The voice of Africa

Side 1: Nomthini, Willow song, Langa more, Shihibolet, Tuson, Qhude

Side 2: Mayibuye, Lovely lies, Uyadela, Mamoriri, Le Fleuve, Come to glory

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I first heard Miriam Makebe when she was introduced by Harry Belafonte on his album, Returns to Carnegie Hall. Here was a voice that sounded so forceful and could be very sweet at the same time. She impressed me to no end. For decades thereafter, I kept hearing about her. Then I came across this record called The Voice of Africa. 

In the liner notes on this record in 1964, Hugh Masekela, himself an accomplished musician, wrote:

Nothing can stop the eruption of a volcano, the bursting of a cloud, the rising of the tide, the blowing of the wind or the shining of the sun. The break of dawn is an inevitable but beautiful phenomenon.

Africa's dawn is breaking, her liberation flows south, her "winds of change" whistle across her plains, her ocean's tide of freedom rises. the cloud has burst and the long drought of oppression will soon end.

Africa's music has always flowed, its strains travel with the breeze, it suffers no droughts, it rains on its young crops, it has risen like the tide and now erupts - the world hears its sweet melodious strains in pleased amazement.

The force of Africa's endless but beautiful music gives birth to countless musicians, singers, dancers, poets, authors, actors and philosophers. Miriam Makeba is a gigantic tree in this great forest of art. She is the pride of her people. At home, we call her "Zenzile," "Nut Brown Baby," "Nightingale," and we speak of her with deep joy.

At home, audiences had pleaded with her to repeat a song as often as ten times. She is the first eruption of lava and rock to reach these shores; the volcano still roars and more lava and rock can be expected.

Most of the songs in this album were sung in fond remembrance of all those people at home who make music and the people for whom they make it.

Mayibuye is a cry to the people to come together and share their difficulties in the manner and fashion our forefathers, Chaka, Moshoeshoe, Ngika, Sekhukhuni, Nzilikazi, Khama and Hintsa would have been proud of.

Uyadela is an appeal to a friend not to give up so easily, and in the language of our forefathers it says: "When all the beasts of the earth had gone to fetch their tails, the rock-rabbit had long given up all hope, hence the absence of his tail."

These two songs are performed as they would be presented at home. These are the sounds of our Friday and Saturday midnight-to-dawn dances.

The instrumental choir behind Miriam has Ramapolo, a young Johannesburger, on trumpet, Jimmy Cleveland on trombone and Morris Goldberg (from Cape Town) on alto.

Langa More sings of one of our dances, the "tap tap": "Come all and see him feed us the food for the feet, we will go mad from the beauty of this dance."

Qhude is the call to the new bride to wake up; the cock has crowed and she must fetch water from the stream; the dawn ushers in a new life to the people.

Mamoriri is a call to the people to witness a miracle; there is someone in the fields milking a bird.

Nomthini is a love song. "Beyond those mountains, on the other side of those rocky hills, there lives a beautiful girl, Nomthini. I am without wings, else would I fly to her side. I have never seen Nomthini, not when she was alive."

These songs are sung at weddings for hours; the instruments substitute for the choir.

Le Fleuve is from West Africa. It speaks of the miracle of the constant flow of the river, the river that can never be stopped.

Come to Glory is a West Indian gospel chant. It is complemented by the voices of Beverly, Judy and Fran White. These three ladies have been surrounded by music all their life, thanks to Mr. Josh White. They sing behind Miriam here and the musical dialogue can be traced back four hundred years.

Lovely Lies was written in Johannesburg by a fellow artist, saxophonist Mackay Davashe. Guitarist Samuel Brown and bassist Bill Salter are like two great rocks behind Miriam's wailing.

Tuson is from Cuba and proves Miriam's versatile musicianship.

Shihibolet is a song from Israel. It is sung after the good harvest to express gratitude to God for a good crop.

Willow Song (from "Othello") is yet another diversion in the "Nightingale's" unpredictable repertoire. Miriam's accompanist, Mr. Marvin Falcon, is on guitar and her drummer, Auchee Lee, plays the flute.

All my gratitude to Miriam for all the flowing, bursting, rising, blowing and shining sounds she makes. A child of Africa's dawn, erupted from the burst of the long-dormant volcano.

Meaningful buildings

There are several buildings on Penang island which mean something to me. The first is obviously my childhood home: the house in which I grew up. And in fact, it was this house at No.10 Seang Tek Road that I lived with my parents and grandparents until I was 26 years old. There's a lot of attachment and many, many fond memories that goes with it.

