Archive for January, 2008

My father emailed me a couple of weeks ago this recollection of his school days in Kuala Lumpur during the 1940s to continue his series of memoirs, Memories of Malaya.

He writes:

During the time I was in this school (about 1945 - 1949) there was one headmaster and about 30 teachers. There was a change of headmaster in about 1947; both were Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan). All the teachers were males and there were about 20 Chinese about 10 Indians and/or Ceylonese and the rest Malays. Only the headmaster was a university graduate, the rest were what we called “normal trained,” that is, after their fifth form they joined the teaching profession and were sent out to the schools to learn their craft as they worked. All the teachers taught their classes diligently and did not shirk except that they did not mark the work they had set. But this was not necessary because in arithmetic, a boy would exchange his exercise book with the boy sitting next to him and the teacher would give out the answer and the boy would mark it. The teacher would then ask if anyone had made a mistake and if there were he would work it out on the blackboard. In English, most of the exercises consisted of filling in the blanks with the appropriate word from amongst the words given. Again this was easy to correct by the same method.

Each form or standard had five classes designated with the first five letters of the alphabet with the “A” class, having the best forty boys in that form judged from the previous final year end examination results and going down academically to the “E” class. Those in this last class were usually older and more mature boys than those in “A” class because their education was delayed by the war and quite a lot of them had worked for a living during the war so they were not interested in going back to school but were forced to by their parents.

When I started I used to walk to school accompanied by my Mother about nine-tenths of the way. We parted before arriving at the school because she continued on her journey to work by bus and I would continue to walk the rest of the way. Later on when I was in standard one I was given a brand new Raleigh bicycle with white mud guards and a red triangular frame. During school hours I parked it in our aunt’s house which was near the school. Having an aunt so near had another advantage: if I were threatened by other boys to a fight after school, I would easily run to her house until my opponents became tired of waiting and left for home.

Most of the boys walked to school and some cycled but because the school took in boys that lived nearby where most of the households were from the lower clerical grades of the civil service no one was dropped by car. There were no school buses then. Cycling was a very common mode of transport not only for school children. The roads were fairly wide and there was little motor traffic and I bicycled even up to sixth form in 1955 for school activities in the afternoons. By then I had joined the senior school about 2 miles from home. The common brand of bicycles were Raleigh, BSA Rudge and like most manufactured things, imported from UK.

During the interval, I had mentioned that I was envious of all those who could buy their food from the tuckshop whilst I had to eat sandwiches brought from home. There were a couple of boys from rich families who had their nannies bring them a full-scale meal which they ate in the tuckshop with the nannies sitting by their side and clearing up after the meal. The aunt also invited me to her house during the interval to give me a meal. I did not accept because I did not want all the other boys to see me walking to her house from the school. I would not be able to live down the ensuing teasing.

The school did not require its boys to wear school uniforms. Most of us went in a white or a blue short-sleeved shirt and white, blue or khaki shorts with socks and white tennis or black leather shoes. Not being a sporting type I did not attend to any of the games that were held in the afternoon after school hours. The games were football, hockey and cricket. Only once I was forced by the P.E. teacher to try my hand at cricket. How to spin ball is still a mystery to me. During the school interval some of the bigger boys would kick around a football in the playing field and woe to the smaller boy who strayed into the field as the boys would slam a ball into his behind. I was a victim once and it was so painful that tears came to my eyes.

All the teachers were generalist that is to say they taught all subjects: arithmetic, history, geography, and there were no specialist. During my last year in this school amongst the other subjects taught was also history. The history book used consisted of the life stories of about 5 or 6 historical figures. I remember some of them being Buddha, Confucius, D’Alberquerque. Strangely there was no Jesus Christ or Mohamad. Because of the make up of the population the colonial government probably did not want to touch on any religious topics. The teacher was an Indian and he was very good at his work and to this day I remember some facts of these historical persons from his teaching.

Photo: thanks to CLF on flickr.com (CCL)

(Unfortunately, I don’t have any historic photos of old Malaya to illustrate this post. If you do and would like to share them on Fusion View, please do get in touch via the comments section or the Email Me link. )

Alex Pryce at Poetcasting shared this video with me after seeing the video I featured a few weeks ago of the Swedish pop group OK Go dancing on gym treadmills. This version is the Lego version - yes, that’s right, those little toy bricks…

by Guest blogger Alan Lane

Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest with the late Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, died in New Zealand on 11 January 2008, aged 88.

As a tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary’s extraordinary life, writer Alan Lane steps back in time to recount a conversation with Hillary in Canada on the 30th anniversary of the Everest climb. He talks about the ascent and his life at that time.

Big Ed

It is no coincident that Edmund Percival Hillary has become known as ‘Big Ed.’ As he rises from his chair to greet you, there develops a feeling of size (he is 6ft 3 in tall, broad- shouldered and close to 200lb). There is also a breadth of vision gained from a lifetime embracing challenges which for others remain permanently in their fantasies.

