Colombo Plan scholarship

When I finished sixth form at the end of 1964 I found temporary work as a teacher with Father Keogan at St Joseph’s secondary school. Liaw Aik Hon, a class mate, now living in Perth, was also teaching in St. Columba’s as a temporary teacher. We shared a rented room in a house opposite the old community hall. After two school terms I left Miri in September 1965 and went to Kuching to work for Sesco. I was squatting with a friend, Chen Jun Siong in a rented room on Nanas road. Ah Siong was previously from Pujut. His brother was one of two Pujut people who played golf and his nick name was ‘sultan’ because he drove a Mercedes Benz.

The reason being that the sultan of Brunei had many Mercedes , so amongst his friends, Chen's name became "sultan" in Miri. Later I discovered that one of the reasons that Chen drove a Mercedes was because he needed the extra large booth for carrying all the long handled changkol and rakes used by his workers. He transported his workers to the work site, the Miri Golf Course in his Mercedes. The other Pujut golfer was Kam Soon Kee, a wealthy contractor whose family held the monopoly of the grass cutting contract with the Miri Golf Club for the last 40 years!

One time a Foochow business man under-cut Kam by tendering a  much lower bid. He won and lost the contract all in a day, because he could not start mowing the fairway and greens for the coming weekend competition because he did not have the special equipment needed or the trained staff. Kam refused to sell him any old machinery or let him have his landscaping, green-keeping staff. He got the contract back at his higher bid price and he is still mowing our greens and fairways today. No one tried to win this contract from him after that incidence. It would be stupid to jump the gun by buying a whole lot of expensive new machinery, just in case you won the golf course maintenance contract next year and had to start mowing the greens yourself. It does not compute!

In Kuching, I cycled every morning all the way from Nanas road, passed the golf course, Tabuan road and Padungan road and all the way along Pending Road to sungei Priok power station. Jun Siong and I had our evening meals together at the open air market opposite the Electra house. He worked at Land and Surveys and owned a very old 50 cc Suzuki motor bike which he took apart almost weekly to repair the engine. On the golf links road, the pillion rider, me, has to jump down very often to push the motor bike up the hill! It was great fun and we had a great time together in Kuching. The rest of our room mates were Chin Fook Leong, Yong Soo, Leong Ka Wan and Lim Peng Huat. I hardly saw them at all as they were surveyors working in the Sarawak jungles with theodolites and chains and they all contributed a share to the rent just to store their stuff in town and also to save on hotel costs on their infrequent trips to Kuching. They visited every two months or so to report back to HQ and also to stock up on provisions. Then it was back into the jungle again for another few weeks.

I went to Kuching because a friend in Miri informed me that Sesco was looking for applicants for scholarships to study overseas for diplomas in mechanical engineering. They needed three people with sixth form  certificates to take up these bonded offers. On completion of the 5 year course, the candidates must work for at least five years with Sesco as generation engineers in charge of the power stations in Kuching, Sibu and Miri. It was perfect. Bonded means there was even a guarantee of a job with Sesco when we return with our diplomas. However it also meant that we pay back $5000 for each year spent overseas if we gave up the course half way. Of course if we didn't "give up" and continued studying...

Alphonsus Sia, Sylvester Lim and I were awarded these Sesco sponsored scholarships funded by the Australian government under the Colombo Plan scheme. These schemes were provided by rich nations to help under developed countries in the British Commonwealth. Every year Australian technical colleges and universities set aside some places for these overseas students to come to study. The external affairs department met our planes, arranged home stays for us, took care of enrolments and arranged regular outings for us to visit the countryside to get to know some real Ozzies. Most important of all: they paid all our fees and gave us a generous living allowance for four years. Scholarship holders were each paid a fortnightly living allowance of AUD126, quite a generous sum in the 60's. My friend, who was a private student, received about 45 AUD per week from his father in Sibu. During the long x'mas holidays we were all  encouraged to find a job to earn some money for buying our text books required each year.

