the parcel was picked up by the courier company, everything moved at great speed. Tracking updates began appearing smoothly as the package travelled from one transit point to another, and yesterday the delivery truck finally arrived at my doorstep. From courier pick-up to final delivery, the whole journey took only five days.

That, more than anything else, probably explains why I continue to regard iHerb’s delivery system rather highly.

Gladstone Road

Gladstone Road was one of the roads that disappeared during the massive urban redevelopment that created KOMTAR in the 1970s and early 1980s. The road once ran straight from the Magazine Circus towards Carnarvon Circus, cutting across an area that later became part of the KOMTAR complex.

The road was named after William Ewart Gladstone, the famous British Liberal politician who served four terms as Prime Minister of Britain between 1868 and 1894. He was one of the dominant political figures of Victorian Britain and was known for administrative reforms and parliamentary politics.

Historically, Gladstone Road emerged during the period when George Town was expanding southwards beyond the old Prangin Canal in the late 19th century. At that time, the areas across the canal were gradually transformed from attap-house settlements into rows of brick shop houses and more organised urban streets.

A 1914 map of George Town

Gladstone Road was also associated with Penang’s old tram system. In the early decades of the 20th century, tram tracks ran through this part of George Town and older Chin
ese residents even referred to parts of the area as Hoay Chiah Lor in Penang Hokkien. Penang once had one of the earliest tram systems in Malaya. The lines connected Weld Quay in George Town with areas such as Ayer Itam and the Waterfall Gardens, intersecting at what would later become Goh Par Teng or the Magazine Circus in the busy commercial heart of town. 

1969 - one of the last times that Gladstone Road
appeared on a map of George Town

By the mid-20th century, Gladstone Road had become part of the busy commercial and transport district around Prangin Road, Penang Road and Magazine Circus. Older Penangites would remember the area for its shops, businesses and proximity to the old Prangin Road bus terminal. I remember eating at a compact open-air hawker centre right smack where Gladstone Road and Magazine Road converged at the Magazine Circus.

Then came the KOMTAR redevelopment project in the 1970s. The plans might have been futuristic, looking forward to modernising George Town for the future, the next 50 to a hundred years, but large sections of the old neighbourhood around Prangin had to make way for this ambitious urban renewal plan. Gladstone Road was effectively erased from the map during this redevelopment, along with Carnarvon Circus and many adjoining pre-war buildings.

George Town paid a very heavy price for this modernisation drive. To make way for KOMTAR, hundreds of old buildings disappeared. Historical records mention that 769 homes, 304 shops, four cinemas, three schools, an amusement park, even a fire station and post office were demolished. Because the project was planted directly in the heart of George Town, entire streetscapes and long-familiar landmarks vanished almost overnight.

Today, no trace of Gladstone Road survives except for maps like these. Its disappearance is part of a much larger story involving the transformation of old George Town during the KOMTAR era, when entire streetscapes, canals, bus terminals and neighbourhoods gave way to modern concrete redevelopment. For many older Penangites, roads like Gladstone Road survive mainly through memory rather than geography.

Pirated discovery

Over the years, I’ve accumulated what many people would probably describe as a fairly decent record collection. Once in a while, someone would look at the shelves and immediately call me a record collector. I understand why, but somehow I’ve never been comfortable with that label.

The term record collector often gives the impression of someone chasing rarity for the sake of ownership. First pressings sealed in plastic, catalogue numbers carefully ticked off, records stored away more as trophies than as music. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but that has never really been my relationship with records. I own records because I want to listen to them.

Some albums I return to repeatedly. Others may sit quietly for months before suddenly matching a certain mood or memory. For me, the enjoyment comes not just from possessing the LP but from cleaning the surfaces, lowering the stylus onto the groove, hearing the slight pops and crackles before the music begins, and allowing the sound to fill my listening space. The records are tied to moments in life, to particular periods of youth, to old discoveries and rediscoveries.

So I suppose music enthusiast would describe me better than record collector. The records themselves are only part of the story. The real connection is with the music, the voices, the performances, and sometimes even the memories attached to them.

And speaking of records, I must admit that among my shelves are also a small number of pirate LPs from the 1960s and 1970s. In those days, pirated records were everywhere, mainly sold in the pasar malam. Sometimes, I'd see them stacked in a quiet corner of non-descript record shops, not displayed openly. These shop owners had a knack of recognising prospective customers, or maybe their regular clientele. Anyway, music copyright enforcement was practically non-existent in those days and for many ordinary listeners pirate record purchases were often the only affordable way to hear certain albums. Interestingly enough, some of those pirate pressings actually sounded surprisingly good.

