Growing Up In British Malaya A Memoir

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank my brothers Meng Yap, Ming Huat and Meng Fung for helping me to refresh some of my memories, for their advice on the choice of appropriate Chinese words and their keen interest in the memoir. To them, I owe a great debt.

Uncle Phang, the youngest brother and only surviving member of  my mother’s immediate family, provided me with vital information on my mother’s past as well as throwing light on some aspects of my dad’s life in Hainan which were not known to me and my brothers. He and his daughter Suet Fan (Fion) sat through with me and my wife over several meetings during our visits to Hong Kong.

Yong Eng, a cousin of mine on my mother’s side, joined us during all the meetings we had with Uncle Phang and Suet Fan, and provided additional useful information on my parents’ past.

Without the kind assistance of Uncle Phang and Yong Eng, this memoir would regrettably be incomplete, inadequate and less accurate.   

 Tanya Salehian, an enthusiastic member of The Melbourne Circle, founded by me, gave me much encouragement and made valuable suggestions on the book’s layout.

吃得苦中苦，方為人上人

HE WHO CAN EAT

THE BITTEREST OF THE BITTER

SHALL EXCEL

OVER ALL MEN

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

Ju-Hor (surname Lim, pen-name Wen Kwang) - my father

Mei-Jiong (surname Phang) - my mother

Yong Eng - daughter of my mother's immediate younger sister

Uncle Phang - youngest (surviving) brother of my mother, the last link of her immediate family

Uncle Ju-Dong - my father's elder brother

Uncle Ju-Din - a first cousin of my father

Uncle Ju-Tuan - younger brother of Ju-Din

Uncle (Dr) Ju-Po - a very distant relative of my father

CONTENTS

Prolugue

1      Dragon-Child

2      My Birthplace – Klang

3      Our Living Conditions and Neighbours

4      Klangites At Work and Leisure

5      The Hainanese in Malaya

6      Our Parents

7      Family Values

8      Away from Home

9      Food, Glorious Food!

10      My School-Days

11      Joys of Reading

12      My Musical Awakening

13      Interregna: The Japanese Occupation and ‘The Emergency"

14      Malaya on World’s Literary Map

Epilogue

LIST OF MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS

The Heart Has Its Reason

Once Upon A Time

Echoes Of The Distant Past

Nostalgia

Remembrance of Our Happy School Days

Dreams Of Thee

Sighs Of A Late-Winter Night

Life-Scape

Author's father, 1929, Hainan.

Dad's LLB certificate awarded by Chongsan University, Kwangtung (now Guangdong) in 1929.

Author on right, facing reader, middle-his immediate younger brother, Dr Lim Ming Huat and left, author's father,1965, Klang, Malaysia.

PROLOGUE

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. 

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Writing is such a daunting task for an aspiring writer and writing something along the line of a memoir is much more so.

I struggled with this thought when I first conceived the idea of writing this memoir in March 2013: ‘Would my story be of interest to the reader as I am only an ordinary person while known writers have compelling stories that would have an immediate readership?’ My next thought was ‘Am I giving up even before I start out of fear or disapproval?’

I took courage from Sartre’s words: ‘To write is another way of wanting freedom’

I concluded: It would be a moral failure to walk away.

I wanted to tell my story to my family. As long as the story remained untold, there lurked this gnawing sense of ‘incompleteness’ within me.

Aspiring writers feel they have something valuable to say about themselves, their lives and experiences, life as seen through their personal perspectives, people who affected or still affect them and how they view relationships in their myriad facets. 

I have no doubt my family would want to read my story as there were many gaps in their understanding of my past life and if I didn’t embark upon this writing, I felt that, in the Chinese tradition, I had not fulfilled my duty as head of the family.

To write my memoir is not just to reminiscence over the past but also to ascribe a meaning to it and this, in itself, justifies this undertaking.

On one occasion I went to the Literature Section of the library and browsed through two volumes of classical Chinese poems. After that, I surveyed the shelf on western literature and by sheer chance came across Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. Shamefully, I had read so little of this great poet, despite his name being mentioned so often.

It was so consoling to read this:

‘No one can advise or help you - no one.

There is only one thing you should do. Get into yourself.

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night:

Must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I Must’, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse...

