Uncle Foo and the Tiger

I am in love with Uncle Foo.

He’s a wonderful old gentleman, one of the best birdwatchers around, and unfailingly kind. In the afternoon heat we sit on the verandah overlooking Tasik Bera and eat our instant noodles while he tells his stories.

He tells me about how he was nearly killed during the Second World War.

It was a Sunday and he was walking in Georgetown, Penang with his brother. The rickshaw pullers weren’t working that day, and the empty rickshaws were drawn up in a line against a wall, with their handles pointing at the sky. Suddenly, there was the drone of Japanese planes in the sky. The pilots saw what they thought was a row of anti-aircraft guns pointing up towards them. They opened fire on the crowded street. Foo and his brother managed to leap into a monsoon drain which bordered the road and were safe, although Foo says that he was deeply traumatized by the incident and couldn’t eat for days afterwards.

He had another narrow escape more recently. He went bird watching with a group of friends in an area of rainforest on the Thai border. The forest was completely untouched, and had not been open to the public for decades because it was the last hideout of communist terrorists.

Uncle Foo was walking very slowly through the forest with a couple of friends, listening and watching for birds. Foo had just had knee-replacement surgery and was rejoicing at his newly-won mobility. He could not move very fast, which of course is no problem for a birdwatcher, since patience is the main virtue you need to possess.

Because of his knee problem, Uncle Foo carried with him a small folding chair and stopped every so often to rest and to scan the dark undergrowth with his binoculars before slowly moving on to the next spot.

He had just sat down and lifted his bins to his eyes, when he suddenly saw, just a few feet away and surely within leaping distance, an adult tiger staring back at him.

Foo called out to the friend who was standing nearby. The friend of course thought that he had to be joking. He came and saw for himself - and then took to his heels down the trail leaving Foo and the other friend to face their fate.

Uncle Foo, of course, could not run away. He had no weapon but the folding chair, and decided to use it. With greater presence of mind than I certainly could have mustered, he very slowly got to his feet. He folded up the chair. And then he rammed it down on the ground as hard and as loudly as he could.

The tiger could now see that Foo was clearly not a human to be messed with, and suitably impressed backed away into the bushes.

Foo and his remaining friend made their way back to camp walking as quickly as Uncle Foo's new knee would allow. And they must have been terrified every inch of the way that they were being followed.

Uncle Foo is entirely nonchalent about the encounter and still ventures out into virgin forest with his little folding chair.