Paper Heritage ... For Sale

News of an intriguing exhibition and sale from Badan Warisan (Malaysian Heritage Society, No 2, Jalan Stonor, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, heritage@badanwarisan.org.my) which starts tomorrow and runs till August 14 :

Warisan Kertas 2: Exhibition & Sale of Old Books, Maps and Ephemera

by Popular Picture History Resources

This is the only exhibition and sale in Malaysia specifically devoted the Malaysia 's paper heritage. Tell your friends and colleagues. We are sure you will find something of interest. Run by Johan Nicholson, this year's edition boasts of a wider variety of material.

CATEGORIES YOU WILL FIND:

History, nature, reference, economics, applied science, fiction, travel and tourism, education, language, politics, sociology, children’s, official and unofficial reports.

PREPARE FOR THE amusing, fascinating, obscure, important, controversial, biased, and misguided!

Follow the link above to read about some wonderful rare offerings. The books I would like are the ones for mems!

Taking Malaysian Food to Manchester

Yesterday I got invited along to the Malaysian launch of Chef Norman Musa's book Malaysian Food at Hotel Impiana.

Norman is the creator and Executive Chef of Ning restaurant in Manchester, which also boasts a cookery school, the first of its kind, I think, in the UK. I'm in favour of anything that teaches the Mat Salleh's what they are missing if they don't have great Malaysian food in their lives.

(And yes, Rob and Elaine in Manchester, I did ask him if he cooks vegetarian dishes in his restaurant and he says yes, even vegan, so trot along and have a makan for me.)

Now I'm a sucker for cookbooks, and although I've got my favourite Malaysian recipes (learned from my husband and a sister-in-law) down pat, I'm sort of stuck in a bit of a culinary rut, so am grateful for my copy of this.

Most of the recipes are Malaysian standards like rendang, nasi lemak, fish curry, prawn fritters, but there are a few things I haven't tried my hand at yet (murtubak, those pretty little Malay kueh), and the recipes are very simple to follow and don't contain a daunting list of impossible to get ingredients (even in the UK provided you can do a quick supermarket run to somewhere like Wing Yip.)  I really like the way that Norman tells us what ingredients he substitutes in the UK because I love to cook there when I go back and making compromises is often miserable and things don't taste right.

But this is more than a cookbooks and I enjoyed the commentary too - especially the description of a Malaysian market and all the good things you can buy there, and the photos of the food, as well as more arty black and white shots of Malaysian faces.

This book would make a very nice gift, especially for someone who doesn't yet know too much about Malaysian food but is raring to have a go.

I enjoyed meeting Norman after the event, and got my copy of the book signed.  It was great to meet so many friends from the bookshops too, and make some new ones.  And we got great goody bags of ingredients including tons of Adabi curry powder ... so now I have no excuse not to cook the dishes!

Studies in Sepia

The Saturday edition of The Star featured a book I am now eating my heart out for. Malay Peninsula: Old Photographs of Malaya and Singapore draws on the turn of the 20th century photographs in the private collection of Selangor Sultan, Sharafuddin Idris Shah. He bought a boxed set of of photogravure prints by German photographer Charles Kleingrothe from a dealer in London, some decades back :

When I saw the old-fashioned photographs of the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, I was very impressed and realised instantly that these were of great historical importance. By buying the original prints, I was not just adding to my collection, but also helping to preserve the nation’s photographic history. The photos are beautifully and expertly taken, and the subjects ranged from people in traditional wear, natural landscapes, buildings, tin mines and fishing villages, to large towns, government offices, plantations, ports and everything that made up the Malay peninsula over a hundred years ago.

This is the kind of book I could pour over for hours, the nearest thing to a time machine. Just that the RM400 price tag is a bit too steep for me. (Have I ever paid that for a book?)

Shared History, Shared Culture

History helps us understand who we are and where we have come from. This, in turn, allows us to appreciate other races whose ancestors too may have come from afar. And all of us, their descendants, are lucky enough to meet and mingle on this soil which we call home. ... Our forebears may have journeyed here centuries ago but it is the inward journey, one of mutual respect and trust, we should continue today.

I wish a very happy Merdeka to all Malaysians today, despite the sadness that many feel (including but certainly not limited to this.) It is so nice to See Malaysian authors featured in the National Day Special Supplement in The Star today. Tunku Halim talks about how Malaysian history that belongs to all while Lydia Teh talks about food and festivals and the other things that make Malaysians of all races Different But Same. Incidentally, Hal has a fascinating Merdeka piece on his blog about how an Englishman Tuanku Simon Mackay was appointed Malaysia’s 10th Yang DiPertuan Agong.