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity......’.

Henry James wrote:

Every aspect of human energy is exciting.

My entire being spoke to me: ' This is your time - do what you must'.

CHAPTER 1

DRAGON-CHILD

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

Graham Greene (1904-1991)

This memoir covers a period of seventeen years, from my birth in 1940 to 1957, the year I completed my Form Five and sat for the Overseas Cambridge Examination. Coincidentally, 1957 was the year the country was granted independence by the British.

I was born in the year of the dragon (Loong 龍 in Mandarin) and seemed to have some basic characteristics of this mythical creature. Chinese parents are happy to have children born under the dragon sign, as they believe they will be successful in the future.  Dragons are deemed to be the custodians of wealth and power.

The Chinese animal zodiac is a repeating cycle of twelve years. Each year is represented by an animal and its main attributes. In the Chinese tradition, the zodiac animals were used to date the respective years. The twelve animals, in order, are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, hare, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

I was born in 1940, which meant that the next dragon people would be born in 1952; those preceding me would have been born in 1928. Qualities attributed to dragon people include power, courage, success, ambition, kind-heartedness, magnanimity, enterprise, enthusiasm, ability to inspire and proneness to romanticism. On the negative side, they are described as irascible, unrealistic and prone to conceit. Emperors referred to themselves as Dragons and as such this animal is symbolic of imperial power and authority. The dragon is the strongest of all the animals in the zodiac and, in ancient times, it was thought to be able to control everything in the world due to its dominant power.

My father first gave me the name of Cheng 成 (Success).  But later he decided to change it to 'sincerity' or 'trustworthiness' by adding the character yen 言 (speak, spoken) to the root word 'success' and although it sounded the same, the meaning was entirely different. The person who abides by what he has spoken is sincere - Yen (figuratively ‘spoken words’) plus cheng 成 (success) make for sincerity. I do believe my father’s choice of name suited my character.

My mother said to me when I was very young: ‘ when you were born, there was no hair on your head except that on the dark patch. It’s an auspicious sign. You will do well in life’. I don’t know why she believed this or whether she had just made it up. My birthmark is large and a doctor had once remarked: ‘It could be a haematoma’ but it was not and is completely harmless, being just a birth-mark. From afar and in photographs, it looked like a tuft of hair. Many friends and some acquaintances had asked what the patch was out of curiosity. 

My generation name is Ming, 明 which means 'bright', so in full I am called Ming Cheng 明誠 in Chinese.  Generation names are fixed and enable present and future generations to recognise where they rank in the hierarchy within the clan and help them to identify another relative when and if they meet. My cousins would also bear the generation name of Ming, my sons Tao as in Lao-Tze’s Tao Te-Ching (‘the way' or virtue when the word is combined with 'Te' , Ching is text) and their sons would carry the name Shi (師as in teacher) and so on. Dad wrote down all the generation names long before he passed away; being such a strong adherent to tradition, he wanted to ensure we brothers would not forget our ancestral roots. This information was vital to us in those days as the Internet didn’t exist. With the development of the Internet, such information is now more accessible.

Dad's generation was Ju 猷 (which means Plan) and his father's was Hong 鴻 (Large). Tao Bu, a relative, was twenty years older than I was but as his generation name was Tao, he had to address me as ‘uncle’.  He was a very gentle person, one of the kindest I knew in my childhood. If I were to meet a relative who, for example, was younger than I was, but bore the generation name Ju, I would have to address him as ‘uncle’ despite his junior age. Altogether 52 generation-names pertaining to our Hainanese Lin clan have been handed down and faithfully followed by traditional parents. Chinese pragmatism and long-term vision is evident from this most ingenious system.

Dad wrote down the generation names and handed over to my elder brother:

His generation numbered 27 猷, his father’s 26 鴻, mine and my brothers’ 28 明, my sons’ 29 道, their sons’ 30 師 and my grandson’s sons’ 31先 (Preceding).

My memory stretches back to about 1944 when I was four. Malaya fell to the Japanese in 1941 but the country was liberated in 1945. I remember Japanese soldiers marching through a main street in 1944. The next scene comes to mind readily. Dad took me to the padang (field in Malay) under the royal palace to witness the British tanks rolling over the green. That was in 1945.  British soldiers were throwing chocolates to those around and dad was one of the recipients. It was a joyful day - the first time in my life that I had the chance to taste this sweet treat.