Ten young men from Sarawak, flew to Singapore in early February 1966, stayed a night at the Raffles hotel and caught a Qantas Boeing 707 flight for Sydney the next day.  My sister, Rose was right. I did need a suit! Without one, I would not be able to come down for dinner at the Raffles hotel in Singapore. They allowed people inside the dining room with minimum dress code of: coat and tie only. I have no jacket until Rose brought me to a Padungan tailor and bought me a new suit. Later I wore this suit at her convocation in Armidale. After that I wore it to go to Sunday mass in Melbourne. Later, I wore a jumper in winter. That suit must be still hanging in a cupboard somewhere.

Raffles hotel, Singapore

Some students in my group did not have a coat. They ordered room service while I enjoyed my 5 course English dinner down stairs in the grand dining room with real chandeliers and uniformed waiters. It was quite an experience. I saved enough face there to buy three suits! Ha-ha!
On the plane from Singapore to Sydney, there were African students from Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia and other African Commonwealth countries. All were going to Australia to study. We arrived at night and were put up at the Bondi Beach Hotel. The next morning, imagine our surprise when we woke up and looked out the windows! There, was Bondi Beach just a few yards away. It was early February. The weather was almost as warm as in Malaysia and the beaches were very crowded with semi nude sunbathers and surfers! A fleet of black limousines with uniformed chauffeurs picked us up after breakfast and we attended a two day orientation course for new arrivals. Those of us who own suits were wearing them! Must not lose face among the international group of students and the orang putih tourists.

Bondi beach, Sydney

Opera house

El Alamein fountain

All this was arranged by the External Affairs Dept in the Commonwealth Office in Sydney. They gave us talks about Australian culture, brought us to the Commonwealth Bank, opened savings account for each student and deposited some money for us to use during settling-in time, until our regular allowance arrived fortnightly through the mail, a princely sum of 126AUD per fortnight. We were also taken to Myers store to buy thick woollen jumpers and cardigans. I would have fared much better wearing track suits or lazy Joe at home because I felt the cold very badly during that first winter in Melbourne.

Any way, we arrived in summer and it was warm. I have never felt so rich in my life! What with bank accounts and cash in my pockets for shopping. It is getting better and better! All of us were exceedingly happy except for one Malaysian student who complained to me that he could not get a shower for three days because one water tap was scalding hot and the other one was freezing cold. Apparently he did not have running hot and cold taps at home in Penang and did not know how to mix the hot water with the cold! Another complained that he could not sleep at night because it was very cold and he had no blankets. He was sleeping as usual on top of his bed, like in Sarikei. All the blankets were underneath the bed cover! That first week in Australia, I sat down on the edge of the gutter while waiting for a bus and ate a whole pound of grapes. I had severe diarrhea! It was clear that all of us, including me, were behaving like Sakai! Ha-ha!

From Sydney we were sent onwards to other parts of Australia: Brisbane, Adelaide, Tasmania and Melbourne. Kong Ai Tiing, the other Sesco candidate flew to Adelaide and I caught the night train, the Southern Aurora for Melbourne. On arrival at Spencer Street station I was again met by a Limousine which sent me directly to a guest house in  the suburb of Richmond. Mrs Henderson was the landlady of the guest house Most Colombo Plan students were advised to go into home stays or full board with Australian families during the first year. Then we were allowed to go flatting with friends and do our own cooking. No one was staying at residential colleges in Melbourne because they were too expensive and not included in our allowance which was quite meagre @ AUD 163 per fortnight.

A new friend, Wong Ngie Tiong was a private student from Sibu. He got about 40AUD per week from his father. So, he must work during school holidays to supplement his study expenses for books and train fares. His father was a taxi driver in Sibu and was unable to afford to send more money as he had other younger brothers. Some times we went ten pin bowling at the Camberwells Bowls. He caught the train from Nanawading and met me there. After the game he usually came to my bed-sitter in Hawthorn and I belanja him fried rice or curry dinner. We also visited some friends from Sarawak staying at Camberwell: Ting Chong Seek, Awang Ahmad and Sylvester Lim were flatting just next to Safeway Stores, a super market. Their landlord was a German migrant.