Among my pirate LP collection is a copy of Frances Yip’s Discovery, recently acquired from my cousin. It simply turned up among a batch of old LPs he gave me, and I only realised what it was when I started going through the stack at home. I was in two minds whether to play it or not. How would the sound quality be? How close would it be to the original pressing? Would it be worth keeping? In the end, there was only one way to find out.

The original album, Discovery, was released in the early 1970s and tied to her work with Cathay Pacific at the time. It was conceived almost like a musical travel record, moving across different Asian countries through song. In its official form, it was very much a product of that era when Asian pop was beginning to find its own identity while still drawing heavily from traditional melodies and Western arrangements.

But as I mentioned earlier, my copy is a pirate pressing. Like many of those records from the 1960s and 1970s, it carries its own story. The cover is slightly off in colour and the printing not quite sharp. Where the EMI label would have been, there is instead a rather nondescript catalogue marking. Still, the sound itself is surprisingly decent. That alone says something about how these unofficial pressings were not always crude copies. Some were made with enough care that the music survived quite well.

The content itself is what makes the album interesting. It moves through a series of songs representing different parts of Asia, from Arirang in Korea to Bengawan Solo in Indonesia, from Dahil Sa Iyo in the Philippines to Rasa Sayang Eh much closer to home. There is a clear travel narrative running through the record, as though each track is a postcard from a different place. Frances Yip’s voice sits neatly above these arrangements, smooth and unforced, carrying that slightly cosmopolitan tone she was known for in the 1970s.

There is something ironic about a record designed as a kind of official musical tour of Asia ending up reproduced unofficially and circulating through markets and second-hand shops across the region. But that, in a way, was also part of the musical landscape then. Music travelled in many forms, not all of them official, and listeners simply followed wherever it arrived.

It is an album that reflects a particular moment in time when Asian pop was still forming its identity, when travel and cultural exchange were beginning to shape popular music, and when even pirate records became part of how that music was heard and remembered.

Pagar Tras

In February last year, I had attended a workshop on the history and heritage of Pagar Tras organised by the Centre for Global Archaeological Research at Universiti Sains Malaysia. As part of the programme, the participants were taken on a field trip to visit the ruins of the abandoned Sacred Heart Catholic Church, once a spiritual centre of the old Pagar Tras community, as well as the Catholic church in Kulim where many of the salvaged artefacts eventually found a new home.

I still remember walking through the remains of the old church site. There was a quietness about the place that photographs alone could never quite capture. One could sense that this had once been a living community with its own rhythms, prayers and gatherings.

Fast forward to the present, and about a week ago I received a message from USM informing me that my copy of History and Heritage of Pagar Tras was ready for collection. Naturally, I wasted little time getting hold of it. After reading through the book over several sittings, I came away impressed by the amount of information packed into its 124 pages.

Written by Stephen Chia, Francis Chen and Clement Liang, the book pieces together the story of Pagar Tras. It traces how French missionaries arrived in the 19th century to spread Catholicism among the local Chinese community, and how the Sacred Heart Church gradually became the focal point of village life.

The story also reflects the upheavals that shaped Malaya during the mid-20th century. Following the Japanese Occupation and later during the Malayan Emergency, the Pagar Tras community was forcibly relocated to the new villages on the mainland. Once the villagers left, the old church was effectively abandoned, and nature slowly reclaimed the site.

Reading the book brought back memories of that field trip last year. What at first ap
peared to be little more than old ruins in the jungle gradually took on a deeper meaning. Behind the broken walls and silence was the story of an uprooted community and a forgotten chapter of local history that could easily have disappeared altogether if nobody bothers to document it.

Open distrust

There was something almost surreal about the recent reports coming out of Beijing during Donald Trump’s visit to China. According to multiple accounts, members of the American delegation were openly seen throwing away everything given to them by their Chinese hosts before boarding Air Force One to go back to the United States. Gifts, badges, souvenir pins, invitation cards and even temporary burner phones were reportedly dumped into bins near the aircraft stairs in full public view.

It sounded less like diplomacy and more like a scene from a Cold War spy thriller. Apparently the instruction was that absolutely nothing originating from China was to be brought onto the aircraft because of cybersecurity and surveillance fears. American intelligence agencies have long suspected that electronic devices, souvenirs or even ordinary-looking items could potentially be used for tracking or data collection. So the delegation travelled with temporary phones, avoided personal electronics and discarded everything afterwards.

I suppose none of this is surprising. Great powers have always spied on one another. Trump himself more or less admitted it when he casually remarked that America spies on China too. That was probably the most honest thing said during the whole visit.

