December Editorial 2005

Whilst the end of Ramadan and the Hari Raya which ensued cannot but leave memorable events in another wonderful year of our life, for us, it also brings forth a sad event. After all the fun we have had with Farah and little Aisya Iman, who was growing by the minute and was full of antics of her own, it is inevitable and sad that they should have to leave all of us for Chicago, where John Arman has again set up home for the family. Previously, when both John and Farah decided to make a go at it to live and settle down in KL, they had sold their apartment in Chicago and literally came over to KL only with their suit cases. It was a great move and sacrifice on their part, and our admiration to Arman for the brave decision to do so, albeit trepidation and negative hypes perhaps by Arman's parents , Jim and Joan.

We all know that it will be some time and with a lot of efforts and money, before they can set up a proper home and own one again. For the time being, they have to be content with living in a rented apartment and almost starting all over again. The good news that we now hear from Farah now that they are in Chicago is that they have a big apartment, with a big enough hall to place a round table for gin rummy - the game we all love to play when they were home then. The rest of the gin rummy gang was elated to hear about the gin rummy table that's there waiting for us to have the gin session. Already everyone contemplates visiting Chicago early next year. Farah and John are going to have a hard and busy time when we do visit them ! This gin rummy gang of ours never mince words when it comes to travels. When we do decide to go anywhere, we usually make it. It is indeed assuring to know that Arman and family has not only a big apartment but that it is almost at the very edge of the Great Lakes as Farah describes it as being only fifteen metres from the lake's shore line, WOW !

As for us, we will be starting all over again too, with annual and occasional visits to Chicago like we did in the past. In short, it will be an effort to meet up with them just as they would have too as and when they decide to come home to KL. However, with the convenience of air travels these days, both Chicago and KL are just a few hours distance away. With time, we know by then Aisya Iman will be a big girl and most definitely speaks American ! It will be a delightful day for all of us when the time comes. The same can be said for all our other grandchildren too.

That reminds me of another of our relations who has been in the States for countless years. Mona or Ta Jah ( her real name is Muhrizah, and she is Ainul's aunty by relationship) seems to have settled down very well in Oklahoma with her American husband Alan. Oklahoma reminds me of that wonderful musical film which started with the tune "Oh what a beautiful morning!" Most of my young readers will not have known about this musical which has all the lilting songs to warm the heart. As a result of the nostalgic effect of the film, often times when we visited the States years past we wanted to visit them, to see and experience the kind of life they lead. Of course we wonder if it is still the cowboy city of old, just like the disappointment we had when we went to Colorado to find that it is just like any other city that one can find in the States. Mona teaches at the University of Oklahoma and by the look of things, she is already institutionalized by the fact that she has never mentioned any retiring age ! We do meet up occasionally in KL but more often than not Mona travels a lot to the UK and other parts of the world on her own or on official academic tour and occasionally with Alan on their annual vacations. They both seems a very happy couple despite the fact that they have no children. I suppose it matters little if you can remain together on your travels.

Well, that seems to be the style when you are on your own overseas. Looking ahead, we can expect similar development when our little Aisya Iman grows up in the States. However, in her case John says he will want her to retain her Malay cultural background, socially and religiously. We were glad to have given their family a Qu'ran from our recent Umrah trip. This particular Qu'ran has a very good transliteration of the Qu'ranic verses, which has proven very useful and definitely instructive reading for anyone who is not taught Qu'ran reading or able to properly read Jawi. In fact this version of the Qu'ran makes very good reading for me too and for once I begin to understand and appreciate a great deal on the Qu'ran's contents and implied teachings for the Muslims and all mankind.

How I found it was almost coincidental or Providence is a better word for it. Most of the free time during the recent Umrah, I while away the time to read Surah Yasin and its translation. At one time, I mentioned to Ainul, if the Surah Yasin has a transliteration, why don't anyone make it for the whole Qu'ran too. Later on we decided to buy a few Qu'ran for ourselves to bring home. We bought a couple of the ordinary one with Malay translation and there amongst all the other Qu'ran displays I spotted this new Qu'ran ! It was the very transliterated version of the Qu'ran that I was wishing for just a few hours before ! We felt very happy indeed that Allah had granted our wish. True to what they say, if you think positive, you will be amazed at the outcome when you are in Mecca ! Thus we bought three sets of this Qur'an and gave them to Arman, Yasmin Yoshie and Izzat whom we think will find them very useful for self-taught reading and understanding of the Qu'ran's contents.

