I rose at 5.30 am on the morning of Saturday 6 December and, after making final notes of my visit, drove to the San Francisco airport. There, my Boeing 707 plane took off at 1.15 pm to head for Anchorage in Alaska where it refuelled before continuing, first to Tokyo, and finally to Hong Kong, arriving at almost midnight. I was about to start the next and very different phase of my adventure.

XI

As I flew over the snow-capped McKinley mountains on leaving Anchorage and started on the great-circle path that would take me over the islands of Japan from north to south before reaching Hong Kong, I thought about the month that lay ahead. I had no detailed plan; I simply wanted to experience, even if briefly, the countries from which many of my students came. Perhaps I would understand them better if I knew a little of their way of life.

²⁴ See page 160 ²⁵ See page 363 ²⁶ By 1996 it had grown to 10,000 students and eight colleges.

27

Pot is one of the popular names for the hallucinogenic soft-drug Marijuana or Cannabis, widely favoured by the hippie group in America during the early 1960s. (See footnote 39, page 331)

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7: COMMUNITY - AN OVERSEAS INTERLUDE (1969)

On taking off from Tokyo, I felt some trepidation as I headed for my final destination. The Hong Kong airport was at Kowloon on the Chinese mainland. My instructions from Professor King of the Hong Kong University Electrical Engineering Department were simple: Take a taxi to the Star ferry, cross to the island and then take another taxi to Robert Black College. It sounded simple, but would the taxi driver speak English? I had been very briefly to Singapore²⁸, but perhaps Hong Kong would be very different. Arriving there at midnight seemed another complication. Furthermore, I felt very tired after my long trip.

As I emerged from customs, someone said, ‘Hello, John.’ I looked up and there stood Peter Hagyi-Ristic. Peter had been a Currie Hall resident in 1968 and was, in that year, the editor of the student newspaper, The Pelican. I knew that after graduating he had gone to Asia in search of a career in journalism. I had no idea that he was in Hong Kong working for Reuters as a “China Watcher”.²⁹

‘How did you know I was coming to Hong Kong?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Moorthi wrote to me from Hamilton and told me but, because of the international dateline, I was uncertain when you would arrive, so I came out to the airport last night as well, just in case.’ I clasped his hand firmly. ‘Thank God you've come to help me. I was worried how I would get to Robert Black College at this hour of night.’ ‘You would probably have had a lot of trouble. Many taxi drivers do not speak English and, once you got over to the island very few of them would know the whereabouts of the College, as it is a small place tucked away in an obscure corner; normally they would have very little call to go there.’

Peter hailed a taxi and soon we were on the Star ferry crossing to Hong Kong island. Then, with Peter guiding the way, a second taxi took us to the College, which was a small place catering for around 35 graduate students and guests of Hong Kong University. I found the housekeeper and the acting Master waiting up for me. They welcomed me, Peter left, and then they politely entertained me with beer and food until at 2.00 am I retired. I had had no sleep for twenty-eight hours, and wondered how I could end the polite conversation of my hosts. Next day, Monday, I rested but then had three days to see something of Hong Kong. The University staff, and Peter Hagyi-Ristic, were very good to me, so that I saw much in that time.

In 1969 Hong Kong was still a British crown colony not far from Canton³⁰ and comprised the island of Hong Kong and adjacent islets, Kowloon peninsula and the leased New Territories on the mainland. Hong Kong island itself was only eleven miles long and between two and five miles wide but the entire colony occupied almost 400 square miles. Once, the island had but a small fishing population and was a notorious haunt for pirates. British ships used it as a harbour during the 1839 -1842 opium wars, following which it was seceded in perpetuity to the British. In 1898 Britain was granted a 99-year lease of that part of the mainland known as the New Territories³¹.

²⁸ See page 151

29

The West saw communist China as a serious threat with its ever growing population and strength. Recently, in 1966, Chairman Mao had staged the "Cultural Revolution" and thrown the country into turmoil. In April 1969, the defence minister Lin Piao was nominated as Mao's successor but then, in September, Soviet Premier Kosygin had surprise talks with China's emerging leader Chou En-Lai. Many journalists stationed themselves in Hong Kong as "China Watchers", keeping an ear to the ground to glean what they could of what was happening in the post-Mao power struggles.

30

Now known as Guangzhou in the province of Guangdong.

