The Streets of London

As some of you may have noticed, I've recently updated my blogroll to include newly found friends in blogosphere. One of these is Kak Teh, whose Choc-a-Bloc Blog, has a large and loyal following. I'm one of those who regularly visit her blog but have never left any comment until last week.

Kak Teh is considered a veteran blogger, having kept a weblog since December 2004. She resides in London and her posts about life in that city and the UK, in general, are very interesting.

I've stayed in London before, as a student of course, but only for a short period of six months. But what a memorable six months it was. It was supposed to be the first year of my A-levels but I practically didn't study anything during that period. Not a good example, you might say, but that's just me... no need to hide it.

I first arrived in London sometime in January of 1980. Bloody freezing cold. I was part of a large group of students sent to the UK before our MCE results were out. While most of the students were sent to established colleges all over the UK (where other Malaysian students have studied before), a group of 13 including yours truly, were enrolled at a private college in Greenwich, London for the first time. The Malaysian Students Department (MSD) was sort of testing to see if this college was up to the mark. As I mentioned earlier, there wasn't much studying done, and after a few months, we reported back to MSD and asked to be transferred to a better college for the next term.

Upon arriving in London, this group of 13 naive boys were first housed in an old boarding house called Blackheath Hall in the south-eastern suburb of the city. Although the hall had central heating, it was still drab and dreary. The walk from the hall to our college was about 20 minutes, past open public fields. The stay at Blackheath was temporary, only for about 2 weeks, if I recall correctly. In that period, we were tasked to find permanent accommodation on our own. Since there were no Malaysian seniors at the college, you can imagine how difficult it was because we had no-one we could refer to for advice. Nonetheless, we were told by other foreign students to search the advertisements in the evening papers.

After Blackheath, I stayed at two different places in an area called New Cross. It was a bit far from college but the rent was cheap and we had many other foreign students as neighbours. The daily journey from our rented flat to college was a single bus ride for about half-an-hour. While the particular college we went to was nothing to brag about, the sub-district of Greenwich is actually a beautiful and historical place. There are many places of interest within walking distance of each other but the most memorable one that I went to was the Royal Observatory. This is the origin of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the Prime Meridian or Zero Longitude that divides the globe into east and west.

Gabriel on the right is standing in the west, Khairul in the middle straddles
Zero Longitude while Silla is standing in the east.
Pic taken at Greenwich Royal Observatory in 1980.

The GMT has now been replaced by the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), but to me, Malaysia is and will always be +8 hours GMT.

The financial allowance that we got from MSD at that time was not particularly lavish, especially if you consider the relatively high cost of living in the city of London. Most weekends were therefore spent at home or at most, browsing around the shopping areas of south-eastern districts such as Lewisham and Brockley. Occasionally, we would take the bus or underground train to go to central London. The first stop would of course be the Malaysian Hall at Bryanston Square near Marble Arch for the subsidised lunch at only 50 pence. After lunch, we would walk the length of the famous shopping road of Oxford Street, not actually buying anything. Some years back, I read that Malaysian Hall was going to close down because the lease was up. I wonder if it's still there.

One evening, during early spring, my two friends and I, decided to explore the West End area of London. Although called `west', the area is actually located in central London and is famous for its many tourist attractions such as museums, theatres, cinemas, restaurants and nightclubs. In short, it's the entertainment centre of London. We spent the earlier part of the evening strolling the area of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, and later decided to catch a late-night movie at one of the cinemas. I can't recall the title of the movie but most probably it was one with an adult rating. After the movie, we walked around trying to find a place to buy fish and chips. It was after finishing the meal sitting on a park bench, that we realised that the buses and trains have stopped for the night. Crap! How were we going to get home? Taking a taxi would be too expensive and we weren't sure we had enough money left anyway.

