I was in Kuching for four days early this month.
Nothing new or ground-breaking about that. I mean, Sarawak is still part of Malaysia. And Kuching isn't Dubrovnik. Or Mostar. I've been literally at the receiving end of lots of real-time photos and footage of old city Dubrovnik and new old Mostar bridge from unsuspecting fellow retirees lured into technical tours of the Balkan states. I'm happy enough to be on the mind of these well-meaning friends. The only gripe is that the pics tend to pop up at two in the morning. The last thing I want to see at 2 am is an old bridge.
Now back to this subject of Kuching. My youngest, Sarah, was enrolling in the Asasi Sains program at Unimas. For the less initiated, Unimas is short for Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, not another PAS offshoot. It's the country's eighth public university, with a sprawling campus at Kota Samarahan, just outside Kuching. Well, it's not as renowned or revered as UM or UKM, but it's a fit and proper university nonetheless, with a fit and proper chancellor, medical school, logo, colour, university song and other frills. Unimas has been ranked 200-250th in Asia by QS, higher than any university in Mongolia. All QS rankings are borderline fraud. So don't bother.
Sarah was 17. She'd never gone to any school further than 500 metres from home. So Kuching felt like Kunming. I went to a school more than 500 km away from home when I was only twelve. I could feel the sense of separation. Sarah's mom and I just thought we should be there with her, at least for the one-day registration. But like all vintage parents, we brought along enough shirts, socks and some cash to hang around in Kota Samarahan for another couple of months, if it ever came to that. I could still picture baby Sarah sleeping tightly in my arms. It all seemed like yesterday. Now I'd to leave her on her own. Sad.
I've only fond memories of Kuching. My first flight ever was to Kuching, way back in June 1979, just two months into Petronas job. My boss knew it was my very first flight and he had a dandy time watching me gripping the seat whenever the plane jerked. We checked in at the Holiday Inn, now renamed Grand Margherita, right on the banks of the Sarawak River. Back then, Kuching was just a sleepy backwater still struggling to free itself from the clutches of Brookes the crooks. Shops were few and far between. Kuching had, in total, one Malay restaurant.
I'd to fly to Kuching a few more times, the last one was in 1999. But it never occurred to me that one day I'd be sending my daughter off to study here. No, I'd no grudge against Kuching or Satok or Sarawak River. It's just that I couldn't come to terms with the idea of Sarah not coming home for lunch.
Apart from the much-celebrated waterfront and three more Malay restaurants, I must say that Kuching hadn't really changed all that much, even with two full-time mayors running the city. To their credit, the city's old charm and character was untouched, and there had been no attempt to build the world's sexiest structure here despite the oil and gas riches. The town remained relatively unhurried and understated, a stark contrast to, say, the fast-pace USJ, where I'm now, barely breathing, with dust and noise and break-ins every single day since 1991.
A lazy stroll along the waterfront was decidedly liberating without merry migrants hovering and crowding us out. I heard the all-conquering state immigration would deport them on sight, the way they would bundle off Nurul Izzah and the Penang DAP hustlers on arrival before every election. Kuching can now claim to be the only city in the world with two mayors but no Bangladeshis.
How did Sarah end up here? Well, Malaysian higher education is more complex and cruel than crude oil blends. If you don't rack up enough A in your SPM, you've to navigate your way through literally hundreds of public and private and fake universities offering hundreds of diploma and foundation courses. Only those with 10 A+ or more are deemed clever and socially competent and given scholarships to study at Warwick. It's ok if you don' t know where Warwick is.
Getting into private universities is easy. You just show up with your money. Applying to the public universities, on the other hand, can be unnerving. You must select and rank eight courses from some twenty universities with rapping names (UM, UMP, UPM, UPNM etc) and pray that UPU doesn't get them all mixed up and accept your hipster son for a nursing program. The process is simple enough but a wrong course or university choice means your talented child will study to be a lonely radiographer instead of a lonely radiologist.
Sarah took all of ten minutes to decide. She ticked Unimas as her top pick, breaking down the 500-metre barrier. Bravo, girl.
Why? Why not? Think Leicester City winning the English Premier League. Shock, adventure, romance, intrigue. We knew this place wasn't in the league of UPM, the old agricultural college. But it's just a one-year foundation program, not a degree in low-temperature Physics. So, what the hell. And we thought there'd be plenty of, you know, culture and nature on offer.
True enough, smack in the middle of Unimas campus, there's a 140 million-year old virgin jungle with a live and active Iban village. Don't ask me how a jungle can remain virgin after 140 million years.