I remember there were rickshaws in the town - all were pulled by Chinese - no other race had this occupation.  I rode on one only once. The pullers seemed to be rather old - perhaps in their forties or even fifties.  They dressed either in black or blue and wore large straw hats. Because of the hot and humid weather, they sweated a lot and their shirts were unbuttoned. The distance covered was short and the pullers did not seem to suffer too much. There were no Hainanese 海南人 pullers as far as I knew - only Hokkien 福建人 and Henghua people 興化人. Perhaps there were two reasons for this: Hainanese culture frowned upon this occupation and Hainanese were less sturdy compared with the other two clans. The practice was later abolished by the British and replaced by the trishaw, which has survived up to this day, especially in Penang, Malacca and a few old small towns.  To my knowledge it would be rare to see a Hainanese trishaw-puller.

I can easily recall most of the town’s features. Even a few strangers’ faces have never left my mind - I was an impressionable child and had a vivid memory.

 Dragon people are said to be hard-working and determined, perhaps also given to irascibility and this was true with me in my youth.  Hard work was in my blood - my parents never had to coerce or advise me to study hard.  My unexpected success in the second year of my enrolment in the leading English-medium school, Klang High School, when I topped the class, made me determined to hold on to this position.  Indeed, this determination enabled me to maintain this position, in both class and form, every year from 1948 to 1957.  I read about right and left-brain people rather late, in my 40’s, and realized I belonged to the former category. I had no aptitude for science or mathematics, nor did I have a logical mind. My creativity and enjoyment of the arts and music were evident from the age of ten or so. At school, I was precocious and was ahead of my peers. At one point, the Headmaster called me into his office after my standard 2 year-end results were out and suggested that I skip the standard 3 year.  But I was scared and told my father of my fears - he agreed that such a step would not be wise and informed the caring headmaster. Naturally, I was concerned that I would not be able to continue to excel academically in a class of older and more experienced students.

I am a product of both nature and nurture but perhaps more of the first. I inherited my love of poetry from dad. I had a vivid imagination and was a dreamer. Artistically, I had intuition and this was evident in my teenage years when I fell in love with music and acquired musical skills with ease. Yet, my character was also immensely affected by my environment. Poverty left an indelible mark on my mind.  At an early age, I said to myself: 'I want to rise above poverty as I’ve seen the hardships of my parents and the sacrifices they have made. I can’t let them down.  I want a better life. I want them to be proud of me….’, thus embracing the far-sightedness for which the Chinese people are renowned.

I often heard my parents mention the term Chuang Yen 狀元, the Chinese scholar par excellence who topped the Imperial Examinations, the highest in the country and also knew about this from Chinese films I saw.. In Chinese culture and society, a scholar is deeply revered and ranks first among the occupations. I had strong-will and determination and tried to work harder than any other student to maintain the high standards I had set for myself.

Although well ahead of my peers in studies, I was most untypical of dragon-children.  I was timid, non-assertive, naïve, gullible, compliant, lacked common sense and didn’t have a single ounce of street-smartness.  I was also bullied once in school and this left an indelible mark on my young mind.  I began to feel the world could be a hostile place, which I later discovered to be true.

 1940 - the year of my birth. Mum was only twenty-five and had given birth to my elder brother in Hainan two years earlier. Coming from a happy, sheltered and well-to-do family, one would have thought she was ill-equipped to raise a family in a foreign country.  I scarcely thought of this when she was alive.  It was after her death and when I embarked upon the writing of this memoir that I realised how strong, patient and resilient she was.

So often have I dwelt on this thought. Had it not been for World War II, my parents would not have fled Hainan, their birth-place, for the then Malaya in 1939.  Japan invaded China in 1937 and Hainan fell in 1939. Post-occupation, like many of their fellow Hainanese, my parents chose Malaya as a place to build a future. Klang, in the State of Selangor, was chosen as my uncle, dad’s elder brother, had settled in this small town some twenty years earlier, encouraged by my grandfather who believed there were better economic advantages in this British colony.  I admire my grandfather for his foresight and courage.  My uncle had no knowledge of English when he landed in Klang in the 1920’s.