The second is my secondary school building: the Penang Free School building in Green Lane where I had enjoyed seven years of schooling before stepping forth into the wide world. Again, a lot of attachment to it, and many, many fond memories too. Since 2012, I've stepped into the school premises again on countless occasions. Reliving my schooldays in a way.

The third has to be the former Ban Hin Lee Bank building in Beach Street which is now occupied by CIMB Bank. For 23 years, I was in the employment of this bank and I spent 18 years in this heritage building. So there's a lot of attachment here as well.

But there's a fourth building among two or three others that meant something to me. It could have been my primary school building, the Westlands Primary School building in Victoria Green Road or the Straits Echo building in Penang Road where I had my first meaningful employment, but no....I should refer instead to the Equatorial Penang building in Bukit Jambul on the south-eastern part of the island.

People may be curious to know why I should rank the Equatorial Penang building as one that means something to me. Well, it is because it was within the bowels of this building that I had spent eight-plus years employed at JobStreet.com. Yes, after I had resigned from Southern Bank in 2001, I joined this Internet job search company until my retirement at the end of 2009. 

For more than eight years, I crossed the bridge to reach Equatorial Penang from my residence on the mainland. Parking was always in the basement of the hotel. From there, lifts would take me either up to the ground floor where JobStreet.com was most visible through its sales, finance and administration offices. But there was also an executive search office further inside and a network control office too. I shared space with Ted Targosz, Teoh Eng Soon and Wong Yew Tuck who became good friends from my JobStreet days. 

Then several months later, I moved to the Lower Ground Fifth floor - deep down the Equatorial Penang building - to engage more with the software engineers in the research and development department of JobStreet.com. 

In those days, all the job search application software were developed from the Penang office of  JobStreet.com and the staff in this particular department probably numbered around 30 or 40 people. That's quite a large workforce to support the demands of a job search company which range from the job seekers to the companies advertising their job positions. Proprietary matching tools were developed to pair job positions with potential job seekers. part of my job was to check the correctness of the language on the website and that used for the mass emails that the company send to the job seekers. 

Working in a place such as the Equatorial Penang building gave my JobStreet.com colleagues and I plenty of opportunities to enjoy the restaurants at the hotel. Although we would usually have our lunch in Bayan Baru town, there were always occasions for celebrations and get-togethers in the hotel premises at the slightest excuse. Thus, places such as the Kampachi Japanese restaurant, the Golden Phoenix Chinese restaurant or their coffee house for lunch, The View restaurant for dinner or the Blue Moon pub to unwind after office hours. Plus, the time spent just sitting around and watching people passing by. 

I also like to mention the long and winding corridor on the Lower Ground Second Floor where the view was magnificent. Just standing there alone for five or 10 minutes, all serenely quiet and the wind sometimes blowing in the face, and looking out onto the Bukit Jambul golf course and the impressive bungalow buildings below was enough to soothe anyone's nerves. It brought me a therapeutic calm. 

All these are coming to an unfortunate end. After 32 years of being Penang's first five-star hotel in the southern reaches of the island. The management of Equatorial Penang has already informed the public that their hotel operations will cease from 10 February 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The only consolation, so I hear, is that the tenants of their office block on the lower ground floors will function as normal. Nevertheless, the hotel will definitely become a much quieter place after this date.

Dark side of Joey Yap

On the eighth anniversary of this picture appearing on facebook (it appeared originally on 27 January 2013), I want to say this: the seated person is an obnoxious character whose head has gotten far too big for his hat. 

I'll tell you why. Ever since the pandemic struck last year, he has switched his talks online with great success as he can now reach out easily to participants from around the world. That's very clever of him to see the opportunity to promote his business amidst the health crisis.

About a week ago, his team sent an email to invite people to sign up for one of his online talks yesterday, that is, on 26 Jan 2021. (As an aside, I must stress that there was nothing in the email to suggest that the talk would be in anything but English. Even the email content itself was written in English.) 

But to the surprise of many, his talk was conducted in the Cantonese dialect. To those people who asked why he was talking in Cantonese instead of English, he repeatedly called them "saw hai". Trust me, this is a derogatory term. You wouldn't use it on your mother, your sister or your wife, much less on people that had signed up for his online talks. 

No apologies at all for the oversight in the email which was clearly his and his team's alone. He thought so highly of himself that he even asked his team to kick out a participant after a comment was made. In my opinion, it wasn't even a rude comment at all, just asking him to admit his mistake, I think. 