³¹ As I write this in 1996, Britain loses its colony in less than a year. There has been much speculation and fear about Hong Kong's future. Will China respect the democratic government and capitalist stance of the thriving colony? With much uncertainty, many citizens have migrated. My own suburb in Perth has many such migrants, some waiting anxiously to see whether their future lies in Australia or whether they can one day return.

375

HONG KONG: MY ARRIVAL AND IMPRESSIONS

‘I did not realise that Hong Kong had such a large territory on the mainland,’ I remarked to Professor King, ‘somehow I just thought of the island.’

‘This island,’ he replied, ‘is just a small part of the total. We now have over three million people crammed into these four hundred square miles, much of which is bare hillside unsuitable for cultivation. Only twelve square miles are residential and no more than fifty square miles are cultivated. We have grown rapidly in size: In 1945 we had little over half a million people but, following the communist revolution of 1949, there was a great influx from the mainland. We must buy most of our foodstuffs from China, and the mainland depends on us for foreign exchange earnings. Hong Kong was once a great trading station; now it is also a manufacturer.’

Almost three million people mostly crammed into a twelve square mile residential area! No wonder I jostled with people as I walked along the footpaths in downtown Hong Kong. People seemed everywhere. No wonder my Hong Kong students in Perth complained that central Perth was dead at night and on the weekends! Busy main thoroughfares given to trade, to banks and catering to the needs of tourists, were side-by-side with small hilly off-streets with stepped, cobbled pavements suitable only for pedestrians. On either side, crowded tenements jostled with pavement vendors. From the upper storey windows hung the familiar poles on which household washing hung. Space was at a premium.

I probably spent no more than half a day academically with Professor King and his Electrical Engineering Department. One of his postgraduate students was working in a field close to my own interests and visited me one evening at Robert Black College for a discussion. Realising that I wanted to absorb as much feeling for Hong Kong as I could in only a few days, several members of King's staff took me sightseeing. Hong Kong is dominated by Victoria Peak. As we drove to the top, I noted that the houses consistently increased in opulence the further we went. Near the top were the sumptuous mansions of those most successful in trade and business. We looked down on the city below with its impressive, Manhatten-style buildings that told of the material success of the colony.

But it was an island of many contrasts. While some might live in opulence, others were in poverty: As we drove around the island, we passed ramshackled and half-broken wooden shacks perched out on jetties over the sea with ragged, wizened old men and women squatting outside, while small children clad only in waist-length T-shirts ran about playing. On the southern side of the island we reached Aberdeen and, from picture calendars, I immediately recognised the picturesque fishing village with its harbour jammed with houseboats and junks on which people were born, lived, worked and died. A few minutes later we drove past Repulse Bay, with its opulent hotel on the hillside. Repulse Bay, I was told, was the largest and most popular beach - certainly not frequented by those from Aberdeen, or the shanty towns I had passed.

Peter Hagyi-Ristic drove me to the New Territories to see the Chinese border, and I talked about my impressions. Peter responded. ‘I find Hong Kong a fascinating place,’ he said. ‘Outside Japan, it has one of the highest average standards of living in Asia, but it combines the most glaring extremes of poverty and affluence - as you have seen. Contrasts are everywhere: security and lawlessness, honesty and corruption, dedication and self-indulgence. It is a cocktail of all types of human existence.’

‘And where do you live?’ I asked. ‘Oh, I live in a multi-storey building with many other Europeans. Everything is there in the one building: apartments, restaurants, food supplies, even prostitutes.’ He smiled: ‘Every need is provided for.’

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7: COMMUNITY - AN OVERSEAS INTERLUDE (1969)

I found Kowloon, through which we drove, an ugly, monotonous and sprawling town, but was fascinated to stand at the border of the People's Republic of China where a large yellow notice with black printing in both Chinese and English proclaimed that this was the border and that we were to proceed no further. Two Chinese guards watched us without interest. I imagined that many tourists drove to this spot.

I had one last mission before I left Hong Kong for Bangkok. Before leaving Perth I had promised one of my Hong Kong students, William Yeung, that I would visit his parents. He said that his father's name was Yeung Hock Sin, and he wrote down his home address both in English and in Chinese characters.

‘I will write home immediately,’ he had said, excitedly. ‘My elder sister Grace and other members of my family would also be delighted to see you.’ In June he wrote to me in Britain that he had contacted his family. ‘I have joined the Karate club in the University,’ he added, ‘but please do not tell my parents about this. They think it too dangerous, and would not approve.’

