Memories

MISTY, WATER COLOURED MEMORIES

There aren’t enough stones for the number of adulterers we have. – Tunku Abdul Rahman, on Islamic law and its prescription of stoning for adulterers.

The older you get, the better  you realise you were. 

I wish I’d come up with that but it was a George Carlin original. Carlin himself was one of the most original comedic brains of the 20th Century, frequently coming up  with superb bon mots not only witty but undeniably true.

It reminds me of the first time I met the late, great Tan Siew Sin, Malaysia’s longest serving finance minister (1959-74). He was then chairman of Sime Darby and must have been 70 but looked older and appeared frail.  

He was a Tun – the nation’s highest civilian honour – at the time so I avoided the tongue twister (Tun Tan) by sticking to Tun. I was in awe of him and attempted to defuse the tension by bringing up the story of  Tunku Abdul Rahman and Siew Sin’s leave. 

Apparently, when Siew Sin was Finance Minister, he asked the Tunku – than Prime Minister  and his boss – for leave to go on holiday. It was duly granted. Just as he was about to leave, he was struck by a sudden thought and asked the Tunku who would be his substitute. When the Premier cheerfully replied he  would do it,  Siew Sin immediately  retracted his application.

The Tun confirmed the story without a smile and remarked the Tunku was too “generous” by way of explanation.   He was quite serious about it too. 

He was equally  straight-faced when he  mentioned that when he was finance minister “inflation was zero.”

Which just underscores the point of the Carlin truism. 

It says much about the Tunku’s character that he used the story in his weekly newspaper column to illustrate the humour of the situation. Do you think Dr M, for example,  would have found it equally funny? 

I was in Form Four when the Tunku retired from public service so you might say he loomed large in my life. Indeed, I remember devouring a Readers’ Digest feature on the man entitled The Wit and Wisdom of Tunku Abdul Rahman, under a picture of a beaming,songkok-hatted Tunku.

I still remember some of its  vignettes. 

Western journalists liked the Tunku because he could be relied upon to come up with the breezy, unexpected quip. 

During Indonesia’s “confrontation” with  Malaysia (1963-66) which stemmed from Indonesia’s opposition to the creation of Malaysia, Indonesian jets repeatedly, and deliberately, strayed into Malaysian airspace. It was an obvious show of strength.  

When journalists asked the Tunku what he intended to do about it, he shrugged and said: “Nothing. By the time we’ve scrambled those boys will be back in Jakarta. Let them waste fuel, we’ve better things to do.”

He was candid and disarmingly truthful. During a state visit to the United Kingdom, he was interviewed by a young  David Frost on the BBC. At the time, Southeast Asia was in ferment, against a backdrop of the Vietnam War and McNamara’s warnings of the “Domino theory” which predicted that the region’s countries  would fall “like dominoes” to communism once South Vietnam fell.

Frost (without preamble): “Tunku, what would you do if China were to invade Malaysia?”

Tunku (incredulous): “I must have heard you wrong, David.”

Frost (implacable): “You didn’t hear me wrong, Sir. My question is, what if China invades Malaysia?”

Tunku: “Why then, we shall simply surrender.” 

At a time when Malaysia’s lunatic fringe is baying for “Malay Proclamations” amid increasingly divisive rhetoric, it might be timely to reflect on the Tunku’s notion of unity.

“We are all Malaysians. This is the bond that unites us. Let us always remember that unity is our fundamental strength, as a people and as a nation.” 

ENDS

Taking A Bite Out Of The Big Apple

I suppose what I experienced that early winter’s afternoon in Manhattan was what singer-songwriter Don Henley famously described as a New York “minute.”

I’d been walking uptown looking for a particular store when I noticed a crowd being held back by police and ropes. I had learnt by then never to ignore such things as they almost always proved interesting. 

It was. 

Behind the ropes, in the backlit glow of the lights was Al Pacino, emoting. He appeared completely oblivious of the gawping crowd, seemingly in a parallel dimension of make-believe.

I suppose that’s why they pay him the big bucks. I saw the finished version back home in Kuala Lumpur. It was the quite-excellent 1989 thriller Sea of Love. 

In the fall of 1988, I was lucky enough to obtain a fellowship to Columbia.

It helped my burgeoning career no end: I’d read biochemistry in college but, here, I was exposed to economics, business and finance. It helped me become a better business reporter. 

I’d read that you would fit right in with NYC if you came equipped, that is to say, paranoid. I mean, it was said that the most popular pastime in the city in the 80s was internal bleeding.

But no, I enjoyed my year in Manhattan enormously and was treated with nothing but courtesy and kindness. 

Stewart Taggart, my colleague in B-School, loved to go jogging and he once persuaded me to go along one Sunday morning to Central Park.

Loping around near the reservoir, Stewart suddenly stopped and pointed. I couldn’t see much until the group grew nearer. Surrounded by bodyguards, Mick Jagger was jogging briskly. 

He was friendly too. He noticed us looking and he smiled and waved.

But after half an hour I got tired and thought I would head back. I took one of the exits and found myself in Harlem.

I knew Columbia was several blocks away so I didn’t panic. While walking along, what I originally took to be a bundle of rags on a side street turned out to be a homeless man.

Walter turned out to be a nice fellow who knew where Southeast Asia was: he’d served in Vietnam. More to the point, he was going my way.  

I asked him how he survived in February when temperatures could go below zero. He shrugged as if it was a stupid question: “You get by the best you can.” 

You would constantly meet interesting people there. Pamela, our program director, for example, was married to Paul Kluge, an untidy-looking novelist whose New Yorker article helped inspire the film Dog Day Afternoon.

Paul used to find me interesting and, I suppose, something of a curiosity. One evening, he asked me over dinner what our national record for the 100-metre sprint was.

I told him it was 10.3 seconds and that it was set in the 1960s by a medical student who’d trained briefly in Texas.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” breathed Paul Kluge in complete amazement. “Talk of being backward. That’s like our “white” high school times and we’re not even starting to talk black.”   

All ten Fellows were in the media and nine were American. So, when we met Donald Trump for dinner in his Trump Tower one evening, I was the only one who’d never heard of him

He stared at me: “Where are you from?”

“Malaysia.”  

“That’s Asia,” he said, pleased by his knowledge. 

“Bingo,” said Stewart and I thought Mr Trump might go far. 

But he bristled at their questions – about his business tactics and his recent Chapter 11 filing – and you could sense he loathed reporters.

Later, all of us including Pamela – who rarely spoke evil of anyone – agreed he was a jerk. 

If only we knew then what we know now.