But that's Joey Yap for you, obnoxious to the point where he has lost his empathy for the people who had contributed to his success over the years.

Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利)

Okay, after much hemming and hawing, we – meaning myself, my sponsors and my publisher – have made a final decision on the title of my book on Ban Hin Lee Bank. 

It's no longer Boundless Prosperity or even Bountiful Prosperity. We have agreed to use Ten Thousand Prosperities, which is the literal translation of Ban Hin Lee (萬興利) from the Penang Hokkien dialect into the English language.

Ten Thousand Prosperities had always been used by the bank right from the beginning but when I was writing this book, the feedback I received was that this translation had little meaning in the English language. 

Thus began the process of convincing the former directors – Goh Eng Toon, Stephen Yeap and Yeap Lam Yang – to agree to a more contemporary translation of the bank's name. 

They said 'yes' to either Boundless Prosperity or Bountiful Prosperity. But then about two weeks ago, my publisher had a change of mind and suggested that Ten Thousand Prosperities was, after all, quite appealing as the term was already so well known in the community when speaking of the bank.

So here again, there was this process of putting forth the new title to the former directors. Of course this time, there was little objection to it and I can now heave a sigh of relief that one more milestone of the book has been reached.

Coronavirus numbers

Exactly 10 months of various permutations of the movement control order in Malaysia and we have come to this. The data is not pretty and they don't instil much confidence in the fight against this pandemic if the numbers, that is, the confirmed infections, keep going up.

Coronavirus update

As we all know, a second round of the Movement Control Order has been imposed in Penang and five other states in the country since Wednesday due to the escalating cases of the Covid-19 virus. The coronavirus pandemic is threatening to spin out of control. But I was both shocked and concerned over the situation yesterday. 

In the morning, my wife and I decided to shop for fresh provisions at the public market in Taman Selamat. We don't usually go there as our normal wet market is the one at Kampong Baru. But for a change, we went to Taman Selamat yesterday. 

I was shocked. There were at least two or three entrances which were either not manned by the City Council staff and people were walking in and out of the market building freely. Only at one end of the market was there a Council station where the MySejahtera QR codes were displayed and the temperature taken of people walking in. As could be expected there were only a few people walking in through this entrance while the inside of the building was....packed!

Yes, packed. There was no social distancing. Everyone was crowding everybody else, jostling for position at the stalls to buy their foodstuff, shoulder-to-shoulder with one another. We felt so distressed that we decided to leave then and there. I felt so upset that I forgot to take a few snapshots as evidence of the shoppers' lackadaisical attitude towards their own health. Moreover, if the City Council could not impose their control strictly on this market or have lost control over the situation there, I am not going to shop there ever!

And then in the evening, I learnt that there were 4,000-plus cases of the coronavirus reported nationwide. A record number of cases, although this record is nothing to be proud about. Selangor alone recorded more than a thousand cases but then, this figure is nothing new for the state. This is a worrisome statistic and fingers should be pointed towards the irresponsible people AND politicians who make this happen. I say politicians because if they continue to do stupid things like distributing free food to people who are not reminded about observing social distancing, the numbers are bound to increase. 

This actually happened in Putrajaya a few days ago. Politicians distributing free chicken to the people. But it is not only in Selangor that the situation may be getting out of hand. Penang island too has seen an unending surges in Covid-19 infections, in particular, Mukims 12 and 13. Mukim 12 is in the South-West District of the island while Mukim 13 is in the North-East District. They are adjacent to one another and that's why infections are so rampant there. But the infections are slowly and surely creeping northwards towards the city. It is becoming worrisome there.

I'm particularly worried because my daughter stays in Petaling Jaya and my son is in Glugor, both among the coronavirus hotbeds in the country. My frustration is that I am unable to drive across the Penang Bridge into the island, let alone travel all the way to Selangor. I can only hope that they are able to take good care of themselves by themselves until such time when travel restrictions are lifted.

More old red packets

Last October, I posted a picture of old Chinese New Year red packets from Ban Hin Lee Bank, going back to a time when red packet designs were simpler and not as elaborate as the ones we see from the financial institutions presently. Well, I've now uncovered more old red packets but this time, they are from other banks and finance companies. 

Prior to Year 2000, there were still finance companies in the country, both large and small, multi-branched and single entities, but these were phased out through takeovers and amalgamations into the larger banks. Today, we do not have finance companies any more and any mention of them is bound to cause confusion in many people's minds. In fact, the banks and finance companies named below do not exist anymore, having been taken over after 2000. I'm not going to attempt to explain what these banks and finance companies were except to give some brief comments about them.