Grosvenor Court, Richmond

Wong’s home stay in Nunawading was an English lady, Mrs. Jean Baum.  Mr & Mrs. Baum treated Wong like their own son. I was very envious of him because the external affairs person, Miss Morrison initially arranged for me, only to stay in a guest house in Richmond. The land lady had four or five African students staying in the large house. We each had our own bed rooms and were treated quite well. However it was not homely like in a home stay where you were part of a small family and you went on outings whenever the family went on long weekends and public holidays. Mrs. Henderson was very helpful to us; but we had far too many settling-in problems. There were great distances to walk, our bags were too heavy with books and most of us became home sick after a week or two and there was no cure for that! Many students, including me, tried to solve all our problems by moving house!

The first month, I was very homesick. At first I could not understand this as I was homeless. So, how could I be home sick?! Actually I missed all the foods, friends and familiar surroundings back in Malaysia. I used to take very long walks alone around Richmond and Albany where I was staying. Grosvenor Court was a large guest house run by an Australian family for about six students. I can still recall the smell of lamb chops on the bed sheets! The whole house had the terrible smell of lamb fat because very often we had lamb or sausages for dinner and seldom rice!

There was also another group of students sponsored by telecom. They were assigned to Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to do diplomas in telecommunications. The Sesco sponsored students went to Swinburne Technical College on Burwood road in Hawthorne near the Camberwell junction. We were all enrolled to do a four year Mechanical Diploma to be followed by a year working in industries to gain practical experience before graduation and then go home to serve our home country.

The Melbourne weather was horrible. It was cold and wet and the sky was always overcast and gloomy in winter. There was no entertainment or social life and each student was left at his home stay for weeks and months without contact with people from his own cultural back ground. We did not know exactly how to dress warmly for the ever changeable Melbourne weather. The clothing we had from home was not suitable for the Australian winter. I had a suit made to measure for me by Rose in Padungan in 1966; but it was not very comfortable at all for every day wear. One Sunday, I wore a pair of long johns under the suit. My! Was it hot inside the church!? I sweat that time because it was not possible to remove the long Johns until the end of service when I got home! Never again would I put on thermals! I have since learned  in NZ to dress in layers which can be peeled off progressively as the weather warmed up.

All this cultural shock was just too much for one African student from Nigeria. After a month of this strange, cold and lonely existence, he locked himself up inside his room for two days, refusing to come out, eat his meals or attend school. The Commonwealth police came and took him away. He was sent home to Nigeria. Poor thing! At least I was stronger than that. However, I was not entirely happy. Ting Chong Seek and I analyzed our problems correctly; but we could not tell our training officer at the commonwealth office, Miss Morrison, our real problem because what we really needed was a woman! Smile!

The first two weeks were great because it was like a dream come true for me and everything was new and interesting, even the lamb chops and sausages were very tasty. After that, homesickness became a real problem for many of the overseas students. Our text books were too big and heavy and we were not used to walking so far. Putting it mildly, some of us became very unhappy. I stayed on for another month at that first guest house in Richmond and then moved to a house in Hawthorn closer to Swinburne Technical College where I was doing a 4-year diploma course in mechanical engineering.