Following the Linggi

I almost missed this very nice piece from Saturday's Star. Our friend Caving Liz makes a journey to find the Linggi River in Negri Sembilan, following in the footsteps of intrepid 19th century British traveller Isabella Bird.

Bird was probably the greatest of the women explorers of her day, and travelled to many other parts of the world. The Golden Chersonese and The Way Thither (1883) is an incredible account of a journey made through the Malay Penininsula, and you can learn exactly what places like Malacca, Kuala Lumpur and Kuala Kangsar were like back then. And I love to imagine the lady trecking through steaming jungle and riding on an elephant wearing her long Victorian dresses.

(Should your curiosity to read the book be stirred, you can read it online here.)

May 13, Revisited

While I was away, that hugely significant anniversary - the fourtieth of May 13th, 1969 - came around. I liked author Preeta Samarasan's response (which she posted on Facebook) so much that I repost it here, with her permission.

I meant to write this note yesterday, on the actual anniversary, but. But.

I'll repost the link to The Nut Graph's brief commemorative piece here, because it's the only mention of May 13th I've seen on Facebook so far.

I didn't live through May 13th 1969; my parents and one of my siblings did. It's not so distant that the country is close to running out of survivors who remember it, and yet I think the question of what it has come to signify to my generation (and younger generations) is the more interesting one. Because, let's face it, in the grand scheme of things -- and oh how Grand that Scheme can be -- May 13th was no Rwanda, no Sri Lanka, no Palestine. Even the most liberal estimates put the total dead at about 2000. Of course I'm not belittling any of those lives lost, or the terrors of those few weeks; when you lose someone you love it doesn't matter if they were one of 2000 or one of six million. But what I *am* trying to say is that for most of us, the true impact of May 13th lies in the ways its memory has been preserved (or not), and not in the actual event itself. Which are, as I see it:

1) As a threat: If we don't toe the line, accept certain inequalities, and shut up about Sensitive Issues, it could "happen" again (always the omission of agency, as though these unfortunate things just stir themselves up, like bad weather);

2) As an unpleasant episode that has been gracefully laid to rest: Thank goodness we've moved on, look what perfect racial harmony we live in now, all of us getting along so nicely; surely we don't have to dwell on that terrible aberration.

These are the official, sanctioned ways to remember May 13th, but resistance to them isn't as common or obvious as one might expect. In Edinburgh last year, I was interviewed by a journalist who demanded to know why I'd written a novel "set in the past as usual." Why this obsession with the past, she kept asking, why not draw inspiration from my present life? I started to explain myself to her: I said I chose to include that chapter about May 13th because so few people discuss it meaningfully; because there are only these prescribed ways to talk about it; because, as a nation, we've never really digested it.

But she cut me off with a proclamation that has left me thinking about her for months: "The thing is," she said, "I'm not interested in the past. Frankly, it's boring. I've moved on."

It could almost be our new national motto: *Malaysia. We've moved on.* We've insulated ourselves inside city-sized malls, to which we drive in SUVs that replicate the temperatures of a Scandinavian spring. So the economy is a little wobbly these days, but we can still afford the Japanese buffets stocked with airflown seafood; we can still queue up for novelty cupcakes and donuts. Yes, we bemoan the government's latest iniquities, the arrests, the covered-up crimes, the wrestling matches in parliament. There's enough to entertain us right here, right now. Why talk about the past? It takes a lot of effort, for unclear rewards, to connect May 13th 1969 with anything that's happening today. And yet I can't shake the conviction that so much of what our nation is began on that day (or in the weeks leading up to it, because the truth is that it didn't just "happen" spontaneously). It was our watershed, and until we acknowledge that, *I* can't move on, and am equal parts impressed and offended by anyone who claims to have done so.

Vocabulary as Social History

Not about books but I just have to share with you this fascinating post by Rachel Leow * about loanwords in the Malay language, and how they give us insights into the social history of the region.

Her conclusion :

... in the face of the unmistakable traces of Ancient Khmer, Old Tamil, Urdu, Sanskrit and a distinctly Persianized Arabic in the very language that you utter your denials of pre-Islamic-Malay history in — this is masterful hypocrisy. Also, failing to acknowledge the deeply porous character of the Malay language (nearly a third of the Malay-Indonesian language is loaned) might blind us to the way in which two of the most salient ’semantic field’ vacuums in Malaysia, over the last century, have been and are still today being filled by non-Malay terms: science and politics. No prizes for guessing what the words for those in Malay are: sains and, yes, politik.