The registration Friday morning was over in a jiffy. In 1975 I'd to stand up for two hours to register at UKM, with horny seniors all over us. Sarah got to meet her roommate for the first time. I thought and hoped that she'd be from Bau or Bario. She was from Bangi. So much for nature and culture.
The advantage of being my age (60+) and in my profession (retiring) is that I could just go around talking and working the crowd with virtually zero risk of being taken too seriously. With 50 years experience in almost anything, I could immediately sense that something wasn't quite right here: nobody spoke Kelantanese. Not one student from Kelantan out of 1000 new students in this foundation program? This really pained me.
In 1975 all incoming students in UKM were from Kelantan. Fine, not all, but you get the idea. Seriously, this is a travesty of justice. Unimas is an equal-opportunity university with a world-class campus. It was set up not just for Sarawakians, but for the worthy and willing minds from all states and all corners of the world.
Even with three airlines flying into Kuching twenty times daily, logistics is still prohibitive for the average Kelantanese household. This is sad. How about free one-time return airfare for these students then? Forget it. This is neither important nor urgent for our leaders. There are more important matters, like forming new parties, slandering one another, suing the Wall Street Journal etc.
II
We flew into Kuching on Wednesday, 1 June, without realizing that it's Gawai holiday in Sarawak. There are now 151 public holidays in Malaysia, and it's impossible for a retiree to keep track. My small entourage included my wife, Sarah, Aida and wife's sister, and only six bags (hey). These people had never been to Sarawak, and all they knew about Sarawak was the Sarawak Report.
Kuching was deserted. We decided that we needed a few more items to turn Sarah's dorm into a Ritz Carlton. We were lugging away Sarah's pillow, bolster and extension plug at a Parkson when a girl appeared out of nowhere and stopped us on our tracks.
"Pakcik nak daftar kat Unimas?" She enquired. It had to be the extension plug.
"Bukan saya. Anak saya ni" I pulled Sarah over.
She's a local and a Chemistry undergraduate at Unimas. (For the record, I had P8 for Chemistry in Form Five). We immediately blitzed her with the usual and unusual questions. She tried her best to encourage and assure us that Unimas was a good choice. Her survival tip for Sarah: "Ko orang jangan lewat".
This girl really warmed our hearts. I forgot her name, you know, one of those modern names that tend to slip off your random access memory faster than five minutes. But we won't forget her. We wouldn't have done in KL what she'd done here: helping total strangers.
We were about to exit when a lady with four or five children in tow greeted us with the same question. "Nak daftar kat Unimas?" Either I'm good-looking or the Sarawak people are all God-sent angels. Or both. And the extension plug.
Her name was Sa'diah. A classic and original Malay name like this is hard to come by these days. She happened to work in Unimas HR. She gave us her number and offered us a ride to Unimas campus for registration Friday morning, "but we've to be very early" she added. At the mere mention of the word "early", we quickly declined. Our notion of early is roughly 9.30 am.
The next day (Thursday) was still a Gawai holiday. Those guys really need time to come around. Sa'diah called us. She wanted to show us around Kuching and sample the local cuisine, buy kek lapis, ikan terubok etc. Again we declined. But she called again in the afternoon, and we'd run out of excuses. So we relented. I decided to stay back and Whats App. But the rest were just happy to hit the town and savour mee kolok and see all the must-see-before-you-die landmarks. Sarah's mom was particularly impressed with the Astana, the official and historical (and probably romantic) residence of the 80-year old Governor (and his 30-year old consort).
Sa'diah came to see us Friday morning during registration to help Sarah settle down. The next day she insisted on taking us on another round of sightseeing. Not even a token resistance this time since we had eight hours to kill before our late evening flight. The trip was shorter than the Balkan technical, but it was pleasant enough. We veered as far out as Damai Beach passing the iconic Gunung Santubong along the way before swinging back to the airport for our flight to KL. I just stood by, overwhelmed and deeply moved, as the ladies hugged and bid goodbye.
On board the idle mind had to work overtime as the undercover economist in me was struggling to make sense of it all. What had we remotely done to deserve the random kindness and extraordinary generosity from a complete stranger? We're nothing special. I'm no Prime Minister and, by extension, my wife is not Prime Minister's wife. We're plain and pedestrian, duller than ditch water. So what exactly had driven Sa'diah to go out of her way to make our Kuching visit fun and memorable, leaving her four young children at home to fend for themselves?