House No: 2, the new land lady, a Basque immigrant from Spain, was herself a new migrant from Spain. Her husband, Vinko Scara, was a Basque Separatist freedom fighter. The Spanish gomen were persecuting them. They escaped to Ozzie as refugees from Spain some years ago. They were very impressed by my command of English because they spoke only very little English. I had my own bedroom and did my own cooking, usually fried rice or instant noodles, no more lamb chops! Most of my weekends were spent doing shopping at Safeway supermarket in Camberwell and doing the laundry at a coin launderette across Burwood road. This strange lonely life lasted just a few more months then I moved house again. House No: 3, Mrs. Henderson was a Jewish lady. This time, I was sharing a house with a Jew who did not allow me to do any cooking in the house because I ate pork and  Jews don't. I needed to eat chu-nyuk, so I had to move house again after just a short time staying there even though this house was very conveniently located just across the road from Swinburne College.

Reluctantly I admitted my mistake and prepared to move house again in less than 3 weeks. All this moving made it difficult for me to receive my fortnightly allowance from the External Affairs Dept. I rented a post box from the Hawthorn Post Office for all my mail from then onwards. This was a wise move because it helped me to disappear underground for many years, until I was ready to be found. I approached the authorities in Sept 1972. They were so happy to see me that they gave me a free air ticket to go back to Kuching.

House No:4, Carrington Street

This time, I was sharing a four bed-room house with two Malaysians, Sam, Masturah and two Hong Kong girls, Shirley Yang and Teresa Lau. Sam was only doing part time study. He worked full time during the day and attended night classes at Swinburne Tech. He was trying very hard to complete his diploma in civil engineering. The three girls attended Methodist Ladies College in the nearby suburb of Kew, doing year 12. It was great to be able to cook all my favourite curry dishes and ate rice every day again.

House No:5 and No:6

My room was originally the sitting room. It was the largest room in the house with an open fire place. I had a single bed, a study table, a large comfortable arm chair and a small hanging cupboard for all my clothes. We took turns cooking in the small kitchen. The land lady, Miss Clarke, was the first woman I know who managed to grow a moustache successfully. Just imagine having to kiss her! She did not allow me to use the fireplace because of the fire hazards. In winter all I had in a very large room with high ceiling, was a small portable one bar electric heater which cooked one side of my body while the other side remained frozen!

This weather board house was very old and the walls, ceilings and floors were not insulated against the Melbourne winters. The summers were ok. I did not know enough to buy a good quality jacket for going outside the house. As a result I bought many thick woolen jumpers and cardigans which were soon ruined because I could not afford to dry clean them. I did not know how to wash them properly and they shrunk to half the original size, so that I needed to buy new jumpers very often. If only I had worn track suits, sweaters and bought a thick Polar fleece jacket for the outdoors, I would have been more suitably dressed for the  cold Melbourne weather.

After one year, I moved to another house. This would be house No: 5, sharing with two other Malaysian boys, Sim and Michael Soon. Both of them have completed their degrees and were working as accountants with BP in the city. They had very active social lives and were hardly ever at home. This suited me just fine. Michael Soon was from Penang and Sim was from Malacca. I suspected that they were working illegally in Australia because they have been there for many years.

Unfortunately, Sim was a  habitual gambler. He was the first compulsive gambler that I knew. Wednesdays and Saturdays he went to the horse racing to place his bets. Mondays and Thursdays nights he went to the grey hound racing at Albert Park. Tuesdays and Fridays he went to the night trotting, On Sundays, just like the Lord did in Genesis 1, Sim rested. I still remember one Thursday night  when he came home from the grey hounds. He was very excited and his face was very red because he has been cerebrating with friends. He had a hot streak at the hounds and nothing that he did was wrong! He produced large quantities of crumbled notes from every pocket of his suit and placed them all on the kitchen table. That was the only time he won some money! It was from Sim that I learned about many horse racing and betting terms like the daily double, the queenela, outsiders, favourites and of course, the big, once a year race at Flemington Racecourse, the Melbourne Cup. 

