(Lim Teong Beng died before he could complete these notes of his
life. We are publishing them because it was what he would have wanted,
that the events of his days should be remembered even if the details
were lacking)
Kuay pang
I was a kuay pang boy. I did not know this
until I was 18. That year my mother told me that my uncle, an
eldest son, had died unmarried and without a son. When his younger
brother, my father, had a son i.e. me I was kuay pang
to continue my uncle's line. I was taught to call my father, jee
chaik - "2nd uncle" and my deceased uncle "father".
My grandmother, who lived with us, brought me up
from the time I was born. She was a Teochew married to a Hokkien
man. I lived with her until I was 15 when I left to live with my
father. She had unbound her feet, which revealed themselves as being
of very small size. She was now able to wear slippers.
We rented the second of the Goh Keng Ch'oo (Five
Houses) - terrace houses which stood at the corner of New Lane
and faced Macalister Road. Our neighbour on the right was the Catholic
Church of Our Lady of Sorrows. My grandmother was then 60. She
lived till the age of 90. I used to accompany her to Sia
Boay, the Prangin Road Market. We would take the tram from Magazine
(Magazine Road), which went along Gladstone Road.
The big compound of the Cheng Hong Kok (The Chinese
Merchants Club), No 65 Macalister Road, was nearby. It was the
playground of our group of urchins. Under the shade of the many
rubber and mangosteen trees we scrambled for rubber seeds as soon
as they exploded and fell to the ground.
For water sports we had our own Regatta in
the wide monsoon drain in front of the Club. The water was
clean and ran fast enough for us to race our "yachts," - pieces of
bark torn from the angsana trees and carved to the shape of a sampan.
These "yachts" were three inches long. The winner received no trophy
but was congratulated with cheers.
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When the Shanghai opera (Shanghai pan)
performed at the club we were allowed in to watch. We sat on the
floor, right in front of the low stage which had been set up in the
hall. Behind us, about ten paces away, was Lim Mah Chye (see
Note), the well-known millionaire and Club president. The old
man, of average height and build, and ruddy faced was sitting
in a rattan deck chair. I noticed that he had bushy eyebrows and wore
a white moustache. With him was his second wife, a woman in her fifties
with a fair complexion. She did her hair in a plain sangol and wore
a kerongsang and sarong. The old man was wearing a short sleeved round
neck singlet of silk and had on a pair of light yellow Chinese silk trousers
held up by a broad belt of reddish cotton.
The opera was about the story of Sam Kok,
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. We loved the three sworn brothers:
Lau P'ee, Kuan Kong and Tnio Hooi, and their wise adviser Kong Beng.
How can we forget the majestic figure of the red faced Kuan Kong and
his huge sword which only he could lift. I remember particularly these
episodes: Kuan Kong Koay Gnor Kuan; Kong Beng Hiang K'an Snia; Chooi
Leng P'ua Teik Kong.
Kuan Kong Kuay Gnor Kuan, Chun Lark Chian
- Kuan Kong Penetrates Five Fortresses, Kills Six Generals; Chooi
Leong P'ua Taik Kong - Chooi Leong Breaks Open the Bamboo Cylinder.
This is the story of how Kong Beng gave Chooi Leong a message contained
in sealed bamboo section with instructions that he was only to break
open the bamboo when he was in mortal danger. And how when Chooi Leong
was ambushed he broke open the bamboo pipe and read the message and following
its instructions escaped to safety.
And Kong Beng Hiang K'an Snia - Kong Beng Opens
the Gates of His Defenceless Fortress. This episode tells of
the time when the enemy was marching on Kong Beng's defenceless
fortress and of how Kong Beng planned his defence. Of how first he
ordered the gates to be open wide then stationed two dumb sweepers
at the entrance to the fortress; of how he mounted the fortress wall
and, at the position where he could easily be seen from the ground,
made music with a musical instrument. Of how when the enemy commander
came to the gates and asked the sweepers how many soldiers there were
in the fortress and they had answered by lifting two fingers, and of
how the enemy commander concluded from the answer and the scene before
him that a trap had been laid for him, and of how the enemy commander,
a believer in the old saying that discretion was the better part of valour,
ordered a retreat.