The red packets in the above two pictures were issued by MBf Finance Berhad which was later merged with Arab-Malaysian Finance.

Malayan United Finance and MUI Finance were the names of the same entity, subsequently merged into the Hong Leong Bank Group.

EON Finance was a subsidiary of the EON Bank Group, now merged into the Hong Leong Bank Group.

United Merchant Finance was a subsidiary of the United Merchant Bank Group, which was taken over by the CIMB Group.

Hock Hua Bank was based in Sarawak and a different bank from Hock Hua Bank (Sabah). This bank was merged into the Public Bank Group in the 2000s.

First Malaysia Finance was little known but it was acquired by Arab-Malaysian Finance, now part of the AmBank Group.

Kwong Yik Bank was a subsidiary of Malayan Banking and was later to become Development & Commercial Bank or D&C Bank. It is now absorbed into the RHB Bank Group.

This red packet was from Oriental Bank which was ultimately owned by the Hong Leong Bank Group.

Leong Hin Finance was another small finance company. 

Hong Leong Finance was a well established finance company which was later absorbed into Hong Leong Bank.

Red packet issued by Bank Rakyat.

Pacific Bank was bought over by Maybank subsequently.

Bank Bumiputra became Bumiputra Commerce Bank, which the CIMB Group acquired ultimately. 

A poignant comparison

I hope Global Times will not mind if I were to repeat their opinion piece here. It makes so much sense to compare the reactions between the storming of the Hongkong Legislative Council in 2019 and the storming of Capitol Hill in 2021. But with a taste of their own medicine, do you ever think the United States will have learnt a lesson and think twice before imposing their brand of democracy/justice on others again or even shooting off their mouths (sic)? Nope, I doubt it. I doubt it very much. They'll be up to the same tricks again, soon. 

(Of course, Penang people should not forget too that in 2014, a group of UMNO goons had also forced their way into a sitting session of the Penang State Assembly.) 

Chinese netizens jeer riot in US Capitol as 'Karma,' say bubbles of 'democracy and freedom' have burst

Jan 07, 2021

Words like "Karma," "retribution" and "deserving" were frequently mentioned in Chinese netizens' comments when they saw the latest episode of the US' real version of House of Cards - which saw Trump supporters storming the Capitol, messing up House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, clashing with police officers and looting items. The pictures went viral in US, Chinese and international news outlets after the riots began Thursday morning. 

Chinese web users still remember the distress and anger they felt when they saw rioters in Hong Kong storming the Legislative Council Complex, scrawling graffiti, smashing and robbing items, and, instead of condemning the violence, US politicians hailed the "courage" of these mobs, Western media praised the "restraint" of the rioters, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even called it a "beautiful sight."

Now, this "beautiful sight" is taking place in the US. A Chinese netizen commented, "Pelosi can enjoy the beautiful sight - even at her office desk! For such a long time, US politicians called rioters 'freedom fighters' in other countries. Now, they finally have retribution!" 

"It was like watching a thrilling action movie!" That was how Chinese netizens described the scenes early Thursday morning. 

When a similar scenario happened in Hong Kong's LegCo in 2019, some US politicians like Pelosi praised rioters in the city as fighters for freedom. This has inspired some talented netizens to come up with a slogan for US mobs to continue their protests. 

"Five demands, not one less. Liberate the US, the revolution of our times," they said, intimating five demands and slogans made by HK rioters to pressure the HK government.

The five demands include recognizing the Democratic Party cheated in the presidential election and denying that Biden is the new president; revoking the definition of "violence"; revoking the charges against the protesters; establishing a commission to investigate police violence and holding a second presidential election to ensure justice and fairness.  

A photo of protesters seemingly holding Pelosi's office chair has also gone viral on Sina Weibo, prompting netizens to joke that there's still a smell of "flattery" left on the chair which Pelosi would call "a beautiful sight."

As of press time, the topics "Trump said he would never concede" and "Trump supporters storm Capitol" were in the "mostly searched and seen" list on China's Twitter-like platform, Sina Weibo. 

Many Chinese netizens "confessed" in their comments that they saw the "chaos in the US" as revenge. After inciting so much chaos around the world under the pretext of "freedom and democracy," the US finally tasted the "karma" of its double standards. 

"This is the first political coup to happen in the American continent without the involvement of US embassies," mocked one netizen. 

Many Chinese netizens found it hilarious that US President Donald Trump's Twitter account had been suspended for 12 hours.

