Around Dittisham

A pictorial story of our three days in Dittisham. 

The four of us had travelled to Dittisham by car, a journey which took four hours on the highway from London before turning off at Totnes and continuing along narrow roads to our destination. Left to right, See Liang Teik, myself, Saw See and Allen Choong.

Here's where we stayed, at the Red Lion Inn, a bed and breakfast establishment which served as a grocery shop, post office and everything else you may think of.

 Breath-taking view of the River Dart in the distance from the Red Lion Inn. The car park is directly below.

 And this is the view from our bedroom, overlooking several noticeboards, including one from the Dittisham FC.

 The River Dart very late in the afternoon.

 That's how narrow most of the roads are in Dittisham. This one, directly outside the Red Lion Inn, sports a hairpin bend.

The St George's Church went well out of the way to welcome us Old Frees to their village.

The tower of the St George's Church, which we were lucky enough to ascend later.

Who would have thought that behind the church wall would be the cemetery? Who would have thought that we would be living practically next to a cemetery? Brrr.....

 The playing field of the local Dittisham Football Club.

Our morning walk took us past several beautiful cottages and houses.

The pub at the Red Lion Inn.

 Breakfast fare

After breakfast, we suddenly discovered that someone had raised the England flag on top the church tower. It wasn't there when we went for our walk earlier.

Down this road we would go for lunch at the Anchor Stone Cafe which was right beside the River Dart.

Fancy owning a house in rural Dittisham? It's only a cool STG500,000.

The original Sesquicentenary boys

I was having dinner with friends last night in Bayan Baru. Fifty years ago, we were young lads entering Penang Free School in her Sesquicentenary year. Form One, in classes 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e and 1f. Fifty years later, we are still fortunate enough to be together to celebrate the Alma Mater's Bicentenary. My batch of mates are truly the original Sesquicentenary boys.

 Left to right: Sanan, Chye Chye, Oon Hup, Andrew, myself, Michael, Jim and Boon Hoe enjoying our dinner at Kum Kei Restaurant

Left to right: Oon Hup (standing), Sanan, Michael (standing), myself, Boon Hoe and his wife, Andrew, Hang Yoke, Jim (standing), Chye Chye and Jalil having some drinks at Something Else bistro and pub.

Mother of all reunions

Despite the rainy weather, I can feel the temperature rise as the 21st of October, 2016 approaches. This is the day of the Bicentenary, the 200th anniversary of Penang Free School, the day Old Frees are looking forward to the reunions that are going to take place on the school field in the evening.

This Bicentenary dinner is going to be BIG. It's going to be the Mother of all Reunions. No matter what year you were from during your schooldays at Free School, this anniversary dinner will be the Reunion of reunions and get-togethers. Many Old Frees from around the world are making it a point to return home for this special occasion.

The Mother of all Reunions will be a reunion that will be difficult to beat. Until, perhaps, in 50 years' time. But for now, this is the ultimate reunion. You have to be there to savour the occasion, soak in the ambience, enjoy the atmosphere. Can you afford to wait another 50 years for the Sestercentenary or 250th anniversary? Can you even afford to wait another 10 years to assemble again on the school field? I know that I cannot. Therefore, I've got to make the most of this occasion. It will not come round again; not in my lifetime.

But I do know that there are people who are bent on holding their own 200th anniversary dinner on the same evening in some other location in Penang, a hotel perhaps, far away from the School. They have their own reasons. But I have to ask them: is it the right thing to do? If we want to mark the Bicentenary with a reunion with our own peers, a reunion away from the School is not a proper Bicentenary reunion. We can have a reunion anytime; why hold it somewhere else when we should, by right, be holding it in the School. Anyone doing that will be missing the picture. Missing the BIG picture. Anyone doing that will miss the occasion. Anyone doing that will miss the bragging rights to say, "yes, I was there." If we are proud to be an Old Free, if we are proud that Penang Free School -- our Alma Mater -- is celebrating its Bicentenary, then the school field is the only place to be on the night of 21 October 2016.

If there is any dissatisfaction with anybody, please...do drop everything and return to the fold. Remember, nobody and nothing is bigger than our Alma Mater. The Penang Free School is OUR School; the place where we spent the happiest years of our lives among friends and peers. Don't let anything spoil the joy. Leave your egos at the school gate. Come back to where you belong. Where you rightfully belong. At Penang Free School. At the Mother of all Reunions.