The appearance is craggy, but unlike the ascent on Everest, approaching the former bee-keeper from Taukau, New Zealand, is considerably easy. The grin on the weathered face is genial, and deep-set eyes trained from years of scanning distant horizons peer searchingly from beneath cliff-like brows. The handshake is firm without trying to impress.

Hillary has never given any time to pretence or the fineries of society. Loping through the Toronto headquarters of Simpsons-Sears, who he advises on sporting equipment, he is unmistakable among the well-groomed secretaries and executives. A rumpled suit and bulging, battered briefcase which has seen many a base camp, underline his down-to-earth informality and aversion to the cocktail circuit. “I have never been a great social butterfly and can well do without it,” he tells me.

For many people all over the world, Big Ed dropped out of sight after Everest. As one Australian student told him at a Sydney high school: I’m glad you’re looking so well. I have read abut you in the history books and I thought you were dead.”

Since then he has led the first vehicle expedition overland to the South Pole and headed an international group searching for the Yeti (the Abominable Snowman). He also led an expedition travelling in jet boats up the Ganges River in India to trace its source in the Himalayas.

Physically-fit

Now in his early 60s, this maestro of the snowline has always striven to stay physically-fit. He never trains formally for expeditions but walks an hour a day. To maintain his best climbing weight he will walk for five days in the Himalayan foothills in Nepal to his work building schools and hospitals with the Sherpa people. He would rather walk than take an aircraft. Once he walked 240 km (150 miles) in 12 days, climbing to 1500m (5,000ft) when monsoons grounded flights.

This firm grasp on his physical condition has at times been elusive. One day in New Zealand as his 50th year approached, he took a look at himself and became disenchanted with what he saw.

“I had a mild hangover from a surfeit of good food and wine, my discarded clothes reeked with other people’s tobacco smoke. Almost unconsciously I was slipping into the easy habits of most of the well-meaning, self indulgent and well-heeled members of society. If I became too physically soft I would be worth nothing to myself or to anybody else.”

On a notepad beside the bed he wrote a short list of resolutions – things he had wanted to do for years which would help to keep him reasonably fit and adventurous.

The first task was to escape the telephone and the concrete jungle – his term for a city. This was achieved by building a cottage on the cliffs above the Tasman Sea, outside Auckland, in New Zealand’s North Island – facing the setting sun and without a telephone. The list of objectives has continued to grow.

Such a life has not been without its personal traumas for Edmund Hillary. The death of his wife, Louise, and daughter in a Katmandu air crash several years ago has left “a great gap” in his life. Louise was a constant companion on his aid projects in the Himalayas – the place where he has directed most of his energies in recent years, away from the high profile glories of mountaineering.

The lectures he gives have increasingly reflected deeper involvement in world problems – racialism, the population explosion, conservation of the environment and the increasing gap in wealth between the rich and poor nations.

Nepalese mountain people

During his years among the Nepalese mountain people he became committed to improving their physically demanding, harsh lifestyle. He set up his Himalayan Foundation in New Zealand and established a Canadian equivalent to raise funds for this work.

Since the early 1960s, he and a team of helpers and the Sherpa people have provided hospitals, schools, airfields and piped water for the mountain people of Nepal. It’s a major contribution to a country of 13 million people, where only nine out of every 100 can read or write, and the nearest medical care for many is several days’ walk away.

Working, planning and climbing in Nepal can take up to six months of his year. During this time he strives to prepare the mountain people for inevitable changes in their lifestyle.

“Tourism has become an important business and quite a lot of money is involved,” he says. “There is nothing much I can do about these changes but I can try to ensure, with the agreement of the local people, that they do not get left behind.

“What has happened so many times is that the local people become needed just as a source of labour. By providing education, health care and communication facilities I have been able to ensure that the Sherpas have the knowledge of how to do things for themselves – such as running the hotels and trekking businesses which have been established. I prefer to see the Sherpas steering their own ship rather than just being trampled on.”

The changes for which Hillary is preparing the Sherpas are already influencing their way of life.

“Divorce is much more common now in the community. The Sherpas are under great pressure of a type they had not previously experienced. Their previous tough, hard lifestyle had a regular pattern of habits but now they have a great deal more money and their lifestyle is changing. I want to see them confident in their new environment and I have been able to play a small part in achieving this.”

Hillary’s no-nonsense style and earthy approach to life is legendary. A suggestion that a larger share of New Zealand’s national purse should be devoted to assisting the poorer countries drew the following reply from the Minister of Finance (described by Hillary as “well nourished”): “I think Sir Edmund Hillary knows as much about the New Zealand economy as I know about mountain climbing.”