Whilst on the subject of mixed marriage, it reminds me of the marriage of a Trengganu royalty to an English woman which brought about the marriage of their daughter to a very close friend of mine who was my senior and College Head Boy, Ibrahim Ariffin. He became one of my best friends till today. By their marriage they had only a daughter, who Ainul and I said then to the couple, would be our God daughter. We plain forgot the role of Godparents but tried our best to make up for it on a few occasions when our presence or assistance were needed. God Bless her soul, Ibrahim lost his beautiful wife, Tunku Mariam , better known as Angela, some two years ago but the daughter Ann, who married Jason Low an actor, singer and TV and radio presenter, is blessed with a her firstborn, a beautiful girl, named Keila Maya. Only the other day we happened to read an article in the SUN about Ann's profession and to our shame to know for the first time that she is a professional "doula". So we learn that a doula lends emotional support and physical assistance which help calm women in labour and assist in natural birthing that is good for both mother and child. The Greek-originated word "doula" describes a woman who personally serves another woman. In today's context, it refers to a nonmedical assistant in prenatal care, childbirth and during the postnatal period. According to the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, a doula attends to the physical comfort and emotional needs of women in labour to help ease delivery process. They do not perform a midwife's clinical tasks such as heart rate checks or vaginal exams but rather use massage, aromatherapy, positioning suggestions, and hot compresses to help labour progress normally. Ann was quoted to have said "A midwife in Malaysia may not be able to stay with a labouring woman all the time, and a husband or mother may not quite know what to do. A doula assists the woman to make decisions during labour and can help make suggestions to the husband about what to do." Thus we are very proud to know that Ann was a fully trained general nurse and midwife and had worked in the UK in 1993 and the years that followed. When she returned home to KL she was a full-time doula for three years until she delivered her daughter a year plus ago. That's one plus for our family !

Coming back to our grandchildren, already Maisarah Iman is a big girl and dislikes the idea of our calling her 'little girl'. Muhammad and Aiki will be going to school next year, although we cannot help feeling skeptical over Muhammad's capability to look after himself whilst Aiki coping with Bahasa and English. Omar will be five and wiser and little Emir should be less naughty hopefully. Hibiki should be walking well by year's end, although at the time of writing he is still doing the balancing act whilst walking. Of our other grandchildren, Faiq is showing more maturity whilst his other brothers Zharif and Azry are fast catching up to be in the league of the big boys. Marsya retains her quiet repose but firm grips on her studies, and Syed Afi is quietly showing his individual skill in engineering whilst little brother Audi tries to follow his elder brother's footsteps. It will be very interesting indeed to see the future developmental outcome of all these kids. A lot can be said about what each of their parents do to instill proper guidance in their children's growth from infants to childhood .Life after all is a cycle. We have never thought that these same children who were once helpless infants are today individuals in their own rights and effortlessly adjusting to the demands of future lifestyles.

However, from our observations, those who are of foreign parents would have tremendous task ahead of them by way of upbringing and educating their offsprings. In the case of Ann, her mother the late Angela or Tunku Mariam never forgets her Malay side and hence when Ann was born and with a firm stand by Ibrahim, their daughter benefited from both worlds. Ann not only speaks fluent English with English accents, she speaks equally well in Malay too. The problem that faces Aiki is he speaks Japanese very well, but speaks very poor English and almost zero Malay, partly the outcome of the couple speaking only Japanese and English and hardly any Malay to Aiki . Fortunately both Farazil and Yasmin have come to realize that this situation should not persist for Aiki. Now that they are back in Malaysia, with Farazil now in Labuan, they could not allow the language handicap that Aiki currently faces to continue indefinitely. Already Aiki develops personal complex when he encounters his school friends. The worst part of it all is Aiki also lacks basic ABC which is taught in Malaysia at kindergarten level. Thus Aiki has to learn ABC as well as Malay and English. Since the last two weeks, Aiki is home with us in KL together with Yasmin and Hibiki. With the help of Mahatun we were able to get private tuition in these fields from a very close friend of Mahatun , a Mrs. Catherine Briggets Schmartz, better known to us now as Cath. She was Mahatun's colleague at the National Registration Department until they both retired many years ago. Cath has a reputation for self-teaching to all her children. They only went to school in the later years to sit for the school exams and they achieved excellent results. For the past lessons that Aiki went through with Cath, she told us that Aiki has made excellent progress !