Today, I was back at the Free School to look at the preparations taking place on the field. Work has already begun on constructing the canopies and platforms for 4,500 to 5,000 guests. Yes, that's about the total number of people -- Old Frees -- that are expected on 21st October night. What a sight it will be to see that many Old Frees of old ages mingling on the school field. Food will be secondary; friendship is paramount. I can imagine the camaraderie and reminiscences that will saturate the field. Everyone equal before everyone else's eyes. No Tan Sris on the field, no Datos on the field. Just plain Ahmad, Ah Chong and Muthu. Like during our good old schooldays.

Hutchings' homecoming

Last Wednesday (28 Sep 2016), I had an opportunity to address the congregation of the St George's Church in Dittisham, England, at a special thanksgiving service which the community there held for the group of 40 Malaysians that had arrived in this village.

I was the fourth Penang-born Malaysian to speak in the Church, after Wong Mei Fong, Abdul Rafique bin Karim and Saw Saik Mun, but the fifth Old Free if you consider that Andrew Lim had delivered a Reading from the Book of Job (28: 12-18) during the main part of the service.

But although my speech was entirely impromptu and unscripted, unlike the others, it too had a purpose, like the others. Mei Fong made the introductions while Rafique and Saik Mun's speeches dealt specifically with the 200th anniversary of Penang Free School and the conclusion of the grueling but very successful PFS-Dittisham overland drive.

As for me, I had something else in mind.

You see, after I had first decided to travel to Dittisham to meet the six-car convoy at the end of their 73-day journey across Asia and Europe, I was wondering what I could contribute to the occasion. I wasn't prepared to be a mere passenger.

Then an idea struck me. What were the buildings associated with Robert Sparke Hutchings in Penang. Penang Free School was his greatest contribution but there was the St George's Church in Farquhar Street too. He had a hand in its establishment soon after he arrived in the Prince of Wales Island in 1814 to take up his post as Chaplain of the British settlement.

The Free School had opened in rented premises in Love Lane but nobody knows today the exact location of this house. The first permanent premises in Church Square beside the St George's Church were dismantled a lot time ago when the second premises in Farquhar Street was built in 1896.This building ceased to be the Free School when the third premises in Green Lane became ready at the end of 1927. Today, the Farquhar Street building - at least, part of it - is now the Penang State Museum.

So these are the three buildings that owed their existence, one way or another, to Revd Robert Sparke Hutchings.

My idea? To collect a bit of soil or dirt from these three places and present it to the St George's Church in Dittisham. It would be good to let the occasion represent Hutchings' homecoming to the village where he was born. Initially, I thought of also removing the soil from around his tomb at the Protestant Cemetery but I was very wary of disturbing the sanctity of the place, especially since it was a heritage site. Besides, there was no knowing what else I could have disturbed in that very yin place and brought it home with me. On that account, it was a definite no-brainer for me.

Therefore, I was left with only the option of collecting dirt from the St George's Church, the Penang State Museum and Penang Free School, which I then placed in a small vial before sealing it up air-tight in a plastic bag days before the journey to England

The opportunity presented itself towards the end of the thanksgiving service in Dittisham. I rose to say my piece before the congregation. I told them of my intention to give their village a very small part of Penang; in a sense, bringing Hutchings back to the village where he was born.

Hutchings was born and baptised in Dittisham in 1781; he then travelled one-third around the world, settled and died in Penang in 1827, and was buried there. And now, with this gesture, he has come home to Dittisham in 2016. It was a very small personal tribute but I would think it went down very well with the Dittisham parishioners who were present that day.

Father Will Hazlewood, Vicar of the United Benefice of Dartmouth and Dittisham, who led the service was visibly happy and Mohd Aslam bin Farikullah, the Chief Operating Officer of Group Lotus UK, pulled me aside to say that that was a wonderful idea. But as far as I could make out, none of the main Bicentenary Committee or the convoy members, except for one person, looked impressed with my action. Their reaction was muted. Not that I minded that much; I acted in my personal capacity and the St George's Church, Dittisham just happened to be my stage.

A Dittisham pilgrimage

I've been off the radar from friends and relatives for the last few days because my wife and I have been travelling. This afternoon, we arrived at the small village of Dittisham which sits by the edge of the River Dart in the county of Devon, England.

There's too little information for me to write anything on at present because this evening, we are due to travel with Allen Choong and See Liang Teik to a town called Paignton where we shall be attending a dinner reception by Lotus UK who are welcoming an opinion of Old Frees to their part of the world. (An opinion of Old Frees, you may ask? Yes, why not? We Old Frees are a bunch of opinionated old farts. But that's beside the point.)