I wrote to Mr Yeung in Hong Kong and received a reply in August, but when I arrived, I searched the telephone book in vain: I could not find him. I appealed to Professor King: Should I simply arrive at their home, unheralded?

‘Oh no,’ he said emphatically, ‘That would never do. I will contact them for you and make arrangements.’

I had been warned that, in Chinese culture, parents are held in great respect; teachers in even greater respect. What I had not bargained for was that, if my go-between was a senior and revered professor at the University, then I had even higher status: I became almost God-like.

At the appointed hour on my last day in Hong Kong, a long, sleek, chauffeur-driven car arrived. An elegant and expensively dressed woman greeted me, explaining that she was Grace, William's elder sister. She would take me to meet her father. We drove to downtown Hong Kong where I discovered that Mr Yeung owned a substantial clothing shop.

As I arrived, about a dozen shop assistants lined the entrance as a guard of honour. At the far end of this line, along which I was slowly escorted by Grace, stood Father beside a single bentwood chair. He greeted me formally and deferentially and, with a gracious sweep of the hand said, ‘Do have a seat.’

I felt most un-Australian and most uncomfortable carrying on a formal conversation while he stood, the guard of honour remaining silently in its place. Every time I made an instinctive move to stand, his hand repeated the sweeping gesture, ‘But please, do have a seat.’

At last my ordeal was over. He took me to a small restaurant to “yam cha” - or to take tea. I must have consumed eleven small cups of tea, and almost as many dim-sums. ‘Next, I take you for a cruise on the harbour,’ he said, and we walked ten minutes to board the boat. For one-and-a-half hours we cruised around the island and some small islets. This luxury cruise vessel also served lunch and I discovered that Mr Yeung had reserved the best table at the front of the vessel where we had fine views from the comfort of our enclosed glass canopy. Over a magnificent meal he talked of his family and its success and of his great hopes for his youngest son, William. I did not mention Karate.

377

MY VISIT TO WILLIAM YEUNG'S PARENTS ARRIVAL IN BANGKOK

We alighted on the mainland at Kowloon, threading our way through an open-air Hong Kong products exhibition while William's father darted about purchasing small mouth-watering tidbits for me to try. At this stage I had no idea what further gastronomical effort awaited me.

‘Now, I will take you to a floating restaurant at Shatin village,’ my host explained, ‘There they have the most delectable dishes to be had anywhere.’ Shatin was a small village a few miles north of Kowloon and we reached it by taxi. The village stood at the end of an inlet in Tolo Harbour and a long wooden jetty extended to an elaborately decorated restaurant floating in the bay.

Six courses later, when my stomach was bulging, he made the understatement of the century: ‘I think we should walk a little.’ I heartily agreed. I don't know how I had politely managed to eat so much. After a twenty-minute walk, he suggested that we return to the Star ferry by train. It was four o'clock in the afternoon and many workers were returning home. At each station some would alight and others board our carriage. None of the passengers, said Mr Yeung, would speak English, so he freely described each person to me, what social rank they were, and what they probably did for a living. I found this fascinating. Two stops from the ferry we alighted so we could walk through the street markets, sampling the many food stalls.

Arriving back at the shop shortly after five in the afternoon, I discovered that Mrs Yeung and all William's older brothers and sisters had assembled. To my horror, Father then announced, ‘Now our family will celebrate the occasion of your visit.’ I found myself in a private banquet room of an up-market restaurant. Everyone insisted that I drink the best quality whisky. I could not refuse. ‘This is your last night in Hong Kong. You must enjoy our exquisite food. I will have one piece, you have two.’ I tried to refuse, but found this useless. ‘No No, I insist,’ was Mr Yeung's response.

I just did not know how to refuse such hospitality. Apparently they thought there was no limit to my capacity, and I had not the skill to engage in the long and protracted Chinese art of refusal. At 8.30 pm, Mr and Mrs Yeung departed, saying that they would now leave me in the safe hands of their children. It was Hong Kong Festival week, so they took me to an open air concert at a sports-stadium, where many items were presented including a lion dance. The lion was immensely long and contained over two-hundred people. At 11.30 pm the family returned me, exhausted, to my college.

