I leant of a very heartwarming news yesterday when I was having lunch with Tern Lik (or Tem Lik as his business card erroneously states, heh). Irfan’s Uncle Teik Sing and Aunt Michelle are expecting a baby! Michelle’s been pregnant 8 weeks. I can’t believe Teik Sing and I played in school when we were seven and now our kids will have the opportunity to play with each other. Congratulations to Teik Sing and Michelle! It’s going to be one thrilling ride.

What I miss most about Sitiawan can be summed up thusly: I miss watching movies (at the big screen and home theatre) and discussing them from a geek’s point of view. I miss cycling to Teluk Batik and walking back on foot because of a flat bicycle tyre. I miss going on adventures in and around the mangrove swamps of Kampung Acheh, looking at mudskippers and paddling rented canoes and avoiding water snakes. I miss camping out at the sandy beaches of Pangkor’s Coral Bay, taking the ferry to and from the island and lying on the sand at night to count shooting stars. I miss camping out behind the District Scout House at the mangrove swamps of Kampung Sitiawan, getting up early at dawn to cycle around Sitiawan before everyone wakes up and walking in the middle of the night to the nearby cafe to buy air sirap when […]

I was back on vacation from studies at the end of 1992 when Woon Seong, Shahar and I went on a trip to Pangkor. It was disconcerting times in those days, when I haven’t seen any of my Sitiawan friends for almost 2 years. When I met them during vacation, there was always the fear that things would not be the same as they had been in ACS. We were all experiencing new things at separate locations, far apart. My fears, I discovered, were not unfounded. It was true, things had changed. Not for the better or for the worse. It’s just that things were now different. But we adapted. Once upon a time, I feared that our fellowship might be broken after long periods of being incommunicado. Now I know that even after years of absence, one can still be as wacky as before, when meeting old friends long […]

PE time in ACS Sitiawan during our time was usually the PE teacher asking us football or hockey, or if you’re an Amerikaner, soccer or field hockey. I remember 70% of the time we opted hockey. Here is a rare photo of Form 3A1 in 1988 on the field during PE. This picture was taken using a disposable camera. I vaguely remember taking about a dozen pictures in school with this camera, and this was the only exposure that survived some sort of cosmic cataclysm. Because the lens quality of the flimsy camera was terrible, this was the best resolution I got on standard photo paper. From what I can tell, from left to right, we have (forget the guys semi-blocked off in the background) an unidentifiable Indian guy, Khoots, T’sing, Sathya, Keith Lee, another unidentifiable Indian guy (maybe Vernon), and Warren. Since most of the hockey sticks at the […]

Back in 1986, when I was a First Former, and a Scout, the yearly school session were divided into three terms. During the two term holidays of that year, 1st Troop Manjung organized camp outs in the school grounds. We usually camped out in front of the new canteen, where a new tennis court stands now I’m told. The first campout we I got the Keris Gangsa badge. The second campout I got the Keris Perak badge. I never got the Keris Emas badge. Well, those were the days. You want pictures? You got pictures. I wish we had more photos taken then.

Kampung Acheh used to be an isolated spot for my buddies and I to spend weekends. Thick mangrove swamp, mudskippers and crabs scuttling on the mud and sometimes, a hint of sea snakes making their way on the water. One corner of Kampung Acheh was what we used to call “Blackfoot County” on account of the occasional bodies of waters that dotted our journey from the red dirt towards the river. If you stepped on these large puddles (or small lakes) your foot will sink deep into the mud and when you pulled it out it would be all blackened by whatever that lurked under the mud. Sadly, the entire area is off limits to us these days. So here are some pictures from one of my forays there, with good friends Khoo Teng Hoe and Danny Lee.

As teenagers, my schoolbuds and I liked very much going on camping trips to the beaches and sometimes the islands near our hometown of Sitiawan. The most famous tourist spot is the Island of Pangkor, which according to lore translates as Island in Siamese. So what I was saying in effect was the Island of “Island” but let’s not go into that. This group of pictures documents the last time ever a bunch of us had the time to actually take an impromptu trip from the port of Lumut to Pangkor, and spent a great day there at Coral Beach. Someday I hope we’ll be able to do it again, albeit this time, with our wives and children.