Still, there was something symbolic about the public nature of the disposal. Diplomatic visits are normally wrapped in smiles, handshakes and carefully staged photographs. Mistrust may exist behind the scenes, but both sides usually try to keep appearances intact. This time, however, the distrust became visible for everyone to see. One moment there were banquets and ceremonial greetings. The next moment, gifts were being tossed into bins before boarding the plane home.

I wonder how the Chinese hosts must have felt watching that happen. Publicly, they remained polite and restrained, calling the visit historic and avoiding any official protest. But I suspect the message was fully understood. At the same time, China itself would probably do the same too, but perhaps with more discretion. The modern world has become deeply suspicious beneath all its diplomatic language. Nations trade with one another, smile for cameras and speak of cooperation, yet quietly assume they are also being watched, monitored and hacked.

Maybe that is the real story here. The world’s two biggest powers can sit across the same table smiling warmly while trusting each other so little. In another era, such behaviour might have caused outrage. Today, many people simply shrugged and said: of course they did. A reflection, perhaps, of the times we live in.

Quiet tragedy

So there I was with this Bakat TV 1971 record in my hand. Until that first moment when I placed the record on the turntable, I was mainly interested in listening only to Bryan Jeremiah sing Love Knot in My Lariat and Rajadin Wan Mat's My Funny Valentine, two songs which had impressed me those 55 years ago. But when the stylus reached the fourth track on Side Two, I stopped in my tracks. Hearing Feather in My Pocket today was like hearing it for the very first time in 1971. Michael Tan’s lone voice, accompanied by his guitar, carried a plaintive honesty that cut through everything else on the album.

The song was quiet. Just a voice and a guitar, nothing more. The stark simplicity allowed the words to stand on their own. Nothing to hide behind, no orchestral sweep to distract the listener. It sounded like someone thinking aloud, perhaps while travelling, perhaps in a moment of solitude.

There's this image of the feather in the pocket. It felt like a small reminder of home or direction. Even when the lyrics spoke of not knowing when home would come, there was still that feather to be carried along for comfort. Hope tucked away in a pocket.

The folk imagery, though not something we grew up with locally, reinforced the mood of the song. Malaysia does not experience the four seasons, so references to autumn skies, white winters and fields of wheat turning brown felt slightly out of place to us. Still, the pictures suggested movement and transition, a sense of time passing and life changing. There was weariness in the line about concrete stretching endlessly. The overall tone remained reflective and gently wistful.

Then there was the solo guitar being finger-picked. Clarity in every note. Everything felt intimate, like a private living room performance that gave the song space to breathe and leaving the listener with a thoughtful silence at the end.

And who was this 20-year-old Michael Tan? Not only was he a talented performer from the Bakat TV stage, but also a University of Malaya graduate in English, He hailed from Malacca and had honed his singing and guitar skills while still at the Malacca High School. After the loss of both parents, grief weighed heavily on him. He struggled to cope and eventually turned to substance abuse, a path that led to a tragic and untimely end at 41. 

Knowing all that inevitably changed how I heard the song. The themes of wandering, distance and longing...all felt more appreciated. The feather in the pocket seemed less like a poetic device and more like a quiet emblem of someone searching for steadiness in a life that later became unsettled. It was a gentle song, but it now felt like part of a larger story. One of promise, talent and eventual loss. In the end, it is hard not to see it as a quiet tragedy.

Bakat TV 1971

During my recent slow stretch away from the blog, I found myself revisiting something from the early 1970s that came back to me quite unexpectedly: the Bakat TV 1971 talent show. What made it more meaningful was that I had actually watched the programme when it was telecast live. I was in Lower Six at the time, and I still remember how the next day Bakat TV became the talking point in the whole school. Everyone had something to say about the performances. It left quite an impression on me, even then.

So I was genuinely surprised to find this record recently among a stack given to me by one of my cousins from Petaling Jaya. It was not something I was actively searching for, but there it was, and it was very much welcomed. Thanks, Eng Chye! In fact, I had noticed in the past that a second-hand vendor in KOMTAR was selling the same record at what I thought was a rather exorbitant price. At the time, I had simply looked at it and moved on. Now, having a copy in my own hands felt different.

The album was produced by Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM). Bakat TV itself was one of those early televised talent competitions designed to discover new performers across the country, long before the era of modern talent shows. In those days, television felt more communal. When a programme aired live, the whole country seemed to be watching together.