Tonight in Devon, there are at least some 30 Old Frees who have descended on Paignton; about 40 if you count their family members as well. The 40 of us are probably a record number of Malaysians who have gathered in Paignton all at the same time.

Tomorrow at noon, we shall all be gathered at the St George's Church for a special thanksgiving service that the Dittisham community shall be organising for us. This will be a special occasion for them and for us, since it will cement the ties between Dittisham and Penang Free School. We share a common denomination in Revd Robert Sparke Hutchings. He was appointed the Rector of Dittisham in 1805 but by 1816, he had already arrived in the Far East and been the principal party to establish the Prince of Wales Island Free School.

As Penang Free School celebrates her Bicentenary on 21 October 2016, what better way is there than to make this special pilgrimage to the place of Hutchings' birth. The convoy of six cars that left Penang about two-and-a-half months ago are scheduled to arrive at Dittisham tomorrow at 11 o'clock with the few of us who flew in from Malaysia and other parts of Europe, but we - Allen, Liang Teik, Saw See and I - are the advance party who have come first. We feel it is more meaningful -- and symbolic -- for us to stay in Dittisham tonight instead of faraway Paignton. And so far, we have been swept away by the friendliness of the few Dittisham folks who were aware of our arrival this afternoon, in particular, Helen, who is one of the chief organisers of tomorrow's church service.

Dittisham, here we come

I received a very interesting proposition from Allen Choong last seventh of this month at the press conference called by the Bicentenary Committee. I walked into the Pinhorn Hall and bumped into Allen who said that I should be joining the group of people who would be going to Dittisham to meet up with the overland convoy of cars. You would be very appropriate for the trip, he said, since you are so involved with the history of the Penang Free School, he said.

Me? Going to England? Going to Dittisham? It's not that I haven't been thinking about it. Even at the beginning of this year, I had longed to participate in the two-month overland drive from Penang Free School to the St George's Church in Dittisham but I knew that I could not afford the time and money.

But with the overland drive almost reaching a conclusion and the excitement with the Bicentenary reaching almost its pinnacle, I was already thinking: why not join up at the end of their drive in Dittisham? After all, there would also be quite a number of people from Penang, Kuala Lumpur and even some residing in Europe who would be there too.

So when Allen's suggestion was made to me, my mind was already half made up to go. A week in London and Dittisham would be affordable, especially with the price of airfares being so competitive. My wife encouraged me to go. Why not, she said, its important to you during this celebration. But what about you, I asked, come with me. At first she was in two minds about following me. No leave, she said. Work to do here, she said. Too cold over there, she said. 

Then we had to go to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysia Chess Festival. The London trip was pushed to the back of our mind. When we came back, the trip took centrestage again. Then she went to see her boss. Quah is going to London? You must go also, he told her. But I don't have enough leave already, she said. Don't worry about it, he replied, just go. And that's how she is now following me to London. And Dittisham.

Now came the issue of the flight tickets. Because she had encouraged me to go alone earlier, I had actually booked my flight tickets first. But now that she would come with me, I had to ensure that she could come on the same flights and we could sit together. Luckily, there were still tickets on the same flights and we could still choose our seats. That was the main problem thus resolved. Anything else would be secondary from now on.

So Dittisham, here we come.

Birds birds birds

A very interesting Saturday for me. I joined a group of Olympus camera enthusiasts at an outing at the Penang Bird Park in Seberang Jaya. It has been ages since I last stepped into this tourist attraction but I can say that my re-visit to the Bird Park was well worth the RM24 spent on the entrance fee, plus camera fee. It was very educational indeed to see all those colourful birds. But more than that, I met this chap, Robin Wong, from whom I learnt new things about my Olympus EPL-7 camera as well as tips on shooting birds. Here are some of the results of learning from Robin:

The OFA chess adventure

It took three months of planning before I managed to bring a team of four players from The Old Frees' Association down to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysia Chess Festival. The tournament in question would be the ASTRO Merdeka rapid chess team open tournament. This annual event has been organised for ages and it pulls possibly the most sizable and diverse crowds in the country.

At first, I thought that each team could consist of five players but changing regulations meant that the organisers did not want any reserve player on the teams. As such, the players were required to play every round without rest. Could I stand the strain, I thought to myself. But never mind, here's a chance to see whether I would still have the determination to play nine rounds without faltering.