(Many thanks Caving Liz, for the link.)

Whose Story Is It, Anyway?

What can and what can't be found in school history textbooks has been a source of concern for many years. Besides omissions and insufficient emphasis on certain communities, experts and parents alike contend that some of the text and illustrations in history textbooks are placed there to subtly brainwash young minds. ... Some of these elements contain politically-aligned and narrow views that can skew students' impressions of historical events and their impact on the country and its communities. ... While school history textbooks now make a clear push for a national culture and society, are more comprehensive, and encourage students to be more analytical than in the past, when they were required to merely regurgitate facts and dates for examinations, certain elements in the texts must be reviewed.

The thorny issue of whether Malaysian History textbooks for schools are ripe for review is given much space (and the front page) in today's New Straits Times. (Here, here, here and here).

Whose version of history is the correct one? Once again, I don't think anyone has asked the question as effectively as Kee Thuan Chye in We Could **** You, Mr Birch.

I'm no expert on the teaching of history but I think that instead of getting students to swallow what's presented to them as cut and dried facts, students are allowed to see how the events of the past could be interpreted from different viewpoints. It would do their thinking skills no end of good.

I'd also like to see Malaysian students learning a little more world history. I was shocked when I realised my undergrad students knew almost nothing about the Second World War, for example.

When Fatimah Lost her Kampung

A few days ago I wrote about the launch of a children's book called Fatimah's Kampung by Iain Buchanan at Badan Warisan. I ended up being pretty late because I had decided to walk to Jalan Stonor from KLCC, along what I thought was a familiar route. I ended up getting lost, completely thrown by the way the area has changed since I was last there, with huge high-rises and building sites beginning to dominate this formerly green and peaceful enclave with its colonial bungalows.

I realise now, after reading the book, that there's a certain irony to all this - for Fatimah's Kampong is the story about how a landscape changes as the city encroaches, and how what is best about a place will be sacrificed to commercial interest.

In the introduction to the book Buchanan talks about how the book came to be written. He says he came to Malaysia first to teach shortly after Independence and that he took away with him a memory of the landscape which became part of him.

He continued to teach geography in a university in the East Midlands, and one day he had a call from one of his former students, Maznoor, now a college lecturer herself, coming to the UK to do a diploma in TEFL. They later married and Buchanan found himself part of a :

... large, lively, and very loving Malaysian family ..

But revisiting the landscape he had fallen in love with, he found that there was good reason to mourn :

... there was painted concrete, dead laterite and a gaudy brittle sameness ...

After taking early retirement, and wanting to communicate the ideas that he has lectured on in a way that was more vivid and exciting to young people, he began work on Fatimah's Kampung, a labour of love which took him eight years to complete, while Maznoor went out to work in a British factory to pay the bills. It was a true labour of love.

The book tells the story of a girl growing up in Kampong Hidayah. The family home was built by her great-grandfather with materials taken from the forest. When most of the other kampungs disappeared because of the expansion of the city it was allowed to remain untouched by the Sultan who owned the land.

Fatimah grows up amidst fruit trees, and forest (where she believes Pak Belang the tiger still might be hiding), and near to the frangipani filled graveyard where her relatives were laid to rest, and the keramat once home to a holy man who knew the ways of the forest in the way no others did.

The rhythms of kampong life of are recorded - her grandmother gathering herbs to cure ailments, the children's games, the visits by hawkers, Ramadan and the bustle of Hari Raya at the end of it, the monsoon floods.

But then the bulldozers move in and Fatimah and her family are forced to relocate to a high rise near by where they can see the final destruction of their kampung, and the forest around it.

There is one small mercy - the kampong house itself is to be saved and taken to be part of a new theme park which Fatimah gets the chance to visit.

Labelling books can sometimes do them a disservice, and whilst the book will undoubtedly appeal to older children (many of whom may have lived the story!), it will strike a chord with every Malaysian who cares about the environment and heritage, regardless of age, and will probably travel very well beyond these shores as the issues it raises are universal ones. I'm not ashamed to say that the story moved me to tears - especially the part where Fatimah finally does come face to face with her tiger.

But it is the stunning illustrations, with every detail of tree and leaf and kampung lovingly recorded, which make this book an absolute joy to own. (I have had to pries my copy out of the hands of visitors to the house who haven't wanted to put it down and talk to me!)