The 1971 record captured finalists and selected performers, backed by the RTM Orchestra under Johari Salleh. It was quite something to think that a national broadcaster made the effort to preserve a talent show in this way. There was a seriousness about culture and broadcasting then, and perhaps a sense that these moments deserved to be documented properly.

Playing the record brought back good memories of my Lower Six days almost immediately. I could picture classmates discussing the performances and debating the results the next morning in school. In those days, a programme like Bakat TV could become the talk of the whole school overnight. Some of the names on the album went on to establish themselves in Malaysian entertainment, and hearing those early recordings again felt like stepping briefly back into that period of youth.

Bakat TV 1971 was more than just another record. It captured a time when television, live performance and recorded music came together. Finding the record unexpectedly among a stack of old LPs made the rediscovery even more meaningful.

Second coming

During those 10 days away from the blog, I also noticed something else at home. The Tacoma tree outside the house had flowered again, and this time it seemed even more enthusiastic than before. 

I had already thought that this year’s earlier peak in early March was unusually generous, but there appears to have been a second coming.

Earlier this month, I saw the tree covered in flowers, almost like a canopy overhead. Then after a heavy downpour on the night of the sixth of May, I woke up to find the drain outlet completely choked with fallen blossoms. No doubt it was a colourful sight, but it was not very practical for drainage.

Still, as I have mentioned more than once, I do not really mind the sweeping. When I look at the bigger picture, the tree gives me something far more valuable in the afternoons: cool shade and a quiet patch of comfort. A little extra sweeping seems a fair exchange.

Scam calls

There are times when I become a little lazy and disconnect myself from the rest of the world. This happened to be one of those times. Almost 10 days without updating my blog. But actually, there's another way to look at it. It's time well spent away from the computer to do other stuff. So much so that it becomes a chore to eventually get back into the everyday grind.

I was jolted back into the present by a series of calls on my mobile phone a few days ago. The first came in at 11.55am, and an installed app flagged it as an unknown number. I glanced at the screen, saw that it carried a +65 country code from Singapore, and let it ring until it disconnected automatically. Hardly a second later, another unknown call came through, also with a +65 code. Then a third and a fourth, in quick succession. As if that wasn’t enough, immediately the next two were shown as calls from Kazakhstan. Of course, none of them were answered. I simply let each one time out. And finally, about an hour later, a seventh call appeared, once again from a Singapore number.

It didn’t take much thinking to realise that this was probably nothing more than a burst of computer-generated spam calls. The pattern was too clinical. When calls arrive so quickly one after another from different country codes, it usually suggests some automated system at work, which no human can replicate: random dialling, number spoofing or machines simply testing which numbers are active. In today’s world, our phones seem to attract attention the way an open window attracts burglars. Once a number is identified as live, it can find its way into other lists. If no one answers, the system just moves on and tries again later. That might explain why the last Singapore call came after some time. 

There is also a small caution I’ve come to keep in mind over the years. Answering unknown calls is not always harmless. In some cases, the other end may not just be a person, but an automated system recording voices, responses, even simple “hello” confirmations. These recordings can sometimes be used to feed further spam systems or to create patterns that mark a number as active and responsive. It may sound a bit far-fetched, but in the world of persistent spam and scam operations, even minimal interaction can sometimes be enough to invite more of the same.

As for my response, I don’t think I was wrong. There was no message, no familiar name, no reason to engage. Letting the calls ring out felt like the most sensible thing to do. In fact, answering might have been the bigger mistake, since it would have confirmed that the number was active. Sometimes silence is the best form of defence. There is no obligation to pick up every call that appears on the screen.

The lesson here is probably a simple one. Unknown international calls that arrive in clusters deserve caution, not panic. Let them ring. If it is genuine, the caller will leave a voicemail or try another channel. If not, the system will eventually move on.

So the episode served as a small reminder that even in my moments of quiet withdrawal from the world, the world has a way of tapping on my shoulder. One can choose whether to answer or ignore. And this time, I was quite happy to let it ring.

UPDATE: After I posted this on facebook, someone in Singapore happened to see it and took the trouble to report the numbers to the relevant authorities there as suspected scam calls. That was unexpected, but very much appreciated. It is reassuring to know that people do still take these things seriously and are willing to act on them, even when they are not directly affected. For that, I am quite thankful.

Rail memories

I came across two old photographs of the Butterworth railway station platform that were taken before the railway service was upgraded and electrified. They had that slightly lazy, unhurried look and I found myself lingering over them longer than I expected. It brought back some vivid memories of the nights when I used to catch the train from that very platform.