Next morning, with extended and uncomfortable stomach, Peter Hagyi-Ristic escorted me to the plane, and smiled at my account of the previous day's adventure. Soon I was on my way to Bangkok and I remember looking down at the muddy-looking Mekong River that flows through southwest China and touches Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I thought of the troubles of my Vietnamese students in Currie Hall, little realising that these would occupy much of my time soon after I returned to Perth. The river looked so slow and lazy as it snaked its way through the countryside but, in that countryside, not far away, an inhuman war was being waged that had assumed world centre-stage.

Soon, a taxi carried me the long distance from the airport to the Imperial Hotel in Bangkok. Reaching my destination, I could think of nothing except the pleasure of lying prostrate on my bed to recover from my ordeal. A young bellboy took my bags and, on reaching my room, turned to me and said, in a soft, confidential tone: ‘Would you like a woman tonight?’

Oh my God! I thought, that would be the last straw. ‘No thank you.’ The boy seemed incredulous, and replied, ‘Oh, Sir must be very tired. Perhaps another night.’

Thus was my introduction to a ten-day visit to Thailand.

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7: COMMUNITY - AN OVERSEAS INTERLUDE (1969)

XII

‘Oh, it's a naughty, sinful city all right,’ exclaimed Dick Silvester. Dick was a Lecturer in Civil Engineering at Perth on a three-year secondment to the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. I was visiting his home, which, for security purposes, was within a compound of houses surrounded by barbed wire, with a guard and locked gate. I had just told him that I could not step outside my hotel at night for a breath of fresh air without a young lad sidling up to me from a group of loitering youths, with the words, ‘You want pretty girl? Boy?’ Whenever I walked along the footpath in the evening, a cruising car would slow down and a highly painted woman would call out to me, ‘You come with me? I give you good time.’ When I took no notice, the car kept pacing me, the woman continuing to importune me.

Both this, and the need for Dick and his family to live within a secure compound were evidence of the extremes of poverty and underemployment in the city, although I saw no actual starvation. The population seemed very young, but I knew that Westerners always found it hard to judge the age of Asians, with their smooth, finely-boned features. However, I soon discovered that there were more than 33 million people in Thailand and that 45% were under the age of fifteen. It took six men to serve me breakfast at the hotel, several to open the door for me. People stood about idly in the street outside. Because there was tremendous divergence of income and most Government officials were very lowly paid, graft and corruption were widespread.

During my stay I visited the home of a former engineering student and had a very different experience

32

to that of Hong Kong. I had always been impressed with Asvin Chintakananda as a fine and very impressive young man who, having completed his degree in Perth had returned home to Bangkok and then moved to the United States for further study. He asked me to visit his parents. Mr Chintakananda was a wealthy business man and made me most welcome. When I arrived at his home for dinner and sat talking, servants approached me, shuffling forward on their knees, to offer a silver platter containing pre-dinner tidbits. They then backed out of the room in the same way, bowing low as they left. As an Australian, this made me feel very uncomfortable, but I simply had to accept the customary and traditional way of wealthy Thai citizens.

I had planned to spend ten days in Bangkok, not because I needed that time, but because I wanted to travel by train to Penang. Yuth Kangsanant, a Currie Hall electrical engineering student whose home was in southern Thailand, had impressed on me that I must make the trip by train both to see the beauty of the countryside and to observe the people. ‘But,’ he had said, ‘you might have to make the booking ten days in advance.’

I found the railway station and tried desperately to make the official at the ticket office know what I wanted. He spoke no English and I spoke no Thai. After a long and frustrating time, with half a dozen officials arguing about and discussing my needs, I eventually paid my money and emerged with the correct booking and ticket. I was proud of my single-handed achievement. A few days later, insurgents on the border of Thailand and Malaysia blew up a railway bridge. My friends told me that it was too dangerous to travel that way, so I reluctantly cancelled the ticket, obtained a refund and booked a plane ticket. When I finally reached Penang I discovered that there had been no further incidents in Southern Thailand and that I could have taken the train. I did not see that part of the world

32

In 1995 Asvin worked in a senior position for Sahaviriyp Steel Industries in Bangkok. He visited us in January 1994 with his wife Klin-Keo who worked for the National Institute of Development Administration. They were a very fine couple with four children ranging in age from 22 to 10. The oldest boy was studying in Japan.

379

BANGKOK I LEARN FROM MY TOURIST GUIDE, A FORMER BUDDHIST MONK

until 1977 when we visited Yuth Kangsanant at the Prince of Songkla University where he had become head of the Electrical Engineering Department.