So we arrived in Kuala Lumpur by train on 9 Sep 2016, Chuah Heng Meng, Terry Ong, my wife and I arriving at KL Central and we found our way to the Cititel MidValley, the chess festival's venue. Colin Chong, being KL-based, joined us sson later.

For much of the two-day event, we experienced a roller coaster ride. The first round saw us pummel an inexperienced team by 4-0. Then we happened to be paired with a team of experienced players and that saw us receive a 0-4 drubbing. In the third round, we won by 3-1 but the fourth round saw us losing 0-4 to a team of female chessplayers from Indonedia. That, fortunately, was the last time that we lost by such a wide margin in the tournament.

We recovered in the fifth round with a narrow 2½-1½ win and followed up with a 3-1 win in the sixth round. A 1-3 loss occurred in the seventh round, a 2-2 draw in the eighth round and finally, a 1½-2½ loss in the ninth round saw us settle at 47th position in a field of 96 teams.

I guess we couldn't complain much about our results because when I brought the team down, I told them that our main aim was to enjoy ourselves playing in this event. We had no ambitions about winning a prize as we knew that the strong teams were all going to be more formidable than us.

Chuah used to be the bedrock of chess in his younger days but he is no longer the stubborn player we used to know. Colin continues to be plagued by time trouble and Terry's game was not solid enough. As for me, my competitive days are behind me too. Playing for fun is all we have left. But we are glad to have come to KL. The Merdeka event has enabled us chess players to meet and renew our acquaintances all over again. We are, after all, one big chess family. Gens una sumus.

The Penang Chess Association vice-president, Tan Eng Seong, caught three-quarters of our team in a jovial mood in the hotel's lobby at the end of the first day.

This was before the fourth round got underway. Note our opponents: all lady players from Indonesia. We couldn't stop them from annihilating us.

However, the drubbing did not affect our mood at all. Here we are, still looking rather cheerful (or at least, Terry and I are.)

I can't quite remember who we were playing against, but we were playing on Board 13, which was as high as we could climb.

The report would not be complete without a picture taken with the grand old man of Malaysian chess, Tan Chin Nam, who is now 90 years old. He has been in a wheelchair for some years already and had a health scare in December 2013 when we were all so concerned about him.

Penang Free School on commemorative stamps

There will be First Day Covers and commemorative postage stamps to be launched by Pos Malaysia on the occasion of Penang Free School's Biceentenary celebrations 21 Oct 2016. This will be the second time that Penang Free School will be honoured by having commemorative postage stamps issued to mark two significant milestones in her long, 200-year history. 

The first set of postage stamps was issued in 1966 to mark the Sesquicentenary. Fifty years later, we are now on the threshold of the Bicentenary and another set of postage stamps are being readied for issue. No other school in Malaysia has been so doubly honoured.

The new stamps' denominations shall be 70sen, 80sen and 90sen. There is also a special RM5 miniature sheet which features the school crest. 

I am happy to say that my picture of the school buildings, as seen from one of the quadrangles, will be used on the 70sen stamp. The classrooms are in the left-side building while the school hall takes up the right side of the stamp. The dome stands prominently in the background. The 80sen and 90sen stamps depict aerial views of the school and they were taken from a drone operated by David Wong.

Different level

Obviously, the world chess champion from Norway, Magnus Carlsen, definitely operates on a different level from everybody else, as is shown in this second round game from the Baku Chess Olympiad, played four days ago.

[Event "WCO 2016"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2016.09.03"]
[Round "2"]
[Board "5"]
[WhiteID "1503014"]
[White "Carlsen Magnus"]
[BlackID "10200649"]
[Black "Hossain Enamul"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "2431"]
[WhiteElo "2857"]
[LiveChessVersion "1.4.8"]
[ECO "A00"]