It was while I was staying at this house that I got to know Joseph Lee. He was working as a gomen printer in KK. They sent him on a one year training course in Melbourne. He lived at Parkville and apparently he has a lot of free time on his hands. He owned a very old Ford Popular which he bought for 80 Australian pounds. We spent a lot of great times together, going to the beaches, visiting Lunar Park in St. Kilda and attending the Saturday dances at the town halls, picking up girls. We also attended monthly gatherings at the Asian Overseas Students Association at Fitzroy. This place was run by a Catholic priest, Fr. O'Connor and we had many great times together.

One day, Michael brought home a drug addict, Marie Culhane Zangellini . From day one, he had endless problems with this woman. Apparently he found her in little Burke Street, (China town). She was  sitting in a small restaurant and she was crying at a table all by herself. He talked to her and taking pity on her, he brought her home! From then onwards Sim and I became full time baby sitters for Michael’s girl friend. Frequently in the middle of the night, Michael had to call the GP to treat this woman for her drug related health problems. Very often, she got drunk and made a big nuisance of herself in the middle of the night, shouting, crying and carrying on. How to study under this unfavourable environment? I decided to escape from it all by moving house again.

This time, I moved to a flat above the Rice Bowl Café, on Burwood road, opposite the Swinburne Tech. This would be my house No: 6. Mr. Lim the proprietor of the building, came from China. All his seven sons are either engineers or accountants. However, in the evenings they all came to help inside the kitchen or wait at tables. He was very disillusioned because none of his sons wanted to take over his business so that he could retire soon. So, he kept going, although he was very old. I shared the flat with two other Swinburne students. They were Thais: Jiti Rajaibun and commander Prasert from the Royal Thai navy. That was my first experience with people from Thailand. They were both very gentle and polite people and I bullied them!

A friend from Sabah

About this time I met Joseph Lee a government servant from KK. He was on a one year in-service training course in Melbourne. He had a very old Ford Prefect which he bought for eighty pounds. We had a great time together, going to the Saturday dances held in the Hawthorn town hall, picking up girls, going to parties every single weekend, cooking curries and speaking Hakka. Joe was also very home sick and so was I. He came very often to my house to take me out for a ride to the beach at St. Kilda, visit Luna Park or the ice skating ring. Some times we visited the catholic student centre in Fitzroy run by our chaplain, Fr. O’Conner from Ireland. He arranged free film shows or barbecues for us every month; but we had to say grace and the rosary first! We made some friends at the student centre but they were all as home sick and lonely as we were.
The Rotarians and the Lions in Victoria very often sponsored us on trips to visit the country to get to know the real Anglo Saxons Australians besides the Italians, Greeks and Yugoslavs in Melbourne. On one of these trips I met Malcolm Fraser, an MP in the Harold Holt government. Soon, Joseph Lee went home to Sabah. I found new friends and tried very hard to settle down to study; but it was no use. I moved to another house again!

Snow trip

In total, I moved house seven times, all within walking distance of Swinburne College. Instead of learning to face my problems, I was merely running away from them! This was affecting me seriously and I could not settle down and concentrate on my studies. The first year I did reasonably well, getting two credits, four passes and repeating only two subjects. The second year I passed my repeats but dropped a few more second year subjects. I had to repeat more and more subjects as my study problem snow balled. I knew that I was not going to complete the diploma in time. Therefore, I asked for a one-way air ticket when it was time for me to go home for holidays at the end of 1968.

Every three years the host government encouraged scholarship students to go home for holidays so that they didn’t lost touch with home. In Kuching, I went to talk with my training officer, Clement Tay. When he heard that I was not going back to study any more, he wanted me to pay the government 20,000 dollars for breach of contract! I was supposed to finish my studies in the allocated time and come home to work for Sesco in Pujut as the generation/maintenance engineer. The Pujut power station was in its final stage of construction so I had better hurry up and finish my studies or else!
Given no other choice, I spent my short holidays with Rose in Kuching and also a week with Cecilia at Jalan Perakong in Seria. She was pregnant and expecting twins. In January 1969 I bought a one way ticket and returned to Melbourne to study. From then on, I was really on a two year paid holiday in Australia! I had no idea what I was going to do. I did not have sufficient motivation to complete the diploma. Thermodynamics, calculus, Fortran 4 and imaginary numbers seem to be beyond the scope of my limited academic abilities. I enrolled to continue the diploma study; but from then on, I hardly attended lectures any more. I bought an old Vespa scooter and went to work full time at HMV on Burwood road as a store keeper! Soon I traded that for a brand new Honda 350. It was like getting wings!