Mohamad Safa, a Lebanese diplomat and also Permanent Representative to the United Nations, made his comment on the incident on Twitter, saying that "If the United States saw what the United States is doing in the United States, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States." 

His tweet has received more than 41.8K "like" as of press time on Thursday.

Different from its previous active attitudes toward similar incidents in other places across the world, the US Embassy in China's Sina Weibo account has kept silent for what was happening in the US. 

But Chinese netizens seem to "give no mercy" to unveil the Embassy's double standards and hypocrisy - they swarmed into the Embassy's account as early as 7 am, asking "Why don't you come to work on time? We are all here waiting for you to talk tall of US democracy and values." 

"For a long time, US politicians criticized China for its efforts in cleaning up online rumors and disinformation and defamed us for 'hurting freedom of speech.' What are you doing right now? President Trump enjoys his right to freedom!" a netizen commented. 

Chinese netizens also put pictures online of what is happening in the US and China at the same time - while pro-Trump rioters are climbing the walls of the Capitol, Chinese workers wearing protection suits in Dalian of Liaoning Province are pushing a trailer carrying daily supplies to fight COVID-19. "A sharp contrast! While Chinese are busy saving lives, the US is showing the world how it is collapsing!" a netizen commented.

Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told the Global Times that Chinese net users' comments on the storming of the Capitol are "the plain and true and sincere feelings of the Chinese."

The storming of the US Capitol happened at a symbolic point of power transition, and was the first time it has happened in US history. Netizens commented that this symbolic moment clearly demonstrated the "falling of the beacon of democracy."

What happened in the US Capitol and the US' response to it have burst the bubbles of "democracy" and "freedom" and "universal values" that the US has long used to coax others, Shen said. 

The US National Guard moved to deal with the rioters in the Capitol, which is also a slap in the face for the US over its previous remarks on similar incidents in other countries and regions and in China's Hong Kong. "How hypocritical of it to criticize other countries for using police to deal with rioters!"

Many US allies also expressed their concerns over the protests. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the scenes as "shameful," while Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said they are "unbelievable scenes" and "totally unacceptable attack on democracy."  

Their voices also irritated many Chinese netizens, who slammed their double standards when it came to interfering in China's Hong Kong affairs.

Chinese netizens commented, "Why didn't Boris Johnson say he backs the US 'freedom fighters' for fairness, the way he said he backs Hong Kong protesters 'every inch of the way?'"

Tom Fowdy, a British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities, told the Global Times, "What we see tonight is the product of an extremely polarized political environment in the US." He added that it could be described as "cracks" in US democracy, as such a system only works if it has legitimacy amongst all its stakeholders. 

Fowdy said that there is a noticeable contrast in discourse as to how the two events are portrayed in Hong Kong and in the US. When rioters stormed the HK LegCo, it was heralded as an act of brave rebellion by "pro-democracy" protesters, but when Trump supporters stormed the US capitol building it was described by the BBC as a "violent, pro-Trump mob."

"There is a clear media double standard. The United States has long held a belief that unrest in its own country is always objectively wrong, but ought to be encouraged for political purposes elsewhere," he said.

Global Times

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1212074.shtml 

Boundless Prosperity

I can now reveal that for the past nine to 10 months, I've been working on a project to write a story on Ban Hin Lee Bank. 

The project is almost at an end now - for me, anyway - pending a final review of the draft by both my editor and my publisher. After all the final kinks are ironed out, the draft shall go for layout and then there will be another round of checking to ensure that the layout designer has done his job correctly. By this, I mean that the story is laid out correctly and the pictures are all in the right places. My publisher estimates that the middle of April would be about the time that the book can see print. I've got to keep my fingers crossed.

The book is divided into 10 chapters covering the bank's journey from 1935 till 2000. There are also five appendices including one in which I had attempted to reconstruct the names of the Ban Hin Lee Bank former employees. Not an easy task, especially for the period after 1995 because the intake of staff was no longer recorded in the bank newsletters.

This may sound strange but it is true. When Ban Hin Lee Bank was taken over by Southern Bank in 2000, and Southern Bank was in turn swallowed by CIMB Bank in 2006, many of the old Ban Hin Lee Bank records disappeared as if they were irrelevant and no longer important. But those were the gems of history. Once they were gone - disappeared, misplaced, destroyed, whatever - there was no way to trace them again. 