I had arrived at Bangkok on a weekend and it took time to make the contacts that I needed. Thailand, I quickly discovered, was a slow and graceful country where everything could be accomplished - in time. Class and status were most important as I was to discover when I later talked to the Western Director at the Asian Institute of Technology³³. Almost everything was regulated by status.

‘If I were to employ a man of low status to collect postal items, or imported items to be cleared by customs,’ the Director told me, ‘he would be kept waiting for hours if the official thought the man was of lower status than he. Fortunately, we employ a man who has marriage connection to the Royal family. Although those connections are remote, he is never kept waiting because his status is high.’

I had no such status, and everything took time. So, for the first few days I became a tourist. Through the hotel tourist office I went on official temple tours, spent a morning on the canals to see the “floating market”, visited the Grand Palace, the Emerald Buddha and all those things that tourists do. I even went to a night of Thai kick boxing.

I was interested most in my guide, Sirisak Charujakom, who told me that he had spent thirteen years as a Buddhist monk. ‘When I first went to the temple,’ he told me, ‘I could speak no English. I listened to English classes on the BBC at night, and slowly learnt the language. Now I have left the monastery and work as a guide for English speaking tourists.’ He was certainly fluent and very knowledgeable, and I enjoyed listening to him and learning about Thailand.

I already knew that prior to 1932 the country was called Siam. Sirisak pointed out that in the days before air travel became popular, few people visited Thailand because it was off the beaten track for most sea lanes. Now, many airlines called at Bangkok, and tourist traffic had increased considerably. I asked him about the little Thai-style miniature houses that I saw outside many business and residential sites. What were they?

‘They are spirit houses,’ he said. ‘It is an old Buddhist tradition that every place must have the protection of such a house. Often, workers will not go on to a building site until a spirit house is first constructed.’ To me they looked like elaborate letter boxes and I had not realised their great symbolic importance.

33

The AIT was set up cooperatively under SEATO, the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation, and consequently had financial support from the West. Many of the staff were Western.

380

7: COMMUNITY - AN OVERSEAS INTERLUDE (1969)

‘The Buddhist religion,’ continued Sirisak, ‘is practised at many different levels in my country. It helps tie our people together. There are thirty-three million people in Thailand and almost the entire population from His Majesty the King, down to the ordinary peasant villager respects the Buddha and his teaching. You will find wats - or Buddhist monasteries - all over the land.’

Staff at the Asian Institute of Technology put me in touch with the Dean of Engineering at Choolalongkorn University, but warned me that I should not expect too much at my first visit. The Dean met me formally, and spoke politely over a cup of tea. I also met the head of the Electrical Engineering Department but made little progress in finding anything in depth. Although Choolalongkorn had over 6,000 students, the standards were low. I had the impression that no one wanted to lose face by discussing detail with me, so had to content myself with smiles and general chitchat of no consequence. Perhaps it was another case of needing time: nothing should be done in a hurry, and not too much should be given away on first acquaintance.

Kasetsart University was in another part of Bangkok. My taxi took me through impossible tangles of traffic in what seemed a totally unplanned road system. I knew that Bangkok was no longer a quaint, Oriental city, but had not expected such a bustling, crowded, noisy, twentieth-century commercial metropolis in which skyscrapers and luxury hotels jostled next to monasteries and fairytale palaces. If I wanted to go anywhere, a taxi was essential. Not only did I not know the way, but I could neither read nor pronounce the street names written in an undecipherable script.

Kasetsart was much smaller than Choolalongkorn and had only 2,500 students. I was fortunate to meet students who took me to see their dormitories, where most lived. They were in stark contrast to what I had seen in the States or at home, and seemed primitive in the extreme, with many beds in each dormitory. But the students, most of whom spoke some English, were a delightful group of enthusiastic young people.

Through the Australian Embassy I tried to contact former Thai students who had been in Perth. They introduced me to Gladys Lourvanij, a Melbourne woman who had married one of the first Thai students to come to Australia under the Colombo Plan. Gladys rang me and invited me to dinner at an hotel on Thursday 18 December, where I found her entertaining several Australian couples. The men were engineers from the Snowy Mountains scheme³⁴, now working upcountry in Thailand on road development. Gladys, who had lived sixteen years in Thailand, held the sole agency for importing Australian Chamberlain tractors and Holden cars into Thailand. She told me she had imported more than 4,000 cars and that her husband owned a small company that repaired vehicles and engines catering mainly for the needs of the American army in Vietnam.