Chinese takeaway

The Barrets were good people and they treated me like one of their own family. I stayed with them until Pappy died. Mum and Spot moved into an old person’s home and the house and car were sold by the son to his uncle. I moved into a small flat on Burwood road sharing with Pierre, a Frenchman.[1] Again my room was the lounge and it was luxuriously large, with glass on two sides. I had a HMV stereo player and many LP records, a brand new Honda 350 twin motor cycle and a full time job as store man at HMV in Hawthorn! My future became more uncertain when I changed job and went to work in the factories at Fisherman’s Bend, making washing machines. I changed job again and became a cook!

Danny Koh was a qualified accountant. After the May 13 1969 racial riots in Malaysia, his father sent him enough money to set up a business in Australia and he was told not to go home to Ipoh. He married an Australian girl and had two children. He operated a Chinese takeaway business at Sorrento beach during the summer months. He needed a full time cook and I applied and got the job! He spent a week training me in the kitchen and I was left there in sole charge most of the time. He did all the shopping and I, all the cooking! There were also two kitchen hands to help me prepare the food. He employed a blonde hair blue eye, part time cashier; but mostly he sat at the cash register and also did all the shopping at the Victoria market.

He put us up in a rented property with very little furniture. I remembered sleeping on the carpeted floor with Leigh because there were no beds. We did not need much any way because we went back there only to sleep. The hours were long, from 10 am to 10 pm! We opened 7 days a week during the summer months and closed for winter.

In front of me were 9 woks: one always steaming Tim Sims, another with boiling oil, ever ready for quick frying of all the meat dishes. Another is perpetually boiling chickens; the soup is used for stock. The cooked broilers is skinned, deboned and cut up, ready for use. Beef is skirt steak cut up into small thin pieces, seasoned in black sauce, corn flour and cooked by deep frying in the hot oil for about two minutes, no more. One wok is used for fried rice, another reserved for a special dish, Chop Suey. It was invented first by restaurants in San Francisco. Originally, it was nothing but leftovers from the night before! However, because of the popularity of this dish the ingredients were specially prepared from freshly chopped vegetables: cabbages, carrots, cauliflower and celery. These were partially cooked by boiling briefly the night before and stored in the cool room on trays, all ready for the following day.

To prepare chicken chop suey: - put a measured portion of cooked chicken into an empty wok; turn the gas up to maximum. Add chicken stock, add one scoop of chop suey mixture, add some MSG and soy sauce for taste and colour. Add some corn flour to thicken. When it boils, stir well and put into a plastic container with lid and push it through the hole in the wall with the order docket. The boss or cashier on the other side will collect the money from the customer. If I add one teaspoon of curry powder to the chop suey, it was called curry chicken! There were also beef, lamb and roast pork[2] chop suey and corresponding curry beef, curry lamb and curry pork chop suey! The Tim Sims was our most popular and lucrative line, next was fried rice. I still cook very good fried rice even today! The secret is in the ingredients. Make sure that there are more ingredients than rice then people just love it!

Winter came, the Sorrento beach became deserted and the shop was closed for the year. I decided that it was time to go home to Malaysia. I have been an over stayer for over two years. The External Affairs department and the commonwealth office on La Trobe Street were overjoyed when I came out of hiding and contacted them on my own accord. After repeated failures in my studies, they were forced to discontinue my scholarship and they had been trying to find me unsuccessfully for the past year! They gave me a one way ticket for Kuching and I came home after six and a half years holidaying in Melbourne! It was time to find a job.
[1] House No: 8 sharing a flat with a Frenchman, Pierre.
[2] boiled pork with red colouring!