I wonder if Fatimah's Kampung might not be better described as a graphic novel and one that could easily become a classic of the genre?

The book is published by the Consumers Association of Penang, and this surprises on two counts. First of all, the organisation is known for its pamphlets on consumer and environmental issues and they have not, to my knowledge, ever undertaken a project like this before. Secondly, that they have made such a great job of it - this is a beautifully produced book that you could put beside any produced overseas and feel proud of.

Have I raved? Sorry. But I sincerely mean every word of praise I have heaped on this book.

But why not see for yourself? Iain will be appearing at Readings@Seksan this coming Saturday and a limited number of his books will be on sale.

Areca's Penang Heritage

I'm a sucker for coffee-table books about aspects of Malaysian history, but hadn't realised that Penang based publisher Areca Books had such a great catalogue, until I stumbled across some of their books in Silverfish yesterday.

A couple of their earlier titles are old friends. My copy of Streets of Georgetown, Penang by Khoo Salma Nasution is very tatty after guiding not only my own rambles round this fascinating city, but also after being lent to numerous overseas visitors who want to know exactly what they are looking at.

Penang Postcards Collection also by Khoo Salma Nasution, with Malcolm Wade is a much-thumbed treasure. (Though I have a minor niggle - the paper used doesn't seem to like this humid climate very much and the pages stick together.)

Yesterday I added to my collection Days Gone By : Growing Up in Penang by Christine Wu Ramsay, which Chong Kwee Kim described in the Star as the classic Chinese tale where :

A patriach makes a fortune in tin-mining and the next two generations squander it.

The patriach in question is the author's great-grandfather, Leong Fee a poor Hakka migrant from China who rose to become the owner of the famous Tambun Mines in Perak (at one time the world's greatest tin producer) and a Vice-Consul of China in Penang.

The book is worth buying for the old photos alone, culled from family albums, and I reckon that it is very reasonably priced at RM50.

And also, Penang Through Gilded Doors by Julia de Bierre which focuses on the wealth of heritage buildings on the island. James Bain Smith's photographs are nothing short of stunning. What I particularly love is that they allow access into interiors, from kampung houses to grand mansions, that I have never had the chance to see for myself (but have always longed to!). It's heartening to see the restoration work on these buildings, and how lovingly they are cared for.

Even if you know Penang very well, I'm sure this beautiful book will help you to see it with fresh eyes.


I will be slowly - as I can afford to - collecting the other titles in the series!

Our Burgess Pilgrimage

Thought I'd share with you some of the photos I took on the trip up north to Kuala Kangsar on the "Burgess pilgrimage" I made with Rob, Elaine and Abu. For those of you who've skipped a beat, this town was my home for three years. And Anthony Burgess ... or rather John Burgess Wilson also lived and taught and began his career as a novelist there in the fifties.

Even Burgessians (for such we are, said Dr. Rob) have to eat. First stop, breakfast at the Tapah service station. While globalisation leads to a distressing homogenization of the world, and fast food franchises looking the same the world over, at least the local branch of Dunkin' Donuts is bold enough to initiate a new variety.

The only place to eat if you want to connect with the real Kuala Kangsar is Yut Loy restaurant, famous for possibly the best pau (steamed buns with a range of fillings) in Malaysia, and also as a smokers' haven for the Malay College boys, allowed out to town on Saturdays. They congregate in the room upstairs as they have for decades. And no doubt the friendly proprietor tips them off when a prefect or teacher approaches. Ah, tradition!

And the only dish to eat in Yut Loy if you want to follow local traditions is "egg steak". (A culinery delight i don't think even Boolicious has discovered.)

The dish that was invented for British and Aussie servicemen stationed in the town after the war and during the emergency when they couldn't afford beef steak. It consists of two runny yolked fried eggs, dowsed in a gravy made of dilute Worcestershire sauce, enriched with tinned processed peas, and served with thick slices of toast. Of such stuff are gourmet dreams made.

It feels like a place where time has stood still. These pictures of Kuala Kangsar in the floods date from 1967.

On to the official tourist route, which took us on a winding drive around Bukit Chandan, the town's royal hill and one of the richest spots for architecture in the country. Above, of course, is the famous Ubudiah Mosque:

... bulbous as a clutch of onions ...

as Burgess said irreverently in Time for a Tiger. We also pointed out to Rob and Elaine the Sultan's Palace, Istana Iskandariah (left):

... designed by a Los Angeles architect ...