In the 1970s when I was still living on the island and needed to travel to-and-from Kuala Lumpur, this was part of the routine. I would buy my ticket earlier from Howe Cheang Dispensary along Penang Road, then made my way across by ferry to Butterworth. From the terminal, it was a short walk to the station, perhaps a hundred metres or so, where rail passengers would wait for the collapsible grille gate to open. A railway staff member would check the tickets and let us through.

Train services were sparse in those days. From what I remember, there were maybe two, at most three, a day: a morning train, a night train and occasionally a railbus service in the afternoon. Because there were so few services, the morning and night trains were long, easily 15 or 20 carriages by my estimation, and pulled by a diesel engine. Walking from one end to the other could feel like a journey in itself.

Travel was not quite as convenient as it is now. Luggage didn’t come with wheels, so every bag was carried by hand, often over quite a distance just to find the coach. The night mail offered second-class sleeping berths, but third-class passengers had to make do with upright seats. These were unnumbered, taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets were often oversold, and during the run-up to national holidays, it could turn into a scramble. Those who were late, or simply unlucky, ended up sitting or trying to sleep along the passageways, or at the space, called vestibules, I believe, at either end of the carriage, right by the open exits.

Between 1973 and 1976, when I was studying in Kuala Lumpur, these journeys became a regular part of life. I still remember one trip just before Chinese New Year when I had no choice but to settle into the vestibule. As it turned out, I was sharing that cramped space with a woman who, to my surprise, was also an Old Free but a year my junior. We struck up a conversation, and what could have been a long, uncomfortable 10-hour ride passed rather more easily than expected.

Every now and then, I would opt for something different: the newspaper vans. In those days, freshly printed newspapers from Kuala Lumpur were sent north and south overnight in vans, and for a small fee, anyone could hitch a ride. We would gather at a designated spot in the city, usually around two o'clock in the morning and waited for the vans to arrive. There would be a few others like me, and we would climb into the back, settling ourselves on stacks of newspapers.

The vans would head north, stopping along the way to drop off bundles, each stop briefly interrupting whatever sleep we managed. Looking back, it sounded rather precarious, but at the time, none of that mattered or even crossed our minds. There were no worries about accidents, no thoughts about insurance or safety. It was simply a cheaper way to travel, and more than that, it felt like an adventure. Those, indeed, were the days....

ADDENDUM: How can I leave these rail memories without mentioning one other thing that shaped those journeys? The single track. Before electrification, there was only one line running north to south, shared by everything, passenger trains and goods trains alike. It meant that timing was never entirely in our own hands.

The Ipoh railway station was the key point. That was where the northbound and southbound trains had to meet and pass. Although Ipoh sat roughly halfway between Butterworth and Kuala Lumpur, the stretch southwards was actually longer, so the train from Butterworth would almost always be the one waiting. And waiting it did. Delays were part of the system, and it wasn’t unusual to be at the Ipoh station for an hour or more while everyone waited for the other train to arrive.

On a journey that already took close to nine hours, that stop could feel longer than it really was, especially at night if sleep didn’t come easily. You lay there in the second-class berth, half-aware of the stillness, wondering what time you would finally reach Kuala Lumpur, or back in Butterworth. If it was the return journey, there was always that worry at the back of the mind whether I’d make it home at a reasonable hour, perhaps even catch the family by surprise. There was a certain kind of boredom in that semi-darkness. And just when the mind had drifted far enough for sleep to take over, there would sometimes be that sudden, unmistakable jerk of the carriage, the whistle unheard, as the train eased back into motion. But more often, it was quiet and smooth, the movement returning almost unnoticed, and it was the unsteady rhythm of the carriage, the soft clacking of wheels on the rails, that told me the journey had resumed.

It was a long chain of small uncertainties, and yet that was simply how travel was in those days. Looking back now, what I remember most is that mixture of anxiety and anticipation, the slow approach towards home after being away for weeks or months, and the sense that every delay, every pause along the way, only made the arrival feel that much more satisfying.

Story of a tyrant

I’ve noticed over the years that films critics dismiss can sometimes be received quite differently by ordinary audiences. That thought came to mind after I finished Michael, the latest biopic that’s been drawing audiences worldwide. It hasn't exactly been warmly received by critics who think they know best, but I found the film engaging, not least because of the music. At the same time, what lingered most wasn’t just the songs or the spectacle, but the shadow of a father hanging over the entire story.

A big part of why the film worked was Jaafar Jackson. Playing his uncle, Michael Jackson, couldn’t have been easy, but he carried it off with real conviction. It was not just the look or the voice, it was the movement. The moonwalk, the toe balancing, the whole physical language was there. But what made it more than imitation was the way he showed Michael reacting to pressure, especially from his father.