Once we kids had a great treat when an uncle took
us on a journey to far away Ayer Itam by tram. Another exciting
time was when we were taken to a place at the Esplanade opposite
the lighthouse which served ch'oon pnia, inchi kebin and other dishes
as good as those made by the famous cooks at Loke Thye Kee (see Note).
Then there was the Victoria Café (see Note) which rented a bungalow
belonging to Tye Yee Koon whose daughter-in-law Mrs Tye Keat Kwong,
a widow and active in the Ladies Chin Woo Association, was a close
neighbour (see Note). We would sit in the garden of this Indian owned
place eating after dinner ice cream and cake. The cream puffs were
famous.
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In the late 20's my grandmother took
me and my younger brother to Swatow. She had a house there in which
we lived for two years. We then returned to Penang where
she rented a house in Aboo Sittee Lane. We then moved to a tumble-down
house at the corner of Jahudi Road and Macalister Road. In 1928 she
built a house in Rangoon Road. The Indian lady next door then complained
that the house
had intruded into her land and
sued her. My grandmother engaged as her lawyer Lim Cheng Ean who
was to become a Straits Settlements Legislative Councillor. She lost
the case. The fee was $5.
While I lived with my grandmother I visited my parents
only twice. I remember that on my first visit which lasted a few
days they were at Jelutong. There I had my first and only meal of
flying fox curry which tasted like any other curry.
My grandmother was never without a char bor kan.
(See Note) She had a married daughter and a daughter in
law living with her. These two ladies always seemed to be trying
to out do each other in having babies. At bed time the char bor kan
would massage the ladies and would be soundly scolded if, overcome by
fatigue, she nodded in her task.
School
My first school was Hillview, which stood next to
the Wesley Church, at the corner of Clove Hall Road. One of my
classmates was Eu Cheow Chye (who went on to Raffles College and
was appointed a magistrate in Singapore. see Note)). Cheow
Chye lived on the other side of Burmah Road. That was before the government
quarters were built some time in 1926.
From there we graduated to Hutchings School. Wee
Chong Jin, later to become chief justice of Singapore, was one
of us. The school was hit by Japanese bombs when the Japanese invaded
Malaya and only the front remains, which is now occupied by the Penang
Museum.
From Hutchings School we went to the Free School.
Francis Light School, through which later generations had
pass before going on to the Free School, had not yet been
built.
My teachers.
Mr Teoh Cheng Hai was a physical instructor who
taught many boys boxing and jujitsu. He also taught Hygiene. If
anyone in class was inattentive he would let fly with the chalk to
wake the boy up.
We had local as well as English teachers. When in
the mood our local English teacher would encourage story telling.
One of his favourites was Sinbad the Sailor. Our local Maths teacher
was the best dressed of the teachers. He had a variety pf ties.
Our English Maths teacher would say in despair
to the dullards, "Oh you hopeless ass!" He had a mysterious habit
of smacking the head of a senior.
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Our English
teacher frequently went out of the syllabus to encourage us to
read Edgar Wallace's detective stories to improve our English.
Our class master was fond of giving nicknames to
his pupils and encouraged us to listen to the Mikado. Some of us
did buy the records.
The English teachers were all qualified
with Dr before the name or MA or BA after. Richard Sydney was the
most influential of them all.
In December 1930, Richard Sydney, Wee Teong and
I did a bicycle trip from Penang to Singapore. We took two weeks
averaging 50 miles day. We spent New Year's eve at Raffles
Hotel and returned to Penang by the "ss Kedah", newly put into
service. The Straits Echo reported the trip.
Because he had to sit for additional papers for
his Junior Cambridge exam, Yong Chong Chew, who became a doctor,
did not make the start with Richard Sydney and I, but joined
us at KL.
In school were Malays, Indians, Sikhs, Ceylonese,
Eurasions, Siamese and even Japanese and one of them came back
with the invading army in 1941. There were neither politics nor
gangsters in our school. The cane was an awesome symbol of authority.
In my time one senior was caned for indiscipline and a junior for
stealing rambutan and both expelled. We even had a boy who became a
pirate during the Japanese occupation.
We had organised excursions such as one was to Alor
Star by train with an overnight stay to watch the eclipse of the
sun; another was to a cadet camp at Port Dickson where the sand
was white and the water clear. We picnicked at Ayer Itam.