Sadly, the Istana Kenangan (built without the use of a single nail) was closed to the public.

An army of asplenium nidus bent on world domination in the branches of an ancient rain tree on Bukit Chandan.

An old house (right) I loved to cycle to when I lived in Kuala Kangsar had burned down and only the blackened frame remains. Really this breaks my heart. I remember exploring inside the house, being careful of the broken floorboards ... and finding two thrones in an otherwise empty upstairs room! The house became the hang-out of drug addicts and I guess that's how the fire started. Clearly, it was yet another palace on a hill of palaces and I guess that no-one really cared enough to try to preserve it.

The most important stop was to see King's Pavilion, built 1905, which served as the British resident's home and later as the prep school for Malay College. This is where Anthony Burgess/ JB Wilson lived (upstairs) when he was hostel master. My husband was one of the seven year olds he describes in his autobiography Little Wilson and Big God, crying themselves to sleep at night and pissing off the balcony (which Abu says isn't true, but as Rob says, if Burgess were given the choice between the truth and a better story, he'd go with the latter). This is also where Burgess' protagonist Victor Crabbe lived in the alternate universe's Kuala Hantu.

The building now houses the Sekolah Menegah Raja Perempuan Kalsom.

Next stop was the Idris Club, named after the fun-loving Sultan Idris. In Time for a Tiger, Burgess rechristened it the Iblis Club. Iblis, of course, means Devil. All these cheeky renamings of Malaysian towns and landmarks would have passed the books foreign readers by. My theory - Burgess wanted to share a joke with his Malay speaking readers (to whom the book is dedicated) and not let the others in on it. (He didn't even fully explain the joke in his autobiography).

I used to be a member of the club. (Actually this is where I brought Abu on our first date!) To quote Burgess in Earthly Powers:

It was in Kuala Kangsar, if you will forgive the novelettish circumlocution, that I met the love of my life.

But now the Idris Club seems a very sad, rundown place and the people running the place seemed more than a little suspicious of us.

I had to sneak this picture of the billiard table through an open window. Can't see Burgess being a snooker player but I'm sure his characters played a frame or two here.

Of course, our trip culminated in a visit to Malay College, where the author taught. The school features prominently in Time for a Tiger.

On our trip home, we stopped off in Ipoh and christened the trip with Tiger Beer and tea. The 101 year old FMS bar is faced with closure, and many of the old shophouses seemed to be boarded up. More heritage buildings about to be lost?

I did a sterling job of pointing out other landmarks that make their way into Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain ("That's a cave temple over there") and Preeta Samarasan's forthcoming Evening is the Whole Day. Am thinking of taking up bibliotourism for a living.

If you'd like more on Burgess in Kuala Kangsar, I think you will find this extract from the first volume of his autobiography, quite fascinating ... particularly on the topic of Malay ghosts and the affair he carried on with a coffee-shop waitress called Rahimah.

Mr. Pringle Meets the Publishing Pirates

As I'm sure I've told you before, I'm a sucker for historical reprints of old books about life in Malaya. In these first hand accounts, I can easily slip back in time and take an enthralling journey through the country as it was long before I came here.

I've collected many of the books in the Oxford in Asia series (some of them received as payment for work done for the publisher - great trade off!) and am sad that the books are now discontinued.

Happy I was then to come across the Malaysian Heritage series of 12 classic books about the country in Kinokuniya the other day. Reader, I desired them.

True, they are nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing as the OUP books, which is something of a disappointment, but I care much more about the content.

Raman is also stocking the books and has featured them on his Silverfish website.

But it seems, the publisher, Synergy Press (a subsidiary of local publisher SA Majeed) may have been far less than scrupulous about obtaining permissions to republish the books.

One of the authors featured in the series, Robert Pringle, writes on Raman's website:

The publisher of the Malaysian Heritage Series did not get permission from anyone before reprinting my book, Rajahs and Rebels: The Ibans of Sarawak under Brooke Rule. This is unfortunate because I am in the process of arranging a legal reprint, with a Malaysian publisher, which will include a badly-needed new introduction commenting on the implications of this history in the light of what has happened since 1970, when it was published, and also correcting some errors in the first edition. That endeavor will obviously be complicated by the existence of this illegal edition which will inevitably reduce the prospect of further sales, even for a better product. No reputable bookstore should be selling this book. I cannot speak for other titles in the series.

Am wondering what laws in Malaysia cover copyright of books and what the author's legal rights are? I checked up on Wikipedia which told me that:

In most of the world the default length of copyright for many works is generally the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years.

which would mean that this particular title was published illegally.

