Ipoh oh Ipoh…

The gateway to Ipoh: The front of Medan Gopeng bus terminal guarded by two rusty armoured cars!!

Let me digress a little.

The other day I was in Malacca accompanying the wifey who was attending a course in a hotel in the heart of the Historic City. I have not been to Malacca City centre for quite sometime now, almost eight years actually. The furthest i have been was to the Bayview Hotel and made a turn back to the PLUS Higway. So you can imagine my shock at not being able to reeach the Mahkota Hotel quite easily. I was banking on my memory of the city centre eight years ago. But credit to the city council folks, the sign boards were really helping unlike in other towns like Kota Bharu, Kuala terengganu or even KL where the signboards were put up for those who knew the place rather than for those who did not. The transformation of the city centre, especially around the Dataran Pahlawan and the riverfront was quite amazing. Credit must go to the Malacca goverment for really developing Malacca, well physical development, at least. Even on normal weekdays the place was abuzz with tourism activities.

As I was saying, my wife made a passing remark that set me writing this piece. For the past 19 years we have been going back to Ipoh a few times a year, and the wifey was saying she has not seen much change in Ipoh in that period. She still can breeze through the city centre without much of a thought. After all, what little change that has taken place were mainly in the outskirts like Tambun, Jelapang, and Menglembu. But still the pace of the development was still a lot slower than Malacca. From the days of Ramli Ngah Talib to the days of Tajol Rosli, there is not much happening that I can tell my non Perakians friends with pride. I am still amazed at how the Jln Kuala Kangsar near the Yuk Choy School viaduct took seven years to complete! I cannot imagine why Ipoh cannot clean up the Kinta River and put up a beautiful waterfront like the famous one in Kuching? There was this plan if I am not mistaken, but I did not quite see it happening the last time I went back to Ipoh, which was not too long ago. I cannot see what is the focus of the development for Ipoh (if there is any). It saddened me to see the city which was at one time the cleanest in the country has gone to the dirtiest. Perak is blessed with so much natural resources apart from tin which has been completely plundered by the previous regimes. If Lee Kim Yew can turn that old Sg Besi open cast mine into a credible resort cum shopping area and residence, can’t ipoh city folks (or Perak for that matter) think of something about the many disused mining pools scattered around Chemor, Chepor, Tronoh, tanjong Tualang, Batu Gajah etc. The attempt by Tajol Rosli to turn Jelapang-Meru and its viccinity into IT hub has only turned the place into lifeless desert. Look at what happened to the former Ladang Strathisla area!

Maybe the PKR-DAP-PAS Pakatan do better than the plunderers of Perak before this.

P/s: Tq  Ipoh Photo gallery (ipohforum.com.my) for the not so inspiring images of Medan Gopeng

RTD still living in the 1980s

The other day my daughter went for the resit of her driving test at one of those driving institute in Bangi. She passed her road test earlier but failed the slope test when her slide down the test was slope beyond the permissible limit. So she had to resit the slope test. She was told to come before 9am and we were there around quarter to nine. She took her test card and was told to queue up at the RTD counter to get her number. The counter was not yet opened despite I can see a few RTD officers having breakfast inside. Since it is almost nine and I was already late for work, I made a quick exit and told her to call me when she had finished with her test. Around mid day she rang me up and I asked her how was the test and she said her turn has not arrived yet and she needed something for lunch. In my hurry for work I forgot to leave her with some money for lunch. Poorgirl.

She only called me back again at 6.15pm with the good news that she passed her test. When I arrived at the institute to pick her up, nearly 100 people or so were still waiting for their turns. All of them have been waiting since 9.00am or before that. I confirmed this with the lady at the institute’s counter. She told me that the RTD would not accept anybody who came later than 9.00am. That means these people have been waiting for their turn for more than eight hours. She added that there is nothing they can do as RTD is calling the shots. It is also quite common for the test to last till dark. Wow, what a test. Not only a test of driving and riding skills but also a test of patience. But somehow I did not see anywhere in the test card that patience is also a criterium to be tested!

If you have lived as long as I am, surely you would remember this kind of waiting that we have to go through at the general hospitals or immigration counters in 1980s and 1990s. In fact immgration often times had the cheek to tell people to come the next day as the counter is closing and on top of that you have to come as early as 6am to get the number. I also remember the time when an 8.00am appointment at the General Hospital means your turn would only come at 12.15 at the earliest. But hullo, Mr. RTD, we are in 2008 now. The passport can be ready within two or three hours, and the new Health Minister just announced that the hospital waiting time would be cut down to 30 minutes. And here we are still waiting for eight hours for driving test!

I can understand that on that day the RTD was running short of testers and the test could only commence way past 9.00am. I also can understand that they have to conduct all the road test first in the morning as it is the rainy season and it always rains in the evenings that may make the road tests a bit difficult for the learners. I can also understand that it was Friday, they have to stop from 12.15 till 2.45pm. But, the least the RTD could do is to give the learner an estimated time when their test is going to be, rather than letting them wait endlessly. It was a lost of productive time for the learners. They could have gone somewhere else and do some productive work and come back for the test at the estimated time. Letting them wait and wilted under the heat is sheer thoughtlessness. After all, each have to pay good money for their D licence. I really pity those undergoing the motorcucle riding tests. The test started around 5.30pm and they have been waiting since as early as 8.00am. Maybe that is why they unleash their anger on the roads as Mat Rempits

English teams in the Champions League Semi-final?