Sirius

When I stepped out of the house to take in the full moon at about 11.15pm yesterday, I couldn't help but be drawn to a brilliant whitish-blue spot directly overhead in the night sky. It must be Sirius. The Dog star. In the constellation of Canis Major. 

And this can only remind me of one thing: that Spring is just around the corner. In fact, we Chinese shall be celebrating the Coming of Spring, or Li Chun (立春) on 3 Feb 2021. That's only 34 days away. 

(Note: The picture was cropped from a digital image of Sirius that I took last night with the zoom lens set at its maximum 150mm focal length on my little Olympus E-PL7 camera. Not the best of equipment, I'm afraid, but that's all I can play with.)

Before that, I would want to wish everyone, especially my followers of this blog, a Happy New Year. But we should keep our feet firmly on the ground and not be delusional. Don't expect changes. Next year will not be any much different from this year; 2021 will only be a continuation of 2020. Therefore, please keep safe and keep healthy. Practice social distancing, sanitise your hands often and wear a mask when doing anything outdoors. Happy New Year....again.

Nicky

A heart-warming story I discovered through social media this Christmas. It is a bit long, but worth your while to read the first few paragraphs. Then I assure you that you shall continue reading till the end!

In 1979, I was managing a Wendy's in Port Richey Florida. Unlike today, staffing was never a real problem, but I was searching for a someone to work 3 hours a day only at lunch.

I went through all the applications ,and found that   most people were  looking for full time or at least 20 hours per week. I found one however, buried at the bottom of a four inch stack that was only looking for lunch part time. His name was Nicky. Hadn't met him but thought I would give him a call and see if he could stop by for an interview. When I called, he wasn't in but his mom said she would make sure he would be there.

At the appointed time, Nicky walked in. One of those moments when my heart went in my throat. Nicky suffered from Downs Syndrome. His physical appearance was a giveaway and his speech only reinforced the obvious.

I was young and very sheltered. Had never interacted on a professional level with a developmentally disabled peson. I had no clue what to do, so I went ahead and interviewed him.

He was a wonderful young man. Great outlook. Task focused. Excited to be alive. For only reasons God knew at that time, I hired him. 3 hours a day, 3 days a week to run a grill.

I let the staff know what to expect. Predictably the crew made sure I got the message, " no one wants to work with a retard."

 To this day I find that word offensive. We had a crew meeting, cleared the air, and prepared for his arrival.

Nicky showed up for work right on time. He was so excited to be working. He stood at the time clock literally shaking with anticipation.

He clocked in and started his training. Couldn't multi task, but was a machine on the grill. Now for the fascinating part.....

Back in that day, there were no computer screens to work from. Every order was called out by the cashier. It required a great deal of concentraion on the part of all production staff to get the order right. While Nicky was training during his first shift, the sandwich maker next to him asked the grillman/trainer what was on the next sandwich. Nicky replied, "single, no pickle no onion." A few minutes later it happened again. It was then that we discovered Nicky had a hidden and valuable skill.

He memorized everything he heard! Photographic hearing! WHAT A SKILL SET!!

. It took 3 days and every sandwich maker requested to work with Nicky. He immediately was accepted by the entire crew.

After his shift he would join the  rest of his crew family,  Drinking Coke like it was water!  It was then that they discovered another Rainman-esque trait.

 Nicky was a walking/talking perpetual calendar! With a perpetual calendar as a reference, they would sit for hours asking him what day of the week was December 22, 1847. He never missed. This uncanny trait mesmorized the crew.

His mom would come in at 2 to pick him up. More times than not, the crew would be back there with him hamming it up. As I went to get him from the back, his mom said something I will never forget. "Let him stay there as long as he wants. He has never been accepted anywhere like he has been here." 

I excused myself and dried my eyes, humbled and broken hearted at the lesson I just learned.

Nicky had a profound impact on that store. His presence changed a lot of people. Today I believe with every fibre of my body that Nicky's hiring was no accident. God's timing and will is perfect.

This Christmas, I hope we all understand what we are celebrating.

We are all like Nicky.

 We each have our shortcomings. We each have our strong points, but we are all of value. God made us that way and God doesn't make mistakes. Nicky certainly wasn't a mistake. He was a valuable gift that I am forever grateful for.

The great conjunction

November and December are not exactly the best months for sky gazing at night because of the weather. If it is not raining, then it would be the thick clouds that would prevent the moon, planets and stars from being seen, especially from my house. 

Since last month, I had been aware of the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the evening sky. Actually, I was looking forward to it a lot. After all, there were lots of news in social media, especially Instagram. But at the same time, I was prepared to be frustrated because of the weather. 