That brings me to Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson. The film leant into the idea of Joe as a tyrannical figure, someone who governed through fear, control and an unyielding belief that greatness must be forced into existence. Domingo played him with a tight, contained menace, and I can well believe he’ll be in the running for Best Supporting Actor when awards season comes around.

What gave the film its backbone was that relationship. Everything seemed to flow from it. Joe drove the boys relentlessly, convinced he was pulling them out of a life that would otherwise swallow them. And in a way, he was right. But the cost was written all over Michael. The film kept returning to that tension, not in big dramatic bursts but in small moments. A look, a hesitation, a silence. Even at the height of his fame, Michael was still trying to step out from under his father’s grip. When Michael finally began to assert himself, it didn’t feel like triumph so much as release. Even then, his father's shadow did not quite disappear immediately. It was a slow and uneasy separation.

Around that central thread, the film played the hits, and they did their job. The familiar songs lifted the energy whenever they came in, and like that other big biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, this was something that would really benefit from being heard on a big screen. The sound fills the space in a way that a smaller setup just can’t quite match.

But there were gaps. The other Jackson siblings, especially the sisters, felt pushed into the background. And the film noticeably sidestepped the more troubling controversies that followed Michael later in life. I could feel a certain smoothing over, a decision to keep the story within safer boundaries.

Even so, taken on its own terms, I found it more absorbing than I expected. It may not tell the whole story, but it told one part of it clearly enough: the making of a superstar under the hand of a father who believed that love meant control, and that success justified the cost. And by the end, that’s the part that lingered.

Asian chess players

I suppose I wasn’t the only one who felt energised when Javokhir Sindarov emerged as the Challenger for this year’s world championship match. It will be one match worth following, once FIDE finally gets around to confirming the dates and venue for Gukesh vs Sindarov.

In the meantime, FIDE has put out its May 2026 rating list. They do this at the start of every month, and I still find myself checking it out of habit just to see how things have shifted. Of course, for the top players, the real movement happens on the live rating list during tournaments, where every game nudges the numbers up or down almost immediately. On the other hand, the monthly list is more like a snapshot, something a bit more static.

Out of curiosity, I pulled out the top 20 and put them into a table. FIDE keeps things pretty bare, just the essentials. But I added an extra column of my own, noting down what I could about each player’s background. Nothing official, just something I thought might be interesting to look at.

What struck me, more than I expected, was the pattern that emerged. Thirteen out of the 20, that's 65 percent, have at least one parent of Asian background. Some represent Asian chess federations, others don’t, but the roots are there. Undeniably there. It’s not something that jumps out when looking at a standard rating list, but once I saw it, I couldn’t quite unsee it.

Maybe it doesn’t change anything in a practical sense. Games are still decided over the board, and playing strength is what matters. But I do find myself looking at the list a little differently now. Not just as a ranking of players, but as a reflection of how wide the game has spread at the top. Europe used to be the centre of chess, but Asia has more or less caught up, and this list seems to say exactly that.

The girl from Ipanema

Every now and then I come across a significant album that I need to talk about. Getz/Gilberto is one of those. I’ve known it for years but coming back to it recently, I found myself wondering about how it came together. Before this album came out, Stan Getz was already circling around the Jazz Samba sound, thanks to Charlie Byrd who had brought back records from Brazil. So when Getz finally got together in the studio  with João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim in 1963, it wasn’t just another session. João’s guitar had that soft, almost stuttering pulse that didn’t push. Jobim’s writing held everything together without drawing attention to itself. And Getz was somehow finding a way to fit in.

The whole situation was quite funny in a way. Getz and João didn’t speak the same language and Jobim had to translate, not just words but intentions. João, from what I’ve read, was particular about everything: the phrasing, the space, the balance. Getz came from a different world altogether. And yet when I listen to the album, none of that friction really showed. If anything, it felt as though everyone was holding back just enough to let the music breathe.

Then there’s Astrud Gilberto. I’ve heard The Girl from Ipanema more times than I can count, but it still reverberated every time I hear it again. There’s nothing showy about her voice. It was almost hesitant, as if she was feeling her way through the song. And knowing she wasn’t even meant to be the singer, that she just stepped in because she could handle the English lyrics, made it all the more remarkable. That slightly detached, untrained sound was exactly what the song needed. 