Of course Yasmin is not satisfied with just language learning. These days there is a very hot method of fast learning for children in maths and even languages. The most popular one todate is the "KUMON" method. It involves the uses of mathematics and language as means to develop the fullest potential of each individual child. Kumon students learn using "kumon worksheets" that have gone through more than forty years of development. These worksheets had been created with the purpose of allowing children to progress naturally, without overexerting themselves. The kumon method is not wholly self-learning though. Specially trained kumon instructors have to be engaged. These instructors are trained to gain insight into current issues and develop new instructional strategies. They are supposed to be highly motivated educators, which involve the observation of student progress and making study projections of students. "KUMON" was created or invented in 1954 by Mr. Taru Kumon, when he tried to help his son, Takeshi to solve and improve on his difficulties with his maths problems in the second grade. Mr. Kuman himself was a maths teacher. The observations made by him on the traditional teachings of maths involve too many unnecessary elements that were taking up too much time. Thus he began experimenting maths worksheets that involve levels of learning, starting with basics and gradually progressing to more advanced maths learning, at a pace which create no mental stress to a learning child whilst at the same time retaining the child's interest and curiosity in the subject. I have seen just how effective this kumon method has been with Muhammad. He does his additions almost instinctively and seems to enjoy the whole thing. But of course with Maisarah, it works differently. As always, she will find excuses not do her homework for fear of missing her favorite TV programs, a habit which all parents should be aware of and try to avoid developing in children of all ages ! Whilst the TV can be an educational tool, it is instrumental to the development of many bad habits to the growing up child just as it does to adults too.

It is fine for all these tutions that parents give their children these days in order to cope with the ever rapid progress of child learning these days. Of course there are two schools of thoughts on very early learning and private tutions to infants who are in kindergartens. It is said that these children get bored with their lessons the very year they are admitted to the primary level, whilst others say that if they are not taught elementary reading and maths, they will feel left out and depressed and might even develop inferiority complex later on. I recall that I had only standard three pass when I entered The Malay College as compared to the rest at higher levels but I never felt inadequate. In fact, every facets of learning became very interesting to me then. Schools should be made interesting to the newly enrolled child and a lot of this is left to the ingenuity of the class teacher to do so. May be we were fortunate that we did have very good teachers those days. It goes without sayings, the teachers of those days were very dedicated ones and they seemed to enjoy teaching us.

Only thing that remains to always worry us is how parents these days tend to spoilt their children with toys which at most times would be discarded or simply thrown away by them after hardly a day's play ! This is in contrast to what we used to have then. In those days, we create our own toys. Thus we used our past time to create toys or games of our own .We made toys of our own with what was available out there and enjoy nature's surrounding such as the hilltops, trees , ravines and rivers and the domestic animals all around us, such as the cows, lambs and buffaloes and the ducks and chickens and not forgetting the birds and insects too. Children these days fill their time with video games and watching dvd and going to the shopping malls with their parents to buy more toys and dvds for themselves. These days some of the toys are so expensive, something that could equal the family's monthly marketing budget. It is not suprising to find in the homes of these kids, the house store becomes inadequate to store up their toys, which for all intends and purpose are never played or use again. What wastage and what ways to spoilt them ! As for food, they have it all, whilst ours was a scarcity since there was not much on offer those days. To get beef and chicken for lunch or dinner was a rarity and these were specials only for the Hari Rayas. Today, you name it and they can have it all for the asking !

Our tendency to spoilt our kids and they in return theirs, reminds me of a story forwarded to me recently through the mail and it goes like this :-
Anonymous writes "One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing him how poor people lived.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm, of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son,
"How was the trip?"
"It was great, Dad."
"Did you see how poor people live?" asked the father.
The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they have four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden; they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden; they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on; they have fields that go beyond their sight.
We have servants to serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them."

The father was SPEECHLESS.
Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are!"
Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

I recall my early MCKK days when I first step foot in the College. I was then ten years old and had never been away from my grand parents in Sri Menanti where I spent a great deal of my early childhood. My dad and an uncle accompanied me to the Prep School, the preparatory outbuilding of the Big School, which was the seniors residence. With the thoughts of leaving home for the first time in my life and to this very strange place where I saw so many boys of seemingly my age but somewhat bigger and older in built and looks, I felt frightened and definitely insecure. It dawned on me that this was no place for me to be in command as I had been used to in Sri Menanti with the local kampong boys. Thus I felt somewhat small. My suitcase was rather big and bulky plus that it was literally made of iron, something like what you see in the pirates movie, where the treasures are hidden. Then there was the mattress that we were all compelled to bring from home since the College did not provide same for anyone. It turned out that my mattress was oversized for the small single bed that the dormitory had. Thus it was, my mattress overflowed the metal bed on all sides and it made it look very awkward indeed even after the bed sheet was put on it. The pillows I had too were too big for the small bed and the bolster that I had almost filled up half the space of the bed ! I could see the curious eyes of my neighbors at my conspicuousness but felt annoyed at their silent remarks. If that had been at my kampong, these boys would get a slapping from me !