And that quite apart from the moral consideration: it's completely wrong not to ask for permission.

Mr. Pringle was hard to find? Nonsense, he responded within days to Raman's posting once his name was on the internet, and no doubt could have been reached through his publishers (this book was previously published by Cornell University Press and I believe the author's most recent book was published by Allen and Unwin.)

Rather, I think it's an extension I think of the let's-make-a-quick-buck-and-never-mind-the-rights-of-the-author syndrome.

Am looking forward to the opinions of the legal minds among my readers.

Raman, meanwhile, has withdrawn the book from sale and I hope that other bookshops have enough integrity to follow suit.

The Long Literary Journey to Merdeka

You know the 31st of August is coming soon when you get woken by the sweet sound of MIG fighters screaming over the rooftops on a Sunday morning, as they practice for the fly-past for the Merdeka celebrations. I'm just near Subang airport where the planes are based, and am just waiting for the day when one lands in my cornflakes.

On a happier note, the NST is giving away a free facsimile copy of an edition from fifty-years ago with the paper each day in the run up to the celebrations. It's an amazing way to step back into the past, to find out what was in the news (anti-Communist operations, Field Marshall Sir Gerald Templer flying in for the celebrations and longing for a bath, an A-bomb test in South Australia) , what was on at the cinema (Stewart Granger and Rhonda Fleming in Gun Glory, Eleanor Parker and Bill Travers in The Seventh Sin based on Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil); what goods were being advertised (Brands Essence of Chicken - does nothing change?), what was on TV (oops, there was no TV in Malaya in 1957*. Sorry Tash!).


But of course, what caught my eye was the book page. Two Novelists write on Borneo, Malaya, says one headline, and the reviewer discusses Hugh Hickling's Festival of Hungry Ghosts (which involves the killing of a district officers somewhere in Borneo) and Katherine Sim's Malacca Boy ("the story of a Malacca boy, part Indian, a child of the kamponground whose life she wraps and understanding of the Malay scene").

Both books I'm now curious to read. Hickling's book is available at Abebooks, Sim's I can't trace anywhere.

Malaya and Borneo seen through British eyes ... literature written by the British, for the British.

Remember Burgess' optimism? That one day other races besides the Brits:

... may well themselves contribute to English literature.

You've come a long literary way in fifty years, Malaysia!

*TV broadcasts began here in 1963.

The Enchanted Prison

Thought this was an interesting in the piece by Himanshu Bhatt in the NST on Sunday about a historical novel by Malkiat Singh Lopo (left) which:

... chronicles the little-known story of the pioneering Sikhs in Malaya and the emotional process of attachment towards their new homeland. ... The Enchanted Prison ... chronicles the early hardships, predicaments and successes of the Sikhs who, like other communities, helped propel Malaysia to the modern industrialised land it is today.

The novel is set in India and Malaya between 1873 to 1937. Most immigrants from the Punjab were usually by the British colonial government as soldiers and policemen. But, as the article points out:

... a steady stream of other occupations also grew — milkmen, cattle farmers, guards, craftsmen, collies and tailors.

Malkiat, a retired teacher, says in the article:

Malaya was the first country outside the Indian subcontinent that Sikhs emigrated to. ... It was referred to as the golden cage or a heavenly prison. It was a prison because one was so enchanted by this foreign country that you were unable to return to your own homeland. ... When the first immigrants came here, they viewed Punjab with nostalgia and longing. But when they returned there years later, it had become a strange country!

The novel is available at the office of Malaya Samachar, 2nd floor, Wisma Tatt Khalsa, 24 Jalan Raja Alang, 50300 Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 03-26930735; 012- 3690673 (Hari Singh). E-mail: samachar@streamyx.com.

But it would be good it if could be more widely available. As Himanshu Bhatt says:

Though specific to a particular ethnic community, the novel is easily one of the most insightful works of historical literature to have come out of Malaysia in the last few years.

The Tragic End of Bok House

Sometimes stories are in books and sometimes they are held in the walls of buildings.

I can't let this week go past without this diversion to talk about the demolition of one of KL's most beautiful buildings, Bok House. I feel very emotional about the way an important heritage building is torn down because of the commercial value of the land. (Also see Elizabeth Wong's posts here and here and Dr. Rais' explanation excuse here. Lensamalaysia's account here.)

You do of course, know the romantic legend of the house, right? If not here it is. (An adaptation of info from Badan Warisan).