Forget all the fancy theories. She's simply a true and virtuous Muslim blessed with a gift of giving. (Gift of giving? For giving? Not sure about this expression. But sounds good). The message for me here can't be any more subtler: I've to be kinder, gentler, and ever more gracious. And always grateful, yes. Aida, Sarah, you read it here first.
I was losing all hope when 1MDB was being investigated in seven countries. But this sweet and selfless Sarawak lady has restored my belief in this country.
III
Sarah has been away from us for more than two weeks now. Everything's fine with her. She's loving her new life. Unimas is every bit what she'd imagined. Wifi could be faster though. Fasting away from USJ is fun. Kak Di (Sa'diah) brought loads of food last weekend. "Ayah, my Bio teacher is a riot. Teka dia orang mana, ha ha?". She posted a pic, with a Bidayuh friend named Myra Ridu. A classmate from Kedah keeps calling her "hang" or "hangpa". Now that looks like culture.
Apart from the much-celebrated waterfront and three more Malay restaurants, I must say that Kuching hadn't really changed all that much, even with two full-time mayors running the city. To their credit, the city's old charm and character was untouched, and there had been no attempt to build the world's sexiest structure here despite the oil and gas riches. The town remained relatively unhurried and understated, a stark contrast to, say, the fast-pace USJ, where I'm now, barely breathing, with dust and noise and break-ins every single day since 1991.
A lazy stroll along the waterfront was decidedly liberating without merry migrants hovering and crowding us out. I heard the all-conquering state immigration would deport them on sight, the way they would bundle off Nurul Izzah and the Penang DAP hustlers on arrival before every election. Kuching can now claim to be the only city in the world with two mayors but no Bangladeshis.
How did Sarah end up here? Well, Malaysian higher education is more complex and cruel than crude oil blends. If you don't rack up enough A in your SPM, you've to navigate your way through literally hundreds of public and private and fake universities offering hundreds of diploma and foundation courses. Only those with 10 A+ or more are deemed clever and socially competent and given scholarships to study at Warwick. It's ok if you don' t know where Warwick is.
Getting into private universities is easy. You just show up with your money. Applying to the public universities, on the other hand, can be unnerving. You must select and rank eight courses from some twenty universities with rapping names (UM, UMP, UPM, UPNM etc) and pray that UPU doesn't get them all mixed up and accept your hipster son for a nursing program. The process is simple enough but a wrong course or university choice means your talented child will study to be a lonely radiographer instead of a lonely radiologist.
Sarah took all of ten minutes to decide. She ticked Unimas as her top pick, breaking down the 500-metre barrier. Bravo, girl.
Why? Why not? Think Leicester City winning the English Premier League. Shock, adventure, romance, intrigue. We knew this place wasn't in the league of UPM, the old agricultural college. But it's just a one-year foundation program, not a degree in low-temperature Physics. So, what the hell. And we thought there'd be plenty of, you know, culture and nature on offer.
True enough, smack in the middle of Unimas campus, there's a 140 million-year old virgin jungle with a live and active Iban village. Don't ask me how a jungle can remain virgin after 140 million years.
The registration Friday morning was over in a jiffy. In 1975 I'd to stand up for two hours to register at UKM, with horny seniors all over us. Sarah got to meet her roommate for the first time. I thought and hoped that she'd be from Bau or Bario. She was from Bangi. So much for nature and culture.
The advantage of being my age (60+) and in my profession (retiring) is that I could just go around talking and working the crowd with virtually zero risk of being taken too seriously. With 50 years experience in almost anything, I could immediately sense that something wasn't quite right here: nobody spoke Kelantanese. Not one student from Kelantan out of 1000 new students in this foundation program? This really pained me.
In 1975 all incoming students in UKM were from Kelantan. Fine, not all, but you get the idea. Seriously, this is a travesty of justice. Unimas is an equal-opportunity university with a world-class campus. It was set up not just for Sarawakians, but for the worthy and willing minds from all states and all corners of the world.
Even with three airlines flying into Kuching twenty times daily, logistics is still prohibitive for the average Kelantanese household. This is sad. How about free one-time return airfare for these students then? Forget it. This is neither important nor urgent for our leaders. There are more important matters, like forming new parties, slandering one another, suing the Wall Street Journal etc.
II
We flew into Kuching on Wednesday, 1 June, without realizing that it's Gawai holiday in Sarawak. There are now 151 public holidays in Malaysia, and it's impossible for a retiree to keep track. My small entourage included my wife, Sarah, Aida and wife's sister, and only six bags (hey). These people had never been to Sarawak, and all they knew about Sarawak was the Sarawak Report.