When we had our dinner in the dining hall for the very first time that first night , during which our accompanying parents were allowed to eat in with us, I had lost my appetite, not because of the food but the feeling of home sickness seeping in. Later on my dad set up my mosquito net and said good night to me when the lights were turned off from the dormitory. I must have fallen asleep due to fatigue as a result of hours of train ride from Seremban to Kuala Kangsar, a journey that took over twelve hours with the charcoal driven locomotive. Being charcoal fed the train's funnel emitted charcoal soot which got not only on our clothes and at times hurt our eyes too. By the time we arrived in Kuala Kangsar, our clothes are dark with the charcoal soot and our eyes watery red. Thus I was shocked to find that both my dad and uncle were no where to be seen when I got up the next morning, which happened to be our first day of school. Did I cry ? I wanted to but felt shy in the presence of all these new strangers. Grabbing my towel and my set of toothbrush and bathing soap, I went to the bathroom. It was somewhat empty since I had gotten up late though not late enough for the class bell. It was while I was brushing my teeth that I began to cry by myself. I gave myself a big cry, one which never happened again after many years later.

The first time I stepped into my classroom I did not know where to go to look for the desk and chair to sit on. It looked to me the whole place was filled up and occupied. Somehow my eyes spotted an empty desk towards the back row and heading towards it I realized it was kept for me by the boy who was my right side bed neighbor named Sabri. He merely said " Aku simpan untok hang " in a somewhat Kedah accent. Later , on talking to him to thank him for keeping the desk for me, he told me that he was from Kulim, Kedah. Indeed, Sabri became my first friend and my best friend then. He did not talk very much, but seemed to be very level headed during lesson hours. He was very attentive to all the teacher's teachings and very unself-fishly explained some of the things that I could not understand especially when it came to arithmetic's. Sabri also proved to be a very good footballer. He was good at both feet whilst I could only kick right legged and even then with my front toes rather than with the left edge of the front foot. Thus each time I kicked the ball I experienced pains in my front toe ! Later on when we had the opportunity of playing badminton I realized that Sabri was ambidextrous, which amazed me a lot. Being very quick and accurate at answering questions in class , it was no suprise to me that even before the first term ended, Sabri was moved up a class above me ! To this I found out it was because on record he had a Standard Five Malay School pass, whilst mine was only Standard Three, something that did not suprise me for my under-qualification because I rarely went to school in Sri Menanti ! I was a spoilt boy. My grandparents must have loved me so much to allow me to do whatever I wished and fancy. However that did not preclude me from wackings by my grandma at times. I just never ceased to be spoilt and enjoyed doing it ! At this great school, The Malay College, I realized that I was no longer in control of my environment. I felt subjected to its demands instead and hence I began to miss my home in Sri Menanti. Much as I wanted to cry quietly in bed at night when the lights were off by nine o'clock, I refrained from doing so for fear that Sabri or my other neighbor Azhar might hear it. Oh yes, Azhar too became a great friend soon afterwards because he came from the same state as I was. Azhar was another special kid. He seemed to be able to speak English when all of us were new and struggling with the language. He was doing very well in class for the next two years until he had typhoid fever, which in those days was a deadly disease. They was no real cure for the disease apart from strict dieting and rest. Healing was almost entirely left to Mother Nature. Three others had typhoid over the years, and two of them later died from it and they were all brilliant students. It was most fortunate that Sabri, my best friend and later years to be my brother-in-law, that he, like the others who had typhoid did manage to come out of it. Azhar too survived but not as well as Sabri. He suffered mental breakdowns at times . Two others Ibrahim who was from Malacca and Sheikh Salim from Kelantan both died from typhoid in the later years, and they were both brilliant students. Whilst Sabri made speedy recovery over the years, it was not the same with Azhar. He never fully recovered from the impact of the disease. In fact he suffered mental weaknesses which persisted to the later part of his life. Ironically however Azhar in his late married life died from cancer of the lungs and lymphoma, both seemingly contacted through the others - his colleagues who smoked !

Smoking is a subject I would like to elaborate on but perhaps I will leave that for the next time when we meet again. It has been a pleasure to be able to touch base with my readers. I know that you are all going to be very busy this coming month with the Christmas and New Year's Eve fast approaching - events which need a lot of money to spend for the family and friends. Anyway, here's to Christmas and the New Yaer. May the coming years bring you good health, more wealthy and abundance happiness.

All the best. Cheers !