The only other option was to walk back home. Since I was fairly confident of the route (as travelled by bus earlier in the day), we decided to take the walk although we were not sure how far we actually had to travel. And so that night, three young Malaysian chaps braved the unknown to walk from central London to the southeast district of New Cross. After all these years, I can still retrace the route that we took. From Leicester Square, we walked past The Strand, crossed the River Thames on Waterloo Bridge to get to South Bank, down Waterloo Road to The Elephant & Castle roundabout, down New Kent Road that led to Old Kent Road (also known as the A2), on to New Cross Road before finally turning to Pepys Road where our flat was located.

The route took us through tough working-class neighbourhoods. I re-traced the path we took using Google Earth and measured it at 8.3km. In hindsight, it was probably a crazy thing we did that night.

The path of a night stroll in London, re-traced on a Google Earth image

I haven't had the opportunity to visit London again since I finished university. Sure hope that someday I would be able to do so.

Update 16 March 2022 : The link to Kak Teh's blog has been removed although her blog still exists. Other online links were also removed to avoid possible error messages.

Two Faces, the latest reprint

I was browsing at Popular Bookstore in City Square earlier today and spotted a book that I've been looking for since a few months ago. Dr Syed Husin Ali's book, Two Faces - Detention Without Trial, has been reprinted by a new publisher and is now available at the bookstores.

The book is a translation of his original Malay work titled `Dua Wajah - Tahanan Tanpa Bicara', which was first published in 1996. It tells the story of Syed Husin's detention under the Internal Security Act for nearly six years. My earlier post relating to this book can be read here -> Punishing those who are threats to society?

To my blogger-friend Michelle Yoon, this latest book would be on its way to New Zealand shortly.

Update 16 March 2022 : The link to Michelle's blog has been removed although the Wordpress page still exists.

Lessons in life

Earlier today, I read this lovely post about Deepavali from blogger friend Hliza who remembers her schoolmate from younger days by the name of Sumathi. Hliza's story reminded me of my own experience of having a close friend who was not of the same race. I narrated that experience as a comment in Hliza's blog and thought that I could share the story here too.

My best friend when I was in Standard Three of primary school was an Indian boy named Suresh Kumar. One day, Suresh invited me to attend his birthday party at his house after school. When I got back home, I told my mother about it but she did not allow me to go. The reason given was that I need to bring something as a birthday present and we didn't have time to buy any. I told mom that my friend said it was okay if I didn't bring presents but mom wasn't budging.

You can imagine how disheartened I was... and I was sulking the whole afternoon. Later that day, Suresh came over to my house, bringing a small tupperware containing a piece of his birthday cake and some other goodies. He wanted to know why I didn't come. I simply mentioned that I didn't have permission to go. For this simple gesture alone, I will remember Suresh for the rest of my life.

When my father returned from work that evening, he found out about it. He sort of chided my mom for not allowing me to go. The very least, my father said, was that my mom could've bought a box of chocolates for me to bring as a birthday present. It was the first time I remember my father backing me on something.

I suspect the real reason my mother forbade me to go was something entirely different. But I do not blame her for it. It was a typical mother's concern at the time.

Nowadays, when my own sons get invited to the birthday parties of their non-Malay friends, I have no objections at all. A few years back, when we were staying at Taman Melawati in Kuala Lumpur, my youngest son got invited to a birthday party of his Chinese classmate named Nicholas. As we dropped off our son in front of the friend's house, my wife began to remind him about being careful about what to eat at the party. I gently cut her off by saying that she should not worry. I was confident that there wouldn't be any issue about food on two counts... firstly, my son is mature enough to know what he can or cannot eat. Secondly, I was sure that Nicholas' parents, having invited their son's Malay friends, would be wise enough not to serve food that Muslims could not eat.

Race relations is quite a complicated subject in this country of ours, especially in the light of recent events. Despite all the government campaigns and slogans, the oft-repeated buzzwords of `perpaduan' and `muhibbah' may end up being just that... slogans with no real meaning. Why is this so? I think it's because we have a sprinkling of bigots in power... on all sides. It's very difficult to change the opinions of such people and I wouldn't deny them their right to hold on to such opinions. The very least I can do is to make my own children understand and appreciate the diversity of all the various races in Malaysia. If other parents can also make this small but significant effort, then there is hope yet for all of us.

