Malaysian Post

Another humorous incident about the Father of the Nation in the NST yesterday:

All Tunku wanted was ‘to mandi’, not Mandy

Reading a reprint of the Aug 26, 1957 edition of ‘The Straits Times’, Sit Hin Kin was reminded of a humorous incident involving Tunku

KUALA LUMPUR: Sit Hin Kin is a great admirer of the Tunku. And like so many people who were acquainted with Tunku Abdul Rahman, he has a humorous story to tell about our first prime minister.

The 71-year-old was reminded of a quirky incident that occurred in London when he came across an article with the headline “Templer (I want bath) flies in” in the reprint of the Aug 26, 1957 edition of The Straits Times.

“In the 1960s, the Tunku visited England at the height of the Christine Keeler scandal. She was a high society call girl, having an affair with the then British war minister, John Profumo, and a Russian naval attache at the same time. She had a good friend named Mandy Rice.

“When our good Tunku arrived at London Airport, our high commissioner asked him what he wanted to do first. The Tunku replied: ‘First, I want mandi.’

“The British reception party stiffened, the polite smiles frozen on their faces. They thought the Tunku wanted Mandy Rice,” he laughed.

Sit, the executive chairman of oil and gas firm Petro-Mekong Corp Sdn Bhd, said he was excited when the New Straits Times distributed reprints of the Aug 26, 1957 to Sept 1, 1957 editions of The Straits Times.The newspapers, reprinted to mark the 50th anniversary of independence, brought back a “flood of memories, especially the advertisements”, said Sit. Pointing to the Gammeters Ltd watch advertisement in one of the old newspapers, he recalled: “I fell in love with the Eterna-Matic watch when I saw it on display in Singapore in 1955. It was the one and only watch that wound and ran on ball bearings. But at $200, I couldn’t afford it,” he said.And by the time he had saved up enough for the watch years later, it was nowhere to be found.

Ten years ago, he chanced upon one in Singapore and purchased it for S$2,000, he said, proudly showing off his rather simple Eterna-Matic.

Sit added that he missed the spirit of unity of the old days.

“Back then, for example, we recognised that our Muslim friends did not eat pork and our Hindu friends did not eat beef. So we separated the food at the table but not the people.

“Today, both people and food have gone into separate corners, and that is very sad.”

Ziying’s Brush as published in The Star, Malaysia on 22nd August 2007

Kapitan Cina Yap Kwan Seng’s philanthropic deeds helped lay the foundations of this country and he should be accorded the appropriate recognition in our museums.

A FEW weeks, ago my uncle and his son came to Kuala Lumpur for a visit. They live in Hong Kong and that was their first trip to Malaysia in several years. My uncle said one of the places they were particularly keen to visit was the National Museum (Muzium Negara). He remembered from an earlier visit nearly a decade ago that his grandfather’s photo was in one of the museum’s galleries and he wanted his son to see it.

Naturally, I was delighted. After all, the country is celebrating 50 years of independence and what better time for someone to reconnect with its historical heritage than on its big birthday? Moreover, though I have been to many excellent museums outside the country, I could not remember when I last visited a museum in Malaysia.

Kuala Lumpur’s last Kapitan Cina Yap Kwan Seng, dressed in Qing dynasty attire.

I soon found out, however, that the historical galleries were no longer in Muzium Negara but had been moved to the National History Museum, a pleasant cream-coloured building that used to be the old Chartered Bank, in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. (The building is adjacent to Padang Merdeka and the Selangor Club building)

As we stepped inside the small museum, we looked forward to re-discovering Malaysia’s pre-colonial past as well as the life and times of the immigrants who, through a mixture of guts, grit and resolve born of desperate circumstances in the 19th and early 20th centuries, played such an important role in Malaya’s economic and social development.

My uncle was eager to see the exhibits on the Kapitan Cina of Kuala Lumpur, the last of whom was his grandfather, Yap Kwan Seng.

Kapitan Yap Kwan Seng’s philanthropic deeds and his many contributions to the birth of Kuala Lumpur are the stuff of history. Among his numerous achievements, perhaps one of the most significant is the founding of the Tung Shin Hospital (originally set up as a charity named Pooi Shin Tong) to provide free medical care for the poor. The expenses were, of course, underwritten by the Kapitan himself, who also co-founded the Tai Wah Ward of the Pauper’s Hospital that became the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital.

His philanthropic deeds extended beyond Malaya and it is said that a year before he died in 1901, he donated the princely sum of ten thousand dollars towards famine relief in India, a gesture which surely qualifies as Malaysia’s first-ever effort at international humanitarian aid.