The earliest I got to see the two planets close together was in the evening of 9 Dec. Jupiter was still positioned well below Saturn, but they were unmistakably there in the western sky. But after that date, it was impossible to see them again. I might have seen Jupiter with the thin crescent moon on the 17th, but I am not completely certain. I had better not post the picture here since I am uncertain.

In the week before 20 Dec, it had been raining rather heavily in the late afternoons. At night, it was impossible to view anything at all. Even the quarter moon, always the brightest object in the sky, was all fuzzy and hazy. 

The 21st of December came by and I was pleasantly surprised when the day turned out dry and warm. With blue skies all around me, I was hopeful that this weather could last into the night. And I was glad that it did. 

At about 8pm, my wife and I ventured out of the house and there they were, hanging low westwards, Jupiter on the left and Saturn on the right, side-by-side and closely together. So this was the Great Conjunction on the night of the Winter Solstice. But I would also call this the Great Conjunction of Tang Chik.

Both pictures above were taken with my Olympus E-PL7 camera with my zoom lens set at the maximum 150mm focal length. The widest aperture setting was f5.6 and the shutter speed was 0.4 seconds. The camera was braced against my gate for stability. No cropping was done to the two images.

As a comparison, this is how the two planets looked to the naked eye, shown here above my neighbour's house: two tiny pinpricks of light side-by-side. How utterly small, how easily they could have been overlooked if you had not been aware of the conjunction.

By the way, despite the good weather on the 22nd and 23rd of December, I was unable to see the two planets again. It was really a chance in a lifetime.

Tang Chik 2021

I couldn't post this image in the blog yesterday, nor wish anyone Happy Tang Chik, because I had lost my Internet connection in the house since last Saturday. But thankfully, I'm back online now. And so, I take this opportunity to wish my friends and readers a belated Happy Tang Chik. Remember, you are one year older now.

 

 

Li Chun (立春), 2021

This is normally what I do every year on the third or fourth day of February: filling my rice bucket to the brim with a big packet of rice. It is a cultural tradition that has been handed down for many generations in my family. And, no doubt, in many other families also. 

My forefathers observed it during those distant days in the Ow-Quah village in Hokkien, China, more than 200 years ago. Today, so very far removed from my ancestral village, I still practice this tradition in my house in Penang, Malaysia. A brief 15 to 30 seconds to cut open the bag of rice and empty it into the rice bucket. Perhaps it takes a little bit longer to stick a new piece of red paper with the auspicious Chun character (春) on the bucket.

The whole process is simply to signify the hope that the forthcoming year will be bountiful and abundant for me and my family. After all, this is the day which, according to the Chinese luni-solar calendar, signifies the Li Chun (立春) or Coming of Spring. On this day, the sun moves across the 315° longitudinal line in the sky. The start of a new year when winter officially ends and spring takes its place.

In 2021, Li Chun falls on the third day of February at exactly 11pm in Malaysia (1500 hours UTC). And it will be at this time that I shall begin replacing that piece of Chun (春) paper and then pouring in my new packet of rice.

By the way, I've been writing diligently about Li Chun in this blog since Year 2007 and you can still read them here:

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

End of an era

Yes, this New Straits Times front page says it exactly. The last day that the Penang ferry service will operate will be 31 Dec 2020. After that, the sea link between the Penang island and mainland will be replaced with a fleet of passenger-only water buses and vehicle transporters. The flimsy excuse given by the federal government is that the spare parts from overseas are hard to come by. And the state government has no say in the matter because transport is under the purview of the Ministry of Transport and it is the turn of Wee Ka Siong to take his revenge on his nemesis, Lim Guan Eng, and his successor-in-government, Chow Kon Yeow.

Shame on the federal government. Why can't the present ferry service, which is an iconic heritage of Penang, be salvaged? If anything, the water buses should complement the ferries, not replace. Both can and should operate together. 

It is very strange to blame the demise on spare parts and suppliers. After all, the equally iconic Hong Kong Star Ferry, founded 1888, has remained the main means of public transportation between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. The oldest vessel there was commissioned in 1965. Still running, their fleet carries some 22 million passengers a year. All our politicians and administrators ever do is quarrel among themselves, trading blames and ridiculing each other in public. The losers are the Penangites, no one else.