In the holidays we went up Penang Hill, rubber estates,
Botanic gardens, poaching fish. I used the blow pipe to
kill squirrels.
School gave you three choices for hobbies - gardening,
Boy Scouts or Cadet Corps. I chose G (gardening)..
I excelled in cricket and played at the school grounds,
the CRC, at the lawn at Hardwick as well as at the Shanghai Hotel,
opposite Hardwick. We played against Chung Thye Pin's sister's
team from Light Street in which Gladys Loke - the well known tennis
player - played. We played either at the Hotel or at Hardwick.
Shanghai Hotel was the building that Chung Thye Pin built but
which he never occupied, having been told that it was haunted.
The outstanding cricketers were Eu Cheow Teik and
Wee Chong Jin (see Note). Among our heroes was Don Bradman.
Hardwick was the home of Mr Lim Cheng Ean whose
son, Kean Hock, was one of our school mates. His sister Phaik
Gan played the piano for us.
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I spent
many holidays up at Claremont, Mr Lim Cheng Ean's hill bungalow, which
had a swimming pool fed by a mountain spring.
One of our favourite places was Kek Seng on Burmah
Road where we indulged in ice cream kachang.
When we were grown up I went with others to the
cabaret where we learnt the Lambeth Walk at Wembley cabaret.
Everything was fine until the slump of 1929. My father
was ruined. He could not afford to send the younger son to English
school so my brother went to the Chung Hwa Chinese School at Maxwell
Road. He became a teacher.
In the thirties we moved to Cantonment Road and
there I found Cheow Chye was again a neighbour. Evenings
the "flying foxes" flew over us darkening the sky as they flew towards
the fruit trees and their favourite buah petai.
As soon as I finished my senior Cambridge exam I
had to look for work. It was 1933 and slump time. I
worked on ships; shipping work involved visits to Haadyai and Singora
for loading rubber; also in the mines in south Thailand 1952 to 1962.
One day I was shocked to see a poster "Reward - dead or alive -
$80,000" with a half size photo of Lim Kean Chye (Lim Cheng
Ean's second son) on it, displayed on the notice board of the Malayan/Siamese
border police station. I recalled that once he had asked me
to deliver some Malayan Democratic Union magazines to someone at the
Modern Daily News. I went to deliver them but was told the person addressed
to was no longer there. I took them home and left them on top of a wardrobe
for many many months. I am not sure whether I burnt them or threw them
into the dust bin. My younger bother, who was in the police,
told me I was lucky not to have been caught with them. #
I got married during the Japanese occupation. Lim
Chin Guan, Lim Mah Chye's son officiated and was also the
MC. Tann Wee Teong , a school mate, and a neighbour at Cantonment
Road , who became a lawyer and went to Singapore, was my witness.
I have 2 sons 2 daughters 12 grandchildren.
NOTES:
LIM Mah Chye married daughter of Cheah Chen Eok of clock tower
fame and built Homestead on Northam Road which used carrara marble
the same that was used by Michelangelo and London's MarbleArch.
LOKE Thye Kee closed down only recently. The building still
stands at where BurmahRoad meets Penang Road.
THE Victoria Cafe was next to Cheong Fatt Tse house, Leith
Street
.
MRS Tye Keat Kwong's house is now rented by aneating place
called Red Bungalow.
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EU Cheow Chye,
like his brother Cheow Teik was also a good cricketer.
WEE Chong Jin became Chief Justice of Singapore.
CHAR bor kan: called mui tsai in the
Straits Settlements laws. The story of char bor kan in
a nyonya household is one of human kindness and cruelty. The girl
is bought from a poor family at an age when she can help with household
work. She is up early in the morning to get the children off to school.
Then she attends to house cleaning, washing clothes and helping out
in the kitchen. After cleaning the dishes, she irons the day's washing
and retires after everyone has gone to sleep.
With a good and kind family she is treated as a
member of the family. The younger children call her Ah Chee (elder
sister). The unfortunate char bor kan who is with an unkind family
suffers ill treatment and abuse. There was a case of one who was caught
filching food and had her lips sewed up.But I think the good families
out numbered the bad.#
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