I also find myself thinking about the small decisions that shaped the record. The producer trimmed João’s Portuguese vocal for the 45-inch single and pushed Astrud’s lines forward. From a listener’s point of view, it worked. From João’s, probably less so. He wasn’t entirely happy with how things were handled, and in the background, things between him and Astrud weren’t exactly steady either. But that’s the nature of the music industry. What we hear is often the result of compromise.

Sonically, the album still holds up today. It doesn’t sound dated. If anything, it sounds cleaner than a lot of what came after. Very little reverb, everything close and direct. On the early stereo pressings, the separation was wide with sax on one side and guitar and voice on the other. It gave the music space. 

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to either the record or the compact disc. There’s this sense of restraint running through the whole album, nobody trying to dominate, nobody in a hurry. The music just unfolding at its own pace. I don’t think the people in that studio fully knew what they had at the time. These things are usually clearer in hindsight. But listening to it now, with all the stories behind it, this was one of those moments where everything lined up just right.

I also have this compact disc, Getz/Gilberto #2, recorded live at Carnegie Hall on 9 October 1964. This should have been a perfect concert with Stan Getz and João Gilberto riding high after Getz/Gilberto, and appearing together at Carnegie Hall with Astrud Gilberto who was now a star. But the occasion was anything but perfect. 

First, Getz came on with his quartet filling the hall confidently with his music. Then João followed, and the whole mood shifted. Just his voice and guitar, sounding soft and almost fragile. A complete contrast. A concert in two acts. It felt like they were not really sharing the same evening. The more I listened, the more I noticed the tension. João’s idea of bossa nova was always about restraint. Getz played with more presence. Side by side, the contrast was sharp.

I’ve read about the arguments over sound during rehearsals, João wanting the drums muffled while Getz wanting something that would carry in a hall that size. Listening now, I can almost hear that disagreement in the music itself. Even when they finally come together at the end, it felt more like an obligation to the audience than a natural meeting between collaborators. 

And then there’s Astrud, somewhere in the middle of all this. By then she wasn’t just the accidental singer anymore. She was part of the sound and part of the connection between the two men. Not long after that concert, João and Astrud divorced. Once she was gone, it was hard to imagine how the two men could have kept going in any meaningful way. And when I go back to that Carnegie Hall album now, it felt less like a reunion and more like the last time all the three pieces were still in the same room, even if they were already pulling apart.

Xuanzang's Silk Road journey

Re-reading Sally Hovey Wriggin's The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang after coming back from Nepal and India last November felt a bit different for me. It just wasn't history anymore. Some of the places mentioned in the book had already been treaded by my feet.

The journey of Xuanzang is usually told as something vast and almost unreal. Sixteen years of deserts, mountains, bandits, kings and monasteries. But when I’ve been to places like Lumbini or walked through the ruins of Nalanda University, the story shrinks a little not in importance, but in distance. I start to see that this wasn’t some abstract pilgrimage. It happened on real ground, the same ground that I’ve just been on.

Wriggins made a good job of making that connection. She took Xuanzang’s old records and lined them up with the modern map, so I could follow him step by step. And when he moved through Kapilavastu into Lumbini, it suddenly felt familiar. When I was there, the place had this quiet serenity about it. Xuanzang saw something similar, though in his time many monasteries were already in decline, half-abandoned and fading. 

From Lumbini, he went on to the other key sites, places that now formed the standard Buddhist circuit. Sarnath, Nalanda and eventually Bodh Gaya. When I visited Nalanda, what struck me was the scale of the ruins. I had walked along those long brick foundations and tried to imagine thousands of monks living and studying there. Xuanzang didn’t have to imagine it. He saw it at its peak, with thousands of scholars in residence, studying everything from logic to language to philosophy. 

What I also realised after my trip, was how observant he was. He wasn’t just ticking off holy sites. He was noticing details, how many monasteries were active, how many were abandoned, what people believed, how they lived. Even his route through what is now southern Nepal, into northern India, matched quite closely with what we now called the Buddhist pilgrimage trail. He wasn’t following a travel guidebook. In a way, he was writing the first one.

And then there’s Nalanda again, which kept coming back as the centre theme of his story. Not just a stop, but a place where he stayed, studied, argued and learned. We can stand there today among the ruins and still get a faint sense of that intellectual energy. It’s not hard to imagine why he remained there for years, working and going deep into the texts he had come all that way to find.

What I found myself thinking, re-reading Wriggins after the trip, was how much of Xuanzang’s journey was about persistence. The distances were one thing but even at the key sites, he was often arriving at places already in decline, trying to piece together what remained. It was not so different from what we saw today. The stones are still there, the outlines are still there, but I have to do a bit of work to imagine the rest.