1. e3 {1:30:57} Nf6 {1:30:50}
2. Nf3 {1:31:18} e6 {1:30:15}
3. c4 {1:30:06} b6 {1:29:05}
4. Nc3 {1:28:05} Bb7 {1:28:59}
5. d4 {1:28:03} Bb4 {1:26:47}
6. Bd3 {1:25:28} Ne4 {1:22:49}
7. O-O {1:24:09} Bxc3 {1:21:57}
8. bxc3 {1:24:37} O-O {1:15:55}
9. Ne1 {1:19:02} c5 {1:04:21}
10. f3 {1:18:47} Nf6 {1:02:39}
11. e4 {1:18:59} Ne8 {1:02:52}
12. d5 {1:17:34} d6 {0:54:27}
13. Nc2 {1:04:47} Nd7 {0:52:02}
14. Ne3 {1:04:29} Nef6 {0:43:49}
15. a4 {1:04:05} a5 {0:40:06}
16. Ra2 {1:03:25} Qc7 {0:35:24}
17. f4 {1:01:03} exd5 {0:31:26}
18. exd5 {1:01:25} Rfe8 {0:29:54}
19. g4 {1:00:46} Nf8 {0:21:39}
20. g5 {1:01:02} N6d7 {0:21:06}
21. h4 {1:01:21} Rad8 {0:14:35}
22. h5 {1:01:04} Bc8 {0:14:41}
23. Ng4 {0:56:51} Re7 {0:12:09}
24. Rg2 {0:55:17} Kh8 {0:11:14}
25. Qf3 {0:54:17} Rde8 {0:05:24}
26. Qg3 {0:54:39} Rd8 {0:02:15}
27. Bd2 {0:51:55} Rde8 {0:02:03}
28. f5 {0:49:57} Ne5 {0:02:11}
29. Nxe5 {0:50:17} Rxe5 {0:01:49}
30. Bf4 {0:50:45} Nd7 {0:01:03}
31. f6 {0:50:57} g6 {0:01:06}
32. hxg6 {0:51:20} fxg6 {0:00:53}
33. Bxg6 {0:51:38}

1-0

History of the Old Frees

This story appeared in the Star2 section of The Star newspaper's print edition yesterday: an early account of Penang Free School celebrating its 200 years this October, which is not too far off actually because today marks only 45 days to go before the Big Bash itself on 21 October 2016.

Although I'm chuffed that Arnold Loh called me the school's unofficial historian - I'm quite certain that it was Abdul Rafique bin Abdul Karim, the chairman of the school's Board of Governors, who suggested it to Arnold - many of the comments attributed to me in the story were not exactly quoted verbatim. But they were close enough and they conveyed the correct message.

P.S. The online version of this story had two more pictures that failed to go into the print version because of space constraints. My handsome side profile is there. :-)


  

Do pigs fly?

In case anyone asks whether pigs do fly, just show him this picture. Never thought we would see the day when two foes can greet one another, right? But anything can happen in politics, and this happened this morning. Now, I wonder where this will lead to?

Graeco-Roman mythologies

There was a time in my life when I could never get enough of Graeco-Roman mythologies. That period would be in the mid-1970s. 

I don't know how I got into that situation but over a period of about three years, I devoured nine books on Greek and Roman mythologies from the Penguin Classics series. 

Writers like Virgil and Ovid (they were the odd ones out as unlike the other writers, Virgil and Ovid were Romans), Aeschylus, Apollonius, Homer and Sophocles. Titles like The Aeneid, Metamorphoses, The Oresteian Trilogy, The Voyage of Argo, The Odyssey and The Illiad. With that kind of output, it was no wonder that Greece was once considered as the centre of European civilisation in the long distant past.

Then there were other fascinating books on other mythological works that interested me too - notably Tales from The Thousand and One Nights - but these nine books formed the bulk of my reading; and I enjoyed them immensely. 

And I just managed to dig them up again from the storeroom. Will I read them again? Probably not. That phase of my life is over. I'd be falling asleep first, before I can complete any chapter. 

A story about stereotyping

Soo Ewe Jin's column in The Sunday Star today makes a fabulous read. He recollects fondly his days of growing up in Jelutong and threw in a story regarding a teacher during his secondary school days. Only Old Frees like me will know that he would be referring to Penang Free School. We had great teachers in the past: teachers who were thoroughly dedicated to their cause of imparting knowledge to their charges. But in his column, Ewe Jin tells a tale of an English teacher who was man enough to correct his own stereotyping and apologise publicly for it! Here's is the excerpt from his column: 

Another Jelutong memory was when a teacher who taught me English in secondary school made disparaging remarks about the “gangsters and trishaw peddlers” of unsavoury areas like Jelutong.

Back then, the rule was for children to be seen and not heard, so although I was hurt by his remarks, I did not make my objections known.

The next lesson, we were given an essay topic that gave us free rein to express our thoughts. I took the opportunity to let my teacher know how I felt.

I wrote that just as one should not judge a book by its cover, we should not label people simply based on their origins. I pointed out that many of my Jelutong neighbours were decent people who made an honest living.