Incidentally, the ferry service was started by an illustrious member of Penang's society who happened to be a past president of the Swee Cheok Tong (Seh Quah Kongsi). I do not have any record to show when he was first elected as the president of the Kongsi but I do know that he was already one in the mid-1920s. He held on to this position until his death in 1952. He played an active role in founding The Old Frees' Association and was a vice-president sometime in the past. His part in the history of the Penang ferry service was documented in a separate blog post that I wrote two years ago. Click here to read.

J&T Express

If you want to torment someone you don't like, send him a package through this "excellent" delivery service from a wannabe courier company called J&T Express. You will certainly drive him up the wall. I have several unpleasant experiences with this company. In the latest one. a package which a friend (if I can still consider him a friend after this incident 😝) had sent me has been sitting in the J&T Express office in Kota Permai, Bukit Mertajam, since 1.38pm yesterday (7 Dec) without any attempt made to deliver it to me. As I said, it's not the first time I'm experiencing a fucked up service from this delivery company but this occasion takes the cake! It's anything BUT J&T Express for me! [Update: The package finally arrived on 10 Dec at about one o'clock.)

Saturn

It's not like I haven't tried to take a picture of Saturn in the night sky before. But the problem was, you see, this planet is so far away that it is just a small dim point of light. Still can be seen on a clear night but very difficult to photograph. If I were to set the shutter speed too slow, all I would get is a short streaky line. And if the shutter speed was a wee bit faster, then I won't see any point of light that's reasonably bright enough.

But tonight at about 8.40pm, I was outdoors to take a picture of Jupiter and I saw Saturn hovering above the bigger planet. Both planets could be captured inside a single frame, and I took many shots to be on the safe side to eliminate any camera shake. There was this one picture that could possibly be the best from the batch taken. Jupiter was round, which means that there was very minimal camera shake at this very instance. So theoretically, Saturn in the same frame as Jupiter would turn out reasonably well too.

I know that it is still blur, especially with the prevailing cloudy weather condition and I had to crop and enlarge the picture, but this was how my standard telephoto zoom lens picked out Saturn in the night sky tonight. The resolution is so-so only. No doubt, people with better quality lens should be able to get a clearer picture of the rings around the planet. (The picture on the right, showing a clearly defined Saturn, is not mine. It came from an Instagram post.)

I should add that as we get nearer to 21 December, the apparent positions of the two planets will be edging even closer together. It seems that the last time it happened was some 800 years ago. Maybe it also happened some 2,000 years ago too. Who knows?

Anjung Gurney hawkers

Would you support those hawkers who ripped off their clientele when times were good but are now suffering when there's no business during the pandemic and the enforcement of the various stages of the Movement Control Order? 

Yesterday, the state assemblyman for Pulau Tikus, Chris Lee,  appealed on his facebook page to "give these hawkers a chance as there are good people here trying to make a living as well." 

But as my old friend, Jim, observed, "A few years ago, as a local I paid RM5 for a piece of pineapple. The foreign worker said his boss’s policy. I stopped going there."

You can visit this particular post here and read all the comments that have been left there. Very revealing comments that expressed what many people in Penang think. What a slap in the face for the Gurney Drive hawkers! 

By the way, are the hawkers in other touristy areas facing the same difficulty? Places like the New Lane hawker centre? Or the Weld Quay food court? The New World Park food court? The Kimberley Street night hawkers? I'm sure if the hawkers are badly affected, all they have to do is learn to reinvent themselves. Bring themselves down from the pedestals that they placed themselves. If they cater more to the local people, their business will return. 

I know for sure that some hawkers in non-touristy areas have reported little difference in their earnings. Some are even experiencing roaring business. At the end of November, for example, I went to the Berapit food court beside their market to buy from this stall. It wasn't not as empty as I thought. The proprietress was enjoying roaring business every day. Even as she opened her stall at 9am that day, there was already a long queue of people placing orders. I had to wait an hour for my order to be fulfilled. Who says the CMCO is bad for the food business? You just need to go to the non-touristy food courts where food can be equally good and prices are more reasonable.

The Street of Harmony digital brochures

Today, I shall put on display the covers of the 10 digital brochures of the Street of Harmony which my friend, Siang Jin, and I had produced for the George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) in 2011. As can be seen, a lot of effort was put into the research, writing and subsequent editing and layout. While these brochures were then put up by GTWHI on their website for visitors to download, they were removed after a few months. No reason was ever given for the removal but we could sense some hidden tension. I shall leave it to people here to conclude whether that decision to remove the brochures was justified. First, here are the 10 covers.

And below are the contents of one of the brochures which I have chosen at random. I won't be reproducing the contents of the remaining nine brochures though. It will take up too much space.