By the time he made it back to China with his load of texts, the journey had already done its real work. Not just collecting manuscripts, but connecting places, ideas, traditions. Reading about it after having been to some of those places myself, it no longer felt like a distant legend. Everything felt real and almost within reach.

And that, I think, is what Wriggins got right. She brought Xuanzang down from the pedestal a bit, not to diminish him, but to place him back on the road. The same road that still runs through Lumbini, Nalanda, Bodh Gaya and the rest.

To read about my experience on the Buddhist trail last year, click here.

Long meeting

It’s been a long time since I sat through a proper long-winded annual general meeting. The last one I can remember was sometime in the 1990s when one of The Old Frees' Association AGMs dragged right through lunch and only wrapped up around 3pm. That one started at 10 in the morning and felt like a marathon back then. Yesterday’s made that look almost brisk.

The OFA AGM started more or less on time, but by the time I got up and left at 4.15pm, it was still going. The main reason, of course, was the elections. This year wasn’t the usual quiet affair. There was a serious, organised challenge for nine of the 11 Management Committee seats. The challengers called themselves the Fidelis Team, and they didn’t just turn up, they came ready to contest.

More than that, they managed to stir something. Members turned up in numbers that were not often seen. The newly renovated multi-purpose hall was packed, 238 voting members, which must be close to a record. Could feel the energy in the room, though it wasn’t always clear which way it was leaning. Questions came thick and fast, some of them quite uncomfortable, and the committee had to work hard for their answers. At certain points, I genuinely couldn’t tell whether the floor was swinging towards the incumbents or the challengers.

Running alongside all this was another flashpoint. The management committee had tabled five resolutions to amend the OFA Constitution or introduce a new project, one of them calling for the establishment of a private English school. They sounded straight-forward on paper, but on the day, it didn’t quite square with the members. Four of the resolutions were either withdrawn by the committee or firmly rejected by the floor. The one that did go to a vote couldn’t clear the two-thirds majority required, so that fell through as well. In the end, all five went nowhere, which probably added to the sense that the meeting was pulling in different directions at once.

When time came to vote for the new management committee, things slowed to a crawl. Ballot papers didn’t just get handed out, either the members' names or membership numbers, or both, were called out one by one. This process took ages. People milled around, chatted, drifted in and out. Lunch came and went, and counting started somewhere else in the building while we waited.

After the break, the hall was noticeably thinner. Maybe a quarter of the members came back, and even then, people gradually slipped away when it became obvious the results weren’t coming anytime soon. Word filtered back that the voting was extremely close; close enough to require recounts to keep both sides satisfied.

By then, I’d had enough. Six hours had passed since the chairman called the meeting to order, and it didn’t feel like the end was anywhere in sight. At 4.15pm, I joined the silent, trickling stream heading for the exit. It was long enough for me. More than long enough, actually.

And now that the election results are finally known, there’s not much point dwelling on who backed which side. It was clearly a close contest, and the turnout showed that members do care about where the OFA is heading. That’s a good thing.

What matters now is what happens next. Both sides need to close ranks and get on with the job. Many of the issues raised during the meeting aren’t going away, and neither are the expectations that came with such a strong turnout. If anything, the pressure is now on the new committee to show they can work together, settle the noise, and make steady, practical progress. No grand gestures needed. Just get the job done properly.

UPDATE: Oops, in my haste I forgot to mention the results. Alex Tan Hee Aik retained his President's position by beating Lim Wee Seong by a healthy margin which means to say that the members weren't totally convinced about the changes he proposed to make to the OFA. Daniel Ho also retained his Vice-President's position ahead of Allen Choong. However, Shannon Ong lost out to Ananth a/l Balakrishnan for the other Vice-President's post. The new Secretary is Low Han Boon who deposed Henry Ooi, Darvind a/l Kalimuthu beat Ivan Teoh to retain the Treasurer's position, Louis Loo is the new Indoor Games Chairman, Sharil bin Abdul Shukor the new Communications Chairman, Jarrod Yeoh the new Social Activities Chairman and Andrew Tan the new Membership* Chairman. Lukkman Hakim and Ezuan Ghazali sailed through unopposed as the Sports Chairman and Library Chairman** respectively. 

Now that the dust has settled and I see that the new management committee comprises people from both teams, my wish is for all of them to close ranks and work together for The Old Frees' Association. At the end of the day, we are one family. In this respect, I shall want to borrow the motto of the World Chess Federation to emphasise this: Gens Una Summus.

* Membership, Human Resource Development and Safety & Security
** Library, Archives and OFA Sesquicentenary Education Fund