Full board with the Barrets

After Joseph Lee finished his short one year course he went home to his government job in KK. I decided to move into full board accommodations on 14 Elmie Street[1] with Percy and Lorna Barret (mum). He worked for Berger Paint as a chemist and was retired because of his heart problem. He was on an invalid pension. He planted some giant cactus in the back garden and had a pet cockatoo, Cocky. Mum had a small dog, Spotty. The big joke for me was telling them that I loved dogs, eating them! I used to follow Spotty around the house, licking my chops, saying yummy, just to worry mum and saying: I love my dog….stir fried! Poor mum. I wonder whether she was really worried about Spotty or not! Australians believed that all Asians eat dog meat. Their favourite story was about the proprietor of a Chinese takeaway shop being caught and prosecuted for selling cat meat! The fish and chips shops were probably losing business to the Chinese takeaway. So, they started this rumour to kill the competition! Nothing more to it, I am sure, or is it?

The Barrets had an EH Holden station wagon. It was an automatic. Once we went to visit their friends in the Snowy Mountain Schemes in New South Wales. I drove the car all the way to Albury without a car licence! Pappy was too sick to drive and mum was handicapped with one crook arm. Since I had a motor bike and knew the hi-way code, I was elected the driver! We had a great time staying with this family in their porta cabin for a week.
[1] House No: 7, full board with the Barrets.

going home to Sarawak

As soon as I returned home, in 1972, I went to the training centre in Kuching demanding for a job! Since I did not finish the diploma the officer could not offer me any job and gladly released me from my scholarship bond. He asked for my address; but I told him that I was homeless and that I was migrating next month to Canada for good and did not have an address yet. I promised to let him know as soon as I have an address! Actually I was staying with my elder sister, Rose in Dragon School, Serian. I kept a very low profile for a while, just in case the government still wanted me to pay them 25K for breach of contract. Smile!

Then my other sister, Cecilia in Seria, wrote a letter to say that she was confident that she could find me a job with BSP. She arranged an interview for me with her boss, Mr. Pollock. In the end BSP could not offer me a job; but instead he arranged a job interview for me with Yee Chew Chai of SSB Lutong. In 1972, SSB was expanding their operations offshore and needed to recruit hundreds of new workers to develop the oilfields on the continental shelf: West Lutong, Baram, Tukau, Boronia, Central Luconia, Samarang and Erb west. In fact, at one time we were so busy that we were operating seven offshore oil rigs,[22] including a drill ship, Danwood Ice and a heavy land rig, Deutag 10. During peak periods in the early 80's Shell employed more than 3000 workers.

Meanwhile, in 1972, I was knocking around with Chan Hong Kee in Brunei waiting for the SSB job interview. We were spending a lot of time at the Lumut Long House and at the Panaga nurses quarters. Hong Kee had this great big orange car; an Opel Commodore borrowed from his brother, Hong Nam[23] in Miri. We sent it to Wearne Brothers in Seria for a tune up. Then we tried to do the ton with it on the Brunei high way. It went up to 105 mph when the pedal was floored completely! It certainly was a high performance car. We used to take a car load of Panaga nurses to go Yum-cha in Bandar Seri Begawan. The record was 45 minutes, Panaga to Bandar! After we trashed it, we came back to Miri looking for another car. The road at Sungei Lima was flooded and it was bad. The Opel Commodore looked a real mess when we reached Miri.

We sent it for servicing, a wash and polish at the Kiat Siang service station behind the Miri theartre. The proprietor, Lim, refused to accept payment for some strange reasons which we were unable to understand at first. Any way we returned a clean car to Judy.[24] She claimed that her car was never the same again! Soon after that she sold the Commodore to Tua-tao the fish monger and bought another