To his credit, my teacher did not take offence. He gave me an A and asked me to read out the essay aloud. What’s more, he then apologised to me in front of the whole class.

That incident taught me two things that have remained with me to this day: we can dismantle stereotyping when we stand up against it, and that it is an honourable thing to admit to a mistake when one is wrong.

I'd like to add one further tale. I've written in the past that during my youth, I stayed at Seang Tek Road. The back door of my home opened directly into a wide alleyway that led to Perlis Road. Thus, though technically not one, I can associate with being called a Perlis Road boy. Residents will know the notoriety of this place. During the nights, the unlit alley would be populated by all sorts of unsavoury characters soliciting for business. Not an ideal place for a boy to grow up in, but I survived.

The Wu Lien-Teh bust

About 10 days ago, I had made a post in The Old Frees' Association facebook group asking people to guess where this bust of Dr Wu Lien-Teh was located. There were several replies but only two guessed the location correctly.

The Wu Lien-Teh bust stands prominent today in the grounds of the Penang Institute in Brown Road, Penang. Anyone driving into the premises of the Penang Institute should not fail to notice the bust since it stands tall near the entrance, although many will fail to recognise who it is supposed to resemble. But yes, that's a fine representation of Wu Lien-Teh himself, the plague fighter that fought and eradicated the disease in China in the 1910s.

In late 2011 when I was co-editing Fidelis, the commemorative book of The Old Frees' Association, it had come to my knowledge that there was a bust of Wu Lien-Teh outside the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Memorial Museum in Harbin, China.

Knowing that Wu Lien-Teh was the famous plague fighter was one thing but to learn that the man was still revered in China almost a century after the eradication of the disease was startling.

And Wu Lien-Teh wasn't even a Chinese Chinese although at that time the overseas Chinese still showed a strong allegiance to their fore-father's motherland; he was a Chinese Malayan (or a Chinese Malaysian, to be more politically correct) -- born in Penang, studied in Penang, had his further studies in England, returned to work in Penang, then worked in China, came back to work in Ipoh, retired to Penang, died in Penang and cremated in Penang. A true son of the Malaysian soil.

In April 2011, I began writing stories about Wu Lien-Teh in my blog. Like many of my other writings, the stories on Wu Lien-Teh weren't meant to be anything more than to fill my space with my opinions of things. One year later in May 2012, I was a bit surprised to learn that Think City was organising a Penang Story talk on Wu Lien-Teh, the main presenter being a lady from Singapore's Media Corp which had produced a documentary on Wu Lien-Teh's life some four years earlier. Among the audience were three gentlemen representing the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University in China. After the talk, Think City's Anwar Fazal suggested that a bust or statue could be made of Dr Wu and placed at a prominent location in Penang, which Dr Ye Tian of the First Affiliated Hospital readily replied that China stood ready to donate a bronze bust anytime. By October that year, the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society had been formed in Penang. In January 2013 the bust - sculptured by Dong Doudou - was unveiled to a group of visitors from Penang and Singapore.

However, it was not until March 2014 that the bust was transported from China and erected on a pedestal near the front gate of the Penang Medical Centre in Sepoy Lines. In the early days of the Wu Lien-Teh Society, the Penang Medical Centre had played a pivotal role in the club's activities, notably in assisting to organise the first Wu Lien-Teh Symposium. But with a change in the medical centre's management, their focus drifted away. Together with their loss in interest in the society's activities, the bust was relocated to near the back entrance of the medical college, looking over the Polo Ground.

For much of 2015 and the first half of 2016, the Society laboured to find a new home for the Wu Lien-Teh bust. Various alternatives were sought, including moving the bust to the Armenian Park at the corner of Acheen Street and Armenian Street, but eventually, it was settled on the Penang Institute grounds after it was offered by the Penang Government. The relocation exercise was completed in June 2016.

The Chaos, by Gerard Nolst Trenité

The Chaos is a poem by a Dutch writer, traveller and teacher named Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870–1946). In the poem, there are about 800 examples of irregular spelling in the English language. This version below is the most complete, published by The Spelling Society in 1992–93, with 274 lines of text. 

I think if you can get through the poem with less than 20 mistakes or hesitations in the pronunciation, you will be speaking better than most of the English themselves.

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From "desire": desirable - admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?

Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,
Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
But it is not hard to tell
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",

Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?

Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,

Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you're not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,

Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em -
Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.
The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight - you see it;

With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess - it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche! -
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying 'grits'?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!