Even at what was the pinnacle of mountaineering achievement, his style remained unchanged. After the descent from Everest’s summit he told fellow expedition members: “Well, we knocked the bastard off.”

Everest ascent

Thirty years later, Hillary cast his mind back to 11.30am on May 29, 1953, when he stepped on to the summit of Everest, with the Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay. It was a time of climbing with simple army equipment, leather boots which froze and thick hemp rope of the type used by ships – far removed from the specialized gear of today.

“My first reaction was one of surprise. I had been brought up thinking this mountain could never be conquered. Now, here was Ed Hillary on top of Everest. Who’d believe it. Everest was just another mountain. There are dozens of projects which have all been just as important.”

Would he do it again?

“I am physically incapable of doing it again. If I did try, I would tackle the most difficult route.”

He is amazed how the mystique of Everest has been retained. “We really felt it would all fade away when we conquered it. But there are still people lining up waiting to climb.”

On climbing and challenge today, he has this to say: “It is nonsense that people climb mountains just because they’re there. You wouldn’t put up with all that discomfort and grind your heart out just for the sake of it. It’s the challenge of fear and danger. You struggle with them. You extend your limits.

“There are challenges all around us if we take the trouble to identify them. Modern mountaineers are doing much more difficult things today than we were. The purpose of climbing then was to find the easiest way up. The route we took on Everest was only moderately difficult. Now the challenge is the difficult route.”

Rather a tent than hotel

As the interview draws to a close, Edmund Hillary prepares to leave for the United States, where he will test camping equipment for Sears Roebuck.

“I’m looking forward to that,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “I’d rather sleep in a tent any day than stay in a hotel.”

We shake hands and it’s time to say farewell to this giant of a man.

As he sets off down the street, I recall his style of parting from fellow climbers at a crossroads deep in the Himalayas. They would be simple affairs. With a cheery “see you in a few months,” Big Ed would set off on foot heading for perhaps India, Tibet or Pakistan, quietly disappearing into the mist. In comparison, some of the traumas in our own lives could seem a little overdone.

While in the United States, Hillary will continue to raise funds for his work in the Himalayas. There, among the great mountains, he is known by the Sherpas as ‘Burra Sahib’ (Big Sir).

These hill people are never far from his mind. They gave him his most prized accolade for climbing Everest: a decoration from the Katmandu Taxi Drivers’Association.

His concern for the Sherpas’ future is well founded.

Tenzing, now 69, and known as the Tiger of the Snows in his home town of Darjeeling, said earlier this year: “There is a lot of change since Nepal opened for trekking. Everything is too commercial. Even the monks are having tea shops now, not praying any more.”

Alan Lane Toronto 1983

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A tribute

11 January 2008. The news of Sir Edmund Hillary’s death made me dig deep into my files for a copy of this interview. Past conversations are not normally worth resurrecting; but the life of a bee-keeper from New Zealand was different. Here was someone who saw the big picture. Here was someone who managed fame and humanitarian work with equal humility; someone who grabbed life and ran with it.

Meeting the great man, the first on the roof of the world, left a lasting impression.

© Copyright Alan Lane Poole, UK January 2008

Alan Lane is founder and chief executive of VASGAMA providing reputation management consulting to international corporations and government.

Photo: thanks to achievement.org

I’ve never appreciated roast turkey with all the trimmings. I find it bland and lacking in celebratory festiveness. I am especially not fond of brussel sprouts! So the traditional Christmas meal is a bit of an ordeal for me. Which is not to say I don’t like turkey as such. We often eat turkey steak or turkey escalope or diced turkey throughout the year - but cooked with wine Italian-style or soy sauce or curry Asian-style.

The problem with the traditional roast turkey meal for me is that when I was a child in Malaysia, Christmas food was just so much more - more tasty, more spicy, more varied, more exciting. We would spend Christmas with my grandparents in Taiping and the preparations would start weeks in advance. As a child, I never was aware of all the effort and hard work that Grandma put into it - with the help of all the aunties, great-aunties, cousins and second cousins all over Taiping. But everyone in the large extended family would have got involved in the vast cooking marathon that would have been needed to lay on the feast that fed over a hundred people.

In the heat of the tropics, we would have a full-blown Christian Christmas, complete with tree, Santa and carols.

The kids’ job was to decorate the house. The older second cousins would be in charge - tall, good-looking Paul who seemed so grown up to us and broad-shouldered, grinning Jason. They would be the ones up the ladders stringing the paper chains, placing the balls on the higher reaches of the Christmas tree. We younger kids would drape tinsel on the lower branches of the tree, balance cards on shelves.

On the day of the big party itself, the living room would be cleared and chairs set out for the carol service. There would be a churchful of people in there, singing our hearts out. One of the fat great-uncles would always dress up as Santa in the red suit and jolly mask, arriving at the end of the service when the lights went out. He would have a sack full of presents and ho-ho-ho his way round the room, scaring the babies with the strange staring mask.

But when it came to the food, we celebrated Malaysian-style - with curries and spicy fried dishes, rice and satay: and enough to feed an army. Memories of delicious Asia will always be associated with festivities and celebration for me so a pallid turkey for Christmas, no matter how moist you might claim it is or how Christmas-y just does not do it for me at all.

What are your memories of childhood Christmases? Please add a comment and let me know!

Photo: thanks to Mr_Woo from flickr.com (CCL)

When I was a child, we spent most Christmas’s at my grandparents’ in Taiping.

We would drive up from KL along the single lane trunk road, passing all the little towns and villages on the way. It was always exciting as we left the city, weaving our way north through Templars Park with its clusters of forest and glimpses of rocky streams. We’d sing songs and play Eye Spy, munching at the chicken sandwiches that my mother had made. And then the boredom would set in. I would stare up at the endless line of the telephone wires overhead and it would seem interminable.

And then we would see the chalk hills near Ipoh loom up, strangely shaped mounds eroded by wind and rain. We were nearly there! In the back of the car, my brother and sister and I would perk up and look out of the windows, finding the shapes that we knew. There was a man sleeping on his side. There was Grandma’s head - a hill that for a moment, just at the right angle as the car whizzed by, looked like a woman’s head with a 1940s haircut.

And before long, we’d be at the crossroads at Simpang, turning towards Taiping. The ramshackle shophouses and roadside shacks would give way for awhile to more jungle and rubber trees and atap huts hidden in the foliage. And then we would be driving into the bustle of Taiping past the Indian temple and mosque, heading towards the central market and town clock.

Even as a child, I always struck by the contrast of small town Taiping to the big city of KL. The town was laid out in a neat grid and you could never get lost. There was hardly any traffic which was great when you were a kid and wanted to roam a bit further away from the adults. The streets were like toy streets, easily walkable and everybody seemed to know who we were, smiling and greeting us whenever we strolled down covered walkways.

I remember my mother wearing a backless top once, sauntering down the small town streets in her fashionable, big city way and my Grandma walking at a distance in horror at her daughter’s baring her back so brazenly - “What must they all thinking be thinking, May?” she kept saying. My mother just shrugged and laughed, “It’s just my back, so what? It’s not like it’s my front.”

Grandma was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who had been sent as a missionary from China to look after the flock in Singapore. She was now a community leader in the Methodist church, a Rotarian and generally a respected figure in Taiping. She always dressed neatly and smartly, even when she was in the garden, tending to her beloved orchids. She moved elegantly, her back always straight and I never saw her slouch or loaf around. She never quite got her head round my mother’s a la mode, right out of Vogue, up to the minute fashion sense, what with the backless tops, strapless gowns, high heels, platform shoes and hot pants of the late 60s and early 70s.

At special occasions, like Christmas, Grandma would always wear a cheong sam, the traditional Chinese dress made famous recently by Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love. Most of the younger women in the family would be in cheong sams , too, hair done up in Western style - bee-hives or page boys, set in place with Ellenet hairspray. My mother would do the same but some years, she would be elegantly dressed in whatever was the latest fashion - one time, it was a billowing, white kaftan with a pattern embroidered in rich royal blue: what can I say, it was the 70s and we’d just come back from the Philippines where kaftans were all the rage.

For me, I loved the Christmas holidays and festivities but the one thing I absolutely hated and dreaded was the party dress. Being a tomboy, I was happiest in jeans and gym shoes. I slouched and sat with my legs apart instead of demurely crossed at the ankles. The party dress with its bows and ribbons and puffy sleeves, its tutu-like flare, it’s gauzy, prickly material - it was just the most hideous ordeal and torture! When it was time to get dressed for the big Christmas party, I would invariably throw a tantrum and sulk, filled with stress, anxiety and horror at having to put on such a monstrosity. For me, my whole sense of self was at stake - my dignity, my pride, the essence of who I was was utterly offended by the costume I was being forced to wear. I envied my brother and the boy cousins in their smart dark trousers and simple, ironed shirts. Why couldn’t I wear a smart pant-suit? Why did being a girl involve wearing something that looked like a pom-pom?

But, for most of my childhood, the adults would always win the battle and I would have to drag myself around the whole evening looking - in my eyes - like a total idiot. Poor Grandma would keep telling me I looked so pretty but I would just glower and slouch in an attempt not to be seen.

And then one Christmas, I won. I don’t know exactly what happened or how I won the battle but in all the family Christmas photos for that year, everyone is beautifully and festively dressed in gender specific garb - all the girls and women dolled up in feminine dresses and all the boys and men in masculine menswear - except me. There I am, a skinny, gawkly teenager, in a pair of corduroy jeans and my gym shoes - slouching.