Chua Cheng Bok arrived as a penniless immigrant from China with no education, and got a job in shop selling spices, but then decided to move into a business of his own.

At night, after his day job was done, he went to “Red Light Corner” at the junction of Ampang which was lit at night to prevent any traffic colliding in the dark, and there he mended bicycles and carriage.

Later he heard of an Englishman up country whose tin mine was going bust and who was about to sack his workers and return to England, and Chua bought over the mine. (Later when he was rich he voluntarily paid the Englishman a pension for the rest of his life.)

The story goes that Chua fell in love with the daughter of a rich man who lived in a big mansion on Jalan Ampang, but the father turned him down because of his humble origins.

Eventually he built a mansion just across the road, more beautiful and grander than that of the man who had rebuffed him. Perhaps it was to spite him. Perhaps (and I like to think this) it was to remind the daughter daily of his love for her.

The company that Chua founded was called Cycle and Carriage, after his humble beginnings in KL. Some of you may have heard of it!

The house was later used as a restaurant - Le Coq d'Or. I went to eat there a couple of times, and while the food didn't delight (steaks, chicken chop - not terribly well cooked ... but I loved the bombe alaska with sparklers embeded in it, which was a birthday treat!)

But it was the ambience of the place that delighted - the statues in the hallway, the sweeping central staircase, the very gothic light fittings, the age-stained oil paintings, the bathrooms with their imported British sanitary ware and one of the most ingenious showers I've ever seen (pipes sprayed water at the bather from every direction!) It was a museum piece, and one that should have been preserved. This photograph by Azrul Kevin Abullah* is sadly captioned "probably one of last times sunlight fell inside this house" is perhaps the most fitting memorial to a piece of KL's history now gone forever.

*His account of the house as it used to be, and more photos here.

Rich Tapestry

Remember - I talked about Azah Aziz's beautiful coffee table book about Malay costume, Rupa dan Gaya, a couple of months ago! I lamented at the time that it didn't seem to be being promoted.

Well, - yesterday there was a two-page spread about it by Neil Khor Jin Keong in Star Two perfectly timed to coincide with Hari Raya and the season of dressing up. (I felt as if I were at a fashion show yesterday - especially with my gorgeous nieces parading the latest in kebayas and kurongs at eldest sister's open house!)

Writes Khor:

... by combining lavish illustrations with selected pantun as well as extracts from legendary stories and court chronicles, Kak Azah has succeeded in creating not only an invaluable book on Malay costumes but also one that provides a deep insight into the Malay worldview.

This book is a very important one on Malay heritage and well worth seeking out: I hope it hits the bookshops soon.

(Right - the author. Above, costume of Cik Siti Wan Kembang, the warrior queen of Kelantan.)

Flag Waving and Photos

Selamat Hari Merdeka.

Britain doesn't have a national day. (Well okay, we have our patron saint days e.g. England has St. George's day which everyone forgets about.) We're pretty sneery about patriotism in general. The only displays of patriotism now are reserved for international football matches, royal weddings and funerals, and the last night of the Proms.

But I think a national day is a much good thing, even if you're cynical about the marching and the flag waving and other openly extravagant shows of patriotism. It makes you think about your nation, examine how far you've gone since the turning point of Independence, and contemplate your future.

This year's National Day feels a bit dislocated. 49 is an awkward birthday. (Been there myself, bought the t-shirt.) You're contemplating the big one, when you can really pull all the stops out, so you don't bother much with the one at hand.

Congrats then to the New Straits Times which is celebrating Merdeka with an excellent exhibition of photos from 1957 in Bangsar Shopping Complex. The pictures also appear in a special pull-out section in today's newspaper.

I scanned in my favourite photo (top) captioned Have payung, will travel. I just love this group of smiling Malay girls strolling with their parasols. And how gaya they are in their traditional dress with flowers pinned in their hair.

Can a whole era be summarized in these images? Nostalgia naturally tints the past in rosy tones, but I do wonder if folks were happier back then.

The NST has also produced a facsmile of it's 1957 Merdeka issue which makes fascinating reading.*

Teh Tarik Books?

My old man went to Wak Chai, his favourite kedai makan in Taman Tun, to ta pow some noodles for his supper, and came home with another kind of takeaway!

The cafe was selling copies of Azah Aziz's beautiful coffee table book, Rupa & Gaya, along with the kopi.