I wanted to shop for Thai silks to take home, so Gladys lent me a chaffeur-driven car and her personal secretary for a day. This young Thai woman had studied accountancy in Perth and one of my former Apex Club friends had been her host family. She was of great help to me and, in appreciation, I took her to a restaurant and to an evening of classical Thai dancing.

³⁴ See pages 101 and 243

381

BANGKOK UNIVERSITIES I MEET GLADYS LOURVANIJ CHRISTMAS IN PENANG

Gladys had a most vivacious and infectious personality. She and her family entertained me on the weekend when they went water-skiing on the river. Her daughter, Robin, later studied in Perth and came to live in Currie Hall. Like many Eurasian girls, Robin had outstanding beauty and charm. In Currie Hall, both Australian and Asian men were attracted to her like bees to a honey pot.

XIII

Two days before Christmas I flew to the island of Penang off the west coast of Malaysia to start the last leg of my long and slow journey home. Since arriving in Hong Kong I had been overwhelmed with hospitality. This continued in both Malaysia and Singapore. When I arrived at Penang airport,

35

I was met by two young men, Desmond David , a young Currie Hall resident of Indian extraction,

36

and Neoh Soon Ken, the younger brother of Neoh Soon Leong .

‘My father insists,’ began Neoh Soon Ken, ‘that you be his guest and stay at his club, the Penang Club, while you are here.’

Soon, I was ensconced in a luxurious set of rooms in Penang's most exclusive club, with panoramic views from my window across the lawn and swimming pool to the sea beyond where I could see the mainland in the distance. Ken left me to unpack, but returned later with his father, who was a very wealthy rubber plantation owner, but could speak no English. Ken acted as interpreter.

‘My father welcomes you and says that you have been like a father to his son in Perth. He wishes to show his gratitude by having you as a guest of the Penang Club, at his expense. Anything at all that you want, you have only to ask a steward, and it is yours.’

That night, Neoh Soon Ken took me to the 14th floor revolving restaurant of an international class hotel. Next day, Christmas Eve, Mak Boon Wah, a St. George's College civil engineer, entertained me, and then I spent Christmas day with Des David and his family at his parents' home. Des and his father were both active sportsmen and had several cabinets filled with trophies. They drew me warmly into their family and made me most welcome. Eventually, Des became a civil engineer and teamed up with his older brother, Derek, who was an architect. Together they undertook many large construction

37

projects in the Penang area .

After visiting the tiered Ayer Itam Buddhist temple and the Snake temple, and after touring the beauty spots of this small island that was once part of the Straits Settlements, along with Singapore and

³⁵ See page 316

³⁶ See pages 323 and 329

37

Desmond married and raised three daughters, all of whom became champion squash players, being members of the Malaysian junior team. In May 1995, the family visited Perth so that the three girls could practise against local Australians. They came with the English coach for the Malaysian team. The youngest girl, Nicole, was a pint-sized eleven year old with small frame and spindly legs. We watched her play an adult Australian woman and beat her 9:2. When I remarked on her skill to the coach, he said, `Nicole is a child prodigy. She excels in everything she does and is so natural. She has great talent, is very intelligent, a quick thinker and fast on her feet. She is already top seed in the Malaysian under 17 team. For her age,' he continued, `I think she is the best player in the world. If other things don't get in her way, she has the potential to grow into a world leader in the game.' Des and his wife, Ann, were very proud of their girls. Kay and I were delighted to have kept in touch with the family over all the years.

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7: COMMUNITY - AN OVERSEAS INTERLUDE (1969)

Malacca, I left Penang with many happy memories. Two days after Christmas, I travelled by train to Kuala Lumpur, sharing sunflower seeds with a small Chinese boy and his parents who made friends with me on the way.

The mixture of Chinese and Malay cultures had recently flared up in Kuala Lumpur and, as I listened to the rhythm of the train wheels speeding their way towards the capital, I remembered talking with

38

Chuah Chong Cheng last year . I remembered that, with his love of Chinese culture, he feared for what was happening in Malaysia, a country in which political power was held by Malays while economic power lay in the hands of the Chinese.