Finally, my thanks to Hliza for sharing her childhood memories that made me remember mine.

To Suresh Kumar, hope you are keeping well my friend, wherever you are. You're one friend with the heart of gold.

Update 01 Dec 2021 : Hliza's blog has been made private, hence the link is removed.

Festival of Lights

Wishing a Happy Deepavali to my Hindu friends in Malaysia and elsewhere. May the future of our country be bright and all its citizens live in peace and harmony.

Pic of Kolam borrowed from AllMalaysia.info

Update 01 Dec 2021 : AllMalaysia.info website no longer exists.

On a lighter note

Terlewat sebulan

Sepasang pengantin baru berkahwin 4 bulan. Pada suatu malam si isteri memeluk leher suami dengan nada manja seraya berkata, "Ayang, period I dah lewat sebulan, tapi I tak boleh nak pastikan lagi sebab kita kena gi check kat doktor."

Si suami yang teramat gembira tu pun berpakat dengan isterinya untuk tidak memberitahu sesiapa pun tentang perkhabaran gumbira ini sehingga ianya benar-benar pasti.

Pada suatu hari, pasangan ini di datangi oleh pegawai dari TNB kerana terdapat tunggakan dalam pembayaran bill elektrik rumah mereka. Pegawai TNB tu pun bertanya "Ini rumah En. Mahpus ker?" "Iya, saya ni isterinya. Ada apa Encik?"

Pegawai TNB tu pun berkata, "Puan, ni dah sebulan lewat, saya dah tak boleh tunggu ni, nanti boss saya marah."

Dengan nada terkejut, si isteri itu pun membalas balik cakap pegawai TNB tu."APA??? Macam mana pulak Encik tahu yang saya ni sebulan lewat???"

Pegawai TNB tu pun dengan selamba menjawab "Alaa puan, ni kan zaman IT, semua tu ada dalam komputer dan kita boleh check Online."

Kata-kata pegawai TNB tu membuatkan si isteri tu lagi terkejut.
"APAAA???? Saya lewat sebulan pun awak semua boleh tahuuu???"

Pegawai TNB tu pun mententeramkan keadaan. "Releks puan, puan ni baru lewat sebulan, ada yg lagi teruk, lewat 5-6 bulan."

Si isteri yang terperanjat beruk dengan kenyataan pegawai tu pun berkata, “Nanti saya bincang dengan suami saya..” Lalu pegawai TNB tu pun beredar dari situ..

Keesokkan harinya, selepas si Mahphus ini diberitahu oleh isterinya, dia pun naik berang dan terus amik cuti dan pergi ke kedai TNB yang berdekatan.

Dengan tanpa menghiraukan pegawai-pegawai TNB yang ramai di situ, dia pun memekik seraya berkata, "Apa korang ni, isteri saya sebulan lewat pun nak heboh-heboh ke dalam internet! Awak ni semua yang berkeluarga tak pernah lewat sebulan kerrrr????!! Bisness apa korang buat niii?? Nak kena saman kerr???”

Lalu pegawai yang datang ke rumah si Mahphus ni berdiri dan cuba mententeramkan keadaan. "Sabar encik, sabar encik. Apa susah, kalau cik nak settlekan perkara ni, bayar je..."

Kata-kata pegawai TNB tu membuatkan si Mahphus tambah naik berang.

"APAAA?? nak bayar korang? belahhhh lahh..."

Lalu pegawai TNB tu pun cakap, "Kalau macam tu, kita terpaksa potong encik punya..."

Si Mahpus mencelah, "Apa??? Potong??? Abih tu isteri saya di rumah nak pakai apaaaaaa???”

Pegawai TNB tu pun cakap, "Nampak gayanye.. ISTERI ENCIK KENA PAKAI LILIN AJERRRLAAAAAAAA"


Note : Got this from my favourite online forum site. Original author unknown.