Three English teams were through to the semi final of the Champions League!!!. Most British Newspapers screamed similar headlines, but wait a minute, English teams? Can you consider team managed by a Scotsman, an Israeli, and a Spaniard  and squads with less than half are foreigners truly English?. Take Man U for a start, only a handful are Englishmen in Scholes, Rooney, Brown and Carrick. Liverpool is no better with Gerrard and Carragher. Chelsea is similar with Lampard, A. Cole, J. Cole,and Terry . But Arsenal took the cake with only Theo Walcott and the manager is a Frenchman. The Headline should be altered “Three English based team in the semis” No wonder the England national team is suffering.

Two strokes of the rotan for each subject that you failed

Asm,

Last night brought back memories from 1974. I was in form two in SDAR, one of the premier boarding schools back then. Let me digress a little. I believe it is still the only school in the country that had the honour of using Dato Abdul Razak, our second Premier, as a school name. Notice that it is “Dato” not Datok, Datuk or Dato’. It was unique. It was before the late Tun Razak was bestowed with a Tun. In 1974, we had a new Principal to replace Syed Jaafar. He really made an impression to me on the first day he arrived. Our class was next to the staircase going up to the office. I still remember my classmate, Rosli who was sitting next to the door, was playfully leaning back on his chair, tilting the chair on two legs. A few moments later was still a blur, but I remember, seeing this big man in cream pants, shining white leather shoes, maroon shirt long sleeve shirt, big face with equally big frame spectacles, hair parted to the left, was holding Rosli by the throat and two quick slaps left him in a daze. We were horrified and you can here the fan turning as everyone was dazefully quiet. This man screamed at Rosli for trying to destroy the chair – a public property. Later I understood what he meant. If you sit on a chair using only two legs instead of all four, there is every likelyhood the chair’s leg would break. Of course it happened all the time in all boys schools like SDAR. But the impression that this man made on us was really scary. This is really a no nonsense guy who suffer no fools. Later we discovered that was his trademark. Two lempangs, one of the left with the palm and the other on the right with the back hand. Then only he will tell you what is your offence, be it shirt not fully buttoned up, not givingway, not saying good morning (those days, the term “selamat sejahtera” was unheard of), your hair too long, shirt not tucked in properly or anything that he considered an offence. Fortunately I never had the the chance to sample his trademark slaps but I had the honour of tasting his other methods of disciplines and extracting best performance.  After every examinations he would go round to every class (form two and above) with his beloved rotan. Those who failed important subjects like BM, Maths and Science would received two strokes of the rotan for each subject that you failed. I was never really good in Maths, and it was thought in English. I came from an ulu school (it was so ulu even the name already an indication how ulu it was – SK Ulu Kuang), English was never spoken anywhere except in English language class. Even then, the teacher had to explain things to us in BM. Not unlike the current students who are learning Maths and Science in English. Anyway, for that year, our  maths teacher, Mrs Teh or Mak Teh we called her was on maternity leave. She was also on maternity leave the year before. A really “productive” teacher this Mak Teh. So you see my maths achievement was nothing to be proud of. The passing mark was 40, I only managed to scrape with 38. Pleading with Mak Teh for that two extra marks was a fruitless exercise. Back to this Principal, he would arrived unannounced wielding his rotan, carrying the report card for the class. He would then called us out to the front one by one and whacked us according to the number of subjects that we failed. Two lashes for each subject. In  those days, being caned for something is really nothing, I was just slightly embarassed. We had it all the times even back home my parents would whacked us for any transgression of the rules. So it was not so bad. Hands on the table, upper body lean forward, he would asked ” Ada penyakit terkejut?”, “sakit jantung?”  before swinging the cane. It was over in less than half a minute. Of course it was painful. He had to be quick because he had many more classes to go. My clever friend made sure he wore double underwear all days that week anticipating the whacking season would reach our class that week. He was smiling afterwards. Of course I never failed maths again after that and ended up being a Physics and Maths teacher later down the road. And of course I never resort to that trick to motivate my students no matter how I longed to do it, but how times have changed.

So last night, after 30 years (I left the school in 1978) I came face to face with Cikgu Abd Rahman Yeop once again. Now a Datuk, still with big spectacles, hair parted to the left. But he was without his trademark cream trousers, white leather shoes and maroon shirt. And obviously did not remember me but he remembered Ahmad Shabery ( well maybe because he is the Information minister now and man of the hour that night). I happily shook his hands and forever grateful for the two lashes that made me strived to learn maths more dilligently

Mind you, apart from the usual public caning during school assemblies, Cikgu Rahman Yeop had a unique way of doing public caning. You see, all the rooms in the school including the hostels and the labs had this built in speaker system wired to the principal’s room for convenience of making sure all announcements can be heard at every nook and cranny of the school. So if you are caught with one of those major offences like smoking, stealing, or skipping classes or panjat pagar (now they called it ‘fly’) you ‘ll be caned in his room with the microphone on and placed strategically next to your bums. Prior to being caned you had to announced your name, class, offence and say your repentence. The whacking sounds would soon riverbrate throughout the school. It was what I  called a dignified public caning because people can only hear you but cannot see you while you are being caned.

I wonder how would the parents react if any of the principals in todays schools resort to such tactics. One thing I am sure, lawyers and the media would have a field day.  To Cikgu Rahman, it is good to see you again sir after all these years. Now being a teacher myself, I wonder how he managed to control those 700 boisterous boys from all the states in he country plus those 60+ teachers, 40+ workers with various backgrounds. As Tan Sri ISa Samad, only two groups of people would never be jealous of your successes; one is your parents, the other is your teachers. We salute you sir. Thank you for everything. Quoting Spider said in Salut; “Sama lu gua salut, lu memang hero.”