Malaya had joined with Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah in 1963 to form the Federation of Malaysia,

39

but Singapore had subsequently left the Federation in 1965 . Racial antagonism between the Malays and Chinese had erupted with limited rioting in 1967, and had occurred again, but much more extensively, in May of this year. On 9 May I had read in the London Daily Telegraph of the widening rift between Singapore and Malaysia.

Commonwealth diplomats are disturbed by the sudden upsurge of old rivalries between Singapore and Malaysia after allegations in Kuala Lumpur that Singapore officials are meddling in the current Malaysian elections.

Three days later, following the elections, the Telegraph reported:

The Alliance Government of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister, has been returned to power in Malaysia's third national elections since independence in 1957. The unexpectedly heavy swing of votes in favour of the opposition has seriously undermined the 66-year-old statesman's formerly overwhelming control of his nation's politics. . . Commenting on the results, the Tunku said: "No one can now deny democracy is not working here. The people wanted a strong Opposition and they are getting it."

Racial problems involving the Malay and Chinese communities emerged as the major electoral platforms of the parties. On 14 May, Tunku Abdul Rahman declared a state of emergency in Selangor State following post-election racial clashes between the two groups in which more than 100 people had been killed, reported the Telegraph. Curfews were imposed, the army called out and ordered to shoot to kill any curfew breakers. The Telegraph continued:

The next 48 hours will decide the fate of Malaysia. . . Kuala Lumpur has so far sweated out 36 hours of unbroken curfew. Whispered rumours of continued racial clashes, wailing police sirens, rifle shots in the dark, and sections of the city silhouetted against dancing tongues of flame have stretched tensions to breaking point. . . Food supplies are running low.

By 20 May, 300 were reported dead and Malaysia settled to a lengthy period of rule by decree. Censorship was imposed so that the outside world did not know what was really going on. All customary public celebrations were banned in an effort to limit further violence between the two groups.

I cut out relevant newspaper articles and stuck them in my scrap book, along with stories of student unrest and other social matters but, by June, Malaysia and its problems had dropped out of the British

³⁸ See page 327 ³⁹ See page 329

383

RIOTS IN KUALA LUMPUR I ATTEND A MALAY KAMPONG WEDDING

newspapers. As I neared Kuala Lumpur, seven months after these events, I wondered what I would find.

My host in KL was Harcharan Singh Gendeh, a bearded and turbaned Indian Sikh who had been one of my electrical engineering students a few years after I took up my lectureship. Now he was Chief Engineer of Radio and Television Malaysia and had invited me to stay in his home with his wife, Jit,

40

and two young boys, Harjit and Daljit . They were a delightful couple. I had not met Jit previously, but she was a charming, ample Indian woman, dressed in flowing sari, with ever twinkling eyes, full of life and vitality. Immediately I took a liking to the family.

‘The May riots were much worse than the outside world realises,’ said Harcharan, when I asked him about them. ‘While the curfew was on, the Government considered it vital that the radio and television programs should continue as though everything was normal. In my job, I had to ensure that this was so. The curfew meant nothing to me. Every morning the army arrived at my home and gave me protection to reach my work place. To get there we had to travel through the suburbs hit worst by the riots. I saw much that most people know nothing about. Officially they said that several hundred were killed, but I know it to be nearer to several thousand.’

‘It was a terrible time,’ added Jit. ‘Fortunately it is calmer now, and there is little physical sign left of the riots, but it hit deep into the minds of the people. Its effect will last long, and much tension still exists. I am a school teacher and the government insists that all teaching be done in Bahasa Malay. The Chinese are unhappy about this; we Indians are unhappy, and do not know where it will end.’

I had five days in Kuala Lumpur and during that time visited the university and technical college, and the home of one of my Chinese graduates. Harcharan took me to tour the radio and television studios and transmitters, and generally to see the capital city. However, what remained most in my memory was my attendance at two very different wedding receptions. The first was on Sunday 28 December.

41

‘One of my technicians has invited us to his wedding reception in his kampong ,’ Harcharan told me, ‘and they have extended the invitation to you. I think you will enjoy it. At least it will give you some firsthand experience of Malay traditions.’