Kuching was deserted. We decided that we needed a few more items to turn Sarah's dorm into a Ritz Carlton. We were lugging away Sarah's pillow, bolster and extension plug at a Parkson when a girl appeared out of nowhere and stopped us on our tracks.
"Pakcik nak daftar kat Unimas?" She enquired. It had to be the extension plug.
"Bukan saya. Anak saya ni" I pulled Sarah over.
She's a local and a Chemistry undergraduate at Unimas. (For the record, I had P8 for Chemistry in Form Five). We immediately blitzed her with the usual and unusual questions. She tried her best to encourage and assure us that Unimas was a good choice. Her survival tip for Sarah: "Ko orang jangan lewat".
This girl really warmed our hearts. I forgot her name, you know, one of those modern names that tend to slip off your random access memory faster than five minutes. But we won't forget her. We wouldn't have done in KL what she'd done here: helping total strangers.
We were about to exit when a lady with four or five children in tow greeted us with the same question. "Nak daftar kat Unimas?" Either I'm good-looking or the Sarawak people are all God-sent angels. Or both. And the extension plug.
Her name was Sa'diah. A classic and original Malay name like this is hard to come by these days. She happened to work in Unimas HR. She gave us her number and offered us a ride to Unimas campus for registration Friday morning, "but we've to be very early" she added. At the mere mention of the word "early", we quickly declined. Our notion of early is roughly 9.30 am.
The next day (Thursday) was still a Gawai holiday. Those guys really need time to come around. Sa'diah called us. She wanted to show us around Kuching and sample the local cuisine, buy kek lapis, ikan terubok etc. Again we declined. But she called again in the afternoon, and we'd run out of excuses. So we relented. I decided to stay back and Whats App. But the rest were just happy to hit the town and savour mee kolok and see all the must-see-before-you-die landmarks. Sarah's mom was particularly impressed with the Astana, the official and historical (and probably romantic) residence of the 80-year old Governor (and his 30-year old consort).
Sa'diah came to see us Friday morning during registration to help Sarah settle down. The next day she insisted on taking us on another round of sightseeing. Not even a token resistance this time since we had eight hours to kill before our late evening flight. The trip was shorter than the Balkan technical, but it was pleasant enough. We veered as far out as Damai Beach passing the iconic Gunung Santubong along the way before swinging back to the airport for our flight to KL. I just stood by, overwhelmed and deeply moved, as the ladies hugged and bid goodbye.
On board the idle mind had to work overtime as the undercover economist in me was struggling to make sense of it all. What had we remotely done to deserve the random kindness and extraordinary generosity from a complete stranger? We're nothing special. I'm no Prime Minister and, by extension, my wife is not Prime Minister's wife. We're plain and pedestrian, duller than ditch water. So what exactly had driven Sa'diah to go out of her way to make our Kuching visit fun and memorable, leaving her four young children at home to fend for themselves?
Forget all the fancy theories. She's simply a true and virtuous Muslim blessed with a gift of giving. (Gift of giving? For giving? Not sure about this expression. But sounds good). The message for me here can't be any more subtler: I've to be kinder, gentler, and ever more gracious. And always grateful, yes. Aida, Sarah, you read it here first.
I was losing all hope when 1MDB was being investigated in seven countries. But this sweet and selfless Sarawak lady has restored my belief in this country.
III
Sarah has been away from us for more than two weeks now. Everything's fine with her. She's loving her new life. Unimas is every bit what she'd imagined. Wifi could be faster though. Fasting away from USJ is fun. Kak Di (Sa'diah) brought loads of food last weekend. "Ayah, my Bio teacher is a riot. Teka dia orang mana, ha ha?". She posted a pic, with a Bidayuh friend named Myra Ridu. A classmate from Kedah keeps calling her "hang" or "hangpa". Now that looks like culture.
bang yusuf... i was there in Sarawak the same time but in Mukah...if Kuching was deserted that time..imagine Mukah....felt like the time "stopped" and only 1 traffic light in a town....priceless for people from Kajang...he he he..
ReplyDeleteMukah...sounds exotic. But what were you doing in mukah during gawai? I ' ve been to sibu and miri. Pretty charming towns. Am thinking of visiting bordertown bau next time i'm in kuching. May i know your name?
ReplyDeleteMukah...sounds exotic. But what were you doing in mukah during gawai? I ' ve been to sibu and miri. Pretty charming towns. Am thinking of visiting bordertown bau next time i'm in kuching. May i know your name?
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