What would my life have been if my parents had not fled the war? As I grew older, my belief in the invisible hand of destiny began to grow stronger and stronger and, not having a religion, I chose to be a humanist as humanism fitted my mode of thinking.  I tended to reduce things to the humanistic level and this led me to read and ponder upon freedom and choice as expounded by the existentialist-philosophers. However, it was the teachings of Confucius that influenced me the most and I read and re-read his Analects (論語lún yǔ) and related works, including many books on Confucianism. Here was the sage who taught the importance of learning and wisdom, universal brotherhood of man, deference for one’s parents and elders, filial piety, courtesy, generosity, kindness and humility. His most quoted saying really resonated with me: 'Within the four seas, all men are brothers'. 四海之内 皆 兄弟也That was written over 2,500 years ago; the sage lived in 600 BC.

The teachings of Lao-Tze 老子 benefited me immensely as they gave me an insight into living in harmony with nature and myself. The Tao Te-Ching 道德經 is, I believe, one of the greatest books and has been highly acclaimed worldwide and has profoundly influenced the Western mind. I have since read it many, many times and often the book lies within easy reach, on my computer desk. I have made copious notes from this classic and refer to it frequently. Over time I read the writings of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epicurus and Epictetus. I discovered a rare type of wisdom I had never before come across - it suited my humanist temperament and I espoused it with all my heart. This, plus my exposure to ancient Chinese wisdom, strengthened me and has since been my constant guide as I journey into life with all of its vicissitudes. Thus, I don’t have to fight destiny and would be acquiescent to what is dealt to me in this world. I have come to realise that acceptance is strength and, coupled with patience, will give me enough courage to meet any adversity in life.  This is not pessimism but realism.

 I was a filial, obedient and compliant son.  In relation to my parents and elders, I invariably used the reverent word ‘noong’ 儂 which meant the humble ‘I’ in the Hainanese dialect and not ‘gua’ 我 as used among equals.  I heard the word ‘Kia’ 子 being used by my mother when addressing relatives or friends of her generation - the word in this regard meant ‘self’ (the humble self).  Mum was a very kind and friendly person and her influence on us five brothers was immense.  I left home aged eighteen for my Higher School Certificate in Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital. I settled there after my marriage in 1964, and lived there continuously before emigrating to Australia in 1995. This meant I had been on my own since the formative age of eighteen. I remember mum visiting me, in Kuala Lumpur, with my youngest brother in 1958. The three of us met at the playground of the town’s stadium. I was very touched by this visit as Mum was very glad to see me; no doubt the trip was made due to her anxiety over my welfare and as she missed me, although I had been away from home for only a few months. How she managed to find her way to Kuala Lumpur was a feat; she must have been very resourceful and brave.

This famous Chinese poem touched me immensely:

SONG OF THE ROAMER 遊子吟

By Meng Jiao 孟郊 (T’ang Dynasty 751--814)

The threads in an affectionate mother’s hand

A gown for her son bound for a far-off land

Sewn stich by stich before he leaves

For fear his return be delayed

Such kindness as young grass receives

From the warm sun can’t be repaid.

 This poem really resonated with me as I got older and especially as I left Malaya for Australia. Whenever I thought of home I would recite this poem, sometimes in tears, as I knew my mother would be missing me a lot - we were very close throughout our lives.

CHAPTER 2

MY BIRTH-PLACE – KLANG

‘SLEEPY-HOLLOW’

Klang now known in Malay as Kelang was once a small town in the State of Selangor ruled by a Sultan as with all other States except Penang (Pulau Pinang) and Malacca each of which was headed by a Governor. It is the royal town of the State. The palace known as Istana Mahkota (Crown Palace) overlooked the large beautiful Klang Padang (Field) and remained the home of succeeding Sultans until 1997 when the royal residence was relocated in Shah Alam the State capital. It is closer to Kuala Lumpur but still near to Klang.

The word ‘Klang’ will be used hereafter as what is to be mentioned relates to the historical past.

Klang was a very quiet town in the early years until urbanization and economic growth swept through the country starting in the early 1960’s.

It was made a joke of