We drove out of the city and through rubber plantations before reaching a delightful village settlement. There, in the grounds, tables had been set up beneath a highly decorated canopy. All inhabitants of the kampong seemed invited. From a thatched rotunda, a Malayan band was playing, as the bridegroom's parents showed us to our seats at a table. I noted that all the men sat together and all the women sat separately at their own tables. Everyone was dressed in typical Malay national costume. Jit was

⁴⁰ Over the years we kept in contact with Harcharan and Jit and, in the early 1990s, they visited us in Perth. They had a third child, a daughter, and when they visited us all three children were completing medical degrees in Southern India. Harcharan had become the patriarch of his extended family, many of whom were in India. No family decision could be made without him first being consulted, even if it meant a long telephone call from India. In 1994, he wrote to me saying that the two boys had completed their medical degrees but showed no signs of settling down. `I will give them two years to decide,' he wrote. Presumably, after that, he and Jit would decide an arranged marriage. Harcharan had retired from his final position as Deputy Director General (Engineering) and taken up golf.

41

A Malayan enclosure or village

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7: COMMUNITY - AN OVERSEAS INTERLUDE (1969)

invited to sit with Harcharan since she did not know the women of the village and, as the wife of the “big boss”, was someone special.

The wedding itself had taken place the previous day at the kampong of the bride and her family. Now, a reception was being held for the friends of the bridegroom. ‘It is a Malay wedding custom,’ Jit whispered to me, ‘that the groom and bride are king and queen for the day, and are treated with great respect and dignity. They will sit apart from the others, and will remain formal during the meal.’

The bride and groom arrived by car with the bride's family and, as small children ran excitedly about them, the group slowly advanced, in very formal and dignified fashion, towards the assembly, to be greeted by the bridegroom's family. After they had taken their place, the meal began and the orchestra played. Later, the bride and groom were ushered into the weatherboard house while everyone rose to form a long queue to follow them.

‘It is custom,’ Jit whispered in my ear, ‘for everyone now to show obeisance to the king and queen for the day and to pay them homage. They will be inside the house, sitting on a throne, and must remain very formal as people greet them. They must not smile, nor must they carry on a conversation of more than a few words with each person. It is a very important and traditional custom.’

When I reached the throne room, I found the young couple sitting on two chairs on a raised and decorated box. Behind them was a backdrop of red velvet with light pink and yellow curtains, drawn apart at the bottom to reveal the rich red of the velvet. The bride wore a beautiful sky-blue costume that shimmered with silver thread in an elaborate pattern, while the groom wore a blue-grey tunic and headpiece that also shimmered with silver. On either side, attendants waved fans over them as, one by one, we paid homage. When everyone had done this, the younger members of the family reappeared before them and tried to make them smile and laugh by saying funny things to them. The occasion made a lasting impression on me.

I found the second wedding much less interesting. On Wednesday 31 December, we went to a high-society reception to celebrate the marriage of a popular Malaysian television personality. The room in the city hotel was set up with a long head-table, with many small tables each seating eight. We were shown to one of these. Everyone had arrived and there was still no one at the head table. Then, the master of ceremonies appeared with the bridal couple and seated them at the head table. Next, he went to the smaller tables, asking certain people to join the bride and bridegroom. Harcharan, Jit and I were among those sitting at the head table where I spent the evening talking to Television Malaysia's main news-reader. After an elaborate meal, we were entertained by artists and an orchestra associated with television. The evening was a lavish one, but lacked the spontaneity and charm of the kampong wedding.

While staying with Harcharan and Jit I had eaten very hot Sikh food using my right hand only - as the left hand, reserved for toilet purposes, was regarded as unclean. I had enjoyed and managed it all, so on my last night, I said to Jit: ‘I feel very proud of myself. Your food has been very hot, but never have I had to refuse anything.’ Jit smiled and jokingly deflated me. ‘But haven't you noticed how many times I have gone to the kitchen to make certain that the servant puts in only half the normal quantities?’

Next day I took the train to Singapore. There, I visited the university and several of my former students, one of whom invited me with his father to a dinner with the Australian Trade Commissioner. I explored Johor Bahru and Singapore tourist attractions, but my heart was not in it: I felt increasingly homesick and fretted at having to wait so long to obtain a seat on a plane that would take me back to Perth. I was delighted when I was reunited with my family on Wednesday 7 January 1970.

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RIOTS IN KUALA LUMPUR I ATTEND A MALAY KAMPONG WEDDING

A year of intensive exploration and self-indulgent freedom had drawn to a close. The experience had been invaluable, but I was anxious to rejoin my Currie Hall community. Exciting and demanding years lay ahead, and I looked forward to them eagerly. Life had become very meaningful to me as my commitment strengthened.