The title translates as Form and Fashion and the book looks at traditional Malay fashions both past and present. It's lushly illustrated, with plenty to have the modern fashionista running to copy some of the tailoring. But I love all the old black and white photos most of all (below right).
The book is even more pleasing to the eye with the gold edging to the pages.

You can't talk about the history of fashion in a vacuum, and the book gives an overview of traditional Malay arts and culture (textiles, woodcarving, jewellery making, music, dance) along the way.

The text is in Malay but even for this linguistically challenged mat salleh, quite accessible and very informative. And there's very nice poetry scattered in, which delights me no end. Here's a lovely pantun that accompanies the picture of a musician:

Tiup seruling lagunya lama,
Bagailah bunyi buluh perindu;
Jikalau rindu aku adinda,
Kirimlah salam di angin lalu.

The book is published by Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, but I wonder if they have really been promoting it, as I haven't come across it in bookshops and I can't find a single reference to it online, which is very sad.

This is too beautiful a treasure to be marketed with the mee!

Recording Malacca

... Malacca is a city with an irreconcilable past, in which history is hastily rewritten and packaged for mass consumption; in which the oldest buildings are condemed, their parts sold to willing buyers; in which the past is wrongly told but unquestioningly swallowed; in which traditional communities are displaced by the inexorable drive for profit; in which historic icons are ripped out of context and exploited for tourism. A city whose name is a "saleable item" and nothing more.

And a city in which the voice of common sense is seldom heard.

This from the preface to Lim Huck Chin and Fernando Jorge's new book Malacca: Voices from the Street.

I knew about their project: I'd been a member of Badan Warisan Malaysia, and I was also kept updated on their progress by a mutual friend with a strong interest in conservation. What has blown me away is the quality of the book they've produced (and self-published).

I feel very strongly about Malacca. When I first came to Malaysia in '84, I used to travel to down to stay with friends in Klebang Besar and would spend my weekends wandering through the old streets taking photographs. My boyfriend at the time, a wonderful guy who boasted six different racial collisions in his family tree, laughingly called it "the time tunnel" and introduced me to much of its informal history and many of its local "characters". I was in love - at least with the city.

I don't think any street in the world better symbolises religious harmony than the stretch of Jalan Tokong (Temple Street) where cheek by jowl you find Cheng Hoon Teng - Malaysia's oldest Chinese temple, the Sumatra-style Kampong Keling Mosque and the Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi temple - Malaysia's first Hindu Temple. I was fascinated too by the Baba-Nyonya houses on Heeran Street and the history of this unique community.

I was stunned when the reclamation project began, destroying the sea-front of the old part of the city and replacing it with an ugly commercial centre in one of the most unsympathetic pieces of town planning I think I've ever seen. Then there is the "touristisation" of the city by the local authority which makes a mockery of its real heritage (the artitfact that sums up utter total tastelessness is that bloody replica of a dutch windmill in the middle of a traffic-island!) and turns the city into something of a theme park. (No Malay artifacts in evidence? Let's tack on a wooden palace to even things up!)

Many of the most important heritage buildings meanwhile fell into a state of disrepair or were sold to businesses for commercial premises. Owners and tenants uninterested in or ignorant about the heritage value of their buildings "renovate" (often without planning permision from the local authorities) and some heritage buildings have been demolished. Still others have now become nesting homes for swifts for the commericial production of birds nests. (Heaven help us if bird flu gets into the swift population!) The toll of neglect and and ignorance and beaurocratic bungling goes on and on and is totally heart-breaking.

Congratulations then to Huck and Fernando for documenting Malacca so carefully that we can be left in no doubt as to value of what still remains and why it needs conserving. (And I can't help hoping the decision makers treat themselves to a copy of this book.)

Heritage is not just about bricks and mortar and the authors document the living community of Malacca, uncovering the human stories of the city's inhabitants. The book gives names and faces to the people who populate the streets: we see, for example, goldsmith Wong Poon Oon at his bench; coffeeshop owner Lee Sook Kok chatting to customers; and A. Thiruppathy, a chettiar money lender, totalling columns of figures. Malacca is no dry museum piece and must never become one.

The photographs are so evocative I think I would have bought the book for those alone, and I love the layout and feel of the book, the matt finish to the pages, the weight of the paper. But it's not just a beautiful book to leave lying around on the coffee table: the text is authoritative and draws on extensive research, while remaining extremely readable. It's truly a labour of love.

Okay, the bad news is the book costs a painful RM198 (I was fortunate to have some book vouchers to soften the blow!)

For much more about the book and the project in general, visit the website.