Kapitan Yap was also a firm believer in education and co-founded one of the leading schools in Malaysia – KL’s Victoria Institution. As a businessman, he foresaw an increased demand for bricks in fast-growing Kuala Lumpur and established a kiln in a district which came to be called Brickfields, a name by which it is still known today.

Kapitan Yap had made his fortune in tin-mining. It is said he had a workforce of 7,000 and owned more tin mines than any of his contemporaries.

The Kapitan died many years before my mother and her brothers were born, but his legacy had a lasting influence on her family, who kept his memory alive by recounting stories of his life.

My mother remembered quite clearly her grandfather’s houses in Kuala Lumpur and Macau. In fact, before the Japanese War, she lived for a short period in the Kapitan’s residence on High Street in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown (which is today known as Jalan Tun H.S. Lee).

She said it was massive, occupying the greater part of the street, with many deep courtyards, and a large garden in front for entertaining guests. Over 50 people, many of whom were servants, lived in the house. The ancestral hall must have been particularly impressive as she recalled it had a grand altar table upon which was placed chunks of crystal, quartz, gold and other precious stones found in the Kapitan’s tin mines.

As my mother attended school in Hong Kong, she spent summer vacations at her grandfather’s mansion in Macau, which was apparently even bigger than the Kuala Lumpur residence. It was, she said, long and deep, with countless rooms, nooks and crannies, and so large that many sections were perpetually dim as they had no access to natural light.

Sadly, although the old colonial powers of Britain, Portugal and Holland were given their respective places in the National History Museum, my uncle and I could not find any references to Yap Kwan Seng or to the other Kapitans who helped lay the foundations of this country.

History museums are repositories of a country’s past, which, among other things, provide valuable insights into the development of a society or a nation. It is anybody’s guess why the Kapitans of old have been omitted from the Museum.

An oversight, perhaps, but for Yap Kwan Seng’s descendants and for the many people who to this day benefit from his good works, his legacy will never be forgotten. It is in this spirit that I dedicate this week’s column to my great-grandfather, the last Kapitan Cina of Kuala Lumpur.

Ziying is taking a break and will return in October. She can be reached at ziyingster@gmail.com

The 4th item in this series from NST Series The Old & The New

A unique blend of styles

ONE of the first things you notice about Masjid Kampung Kling in Malacca is its roof.

Instead of a traditional dome, its roof is three-tiered, with distinctly curved eaves that are definitely Oriental in nature.

Built in 1748 during the Dutch occupation, it is one of the oldest mosques in the country.

Located in Malacca’s busy Jalan Tukang Emas, the mosque is one of the must-visit places in the city.

Another interesting architectural feature is the minaret, which was built entirely of masonry in contrast to the timber mosque building. Some people think it looks like a Chinese pagoda.

Chinese ceramic tiles adorn the roof, the floor and the lower walls of the mosque.

Then there are the European touches like the rendered plaster on the internal masonry walls, and the Portuguese and British glazed tiles on the walls of the main prayer hall.

The different styles found in this mosque here speak of the many influences in early Malacca, which was a major trading port from the 14th to the 18th century.

In 1868, a high wall was built to protect the mosque and its minaret from the street.

Today, not much seems to have changed except for the cars which have replaced the rickshaws (above picture taken in the early 1930s) on the street.

Yet another comparison between then and now in the NST Series on The Old & The New

The hustle and bustle never stops

THE above picture, taken in 1959, is how most of us remember the Causeway.
Choked with traffic. That particular year, the jamwas due to a ruling that all travellers entering the federation from Singapore must be vaccinated against smallpox.

Completed in 1924 and spanning 1,056 metres, the Causeway was the first land link between the two countries.

It was built with road and rail links and also bears vital water pipes to Singapore. (By the way, the first water agreement was signed in 1927.) Not many people knowthis but the link was partially severed in 1942 during WorldWar Two to prevent the Japanese from invading Singapore.

Rebuilt once the Japanese captured Singapore, the Causeway was closed once more in 1964 for about five days because of the race riots that year.

Since then, the constant traffic congestion resulted in the construction of a Second Link in 1998. Today, the Causeway is still as busy — as we can see from the second picture taken just days ago — but the burden is now shared with the second bridge.

Another interesting writeup in the NST series on The Old & The New

As pretty as a picture

IT’S red so it has to be part of the famous Stadhuys right? Wrong!

This building, which is next to the Stadhuys, was built by the British in 1931.

And everybody knows the Stadhuys is Dutch and built in the 1650s.

The site though was originally occupied by Dutch homes, but when the British came, they built some administrative buildings in their place.

This red building in Jalan Laksamana was originally the General Post Office (above picture taken in the 1950s), but it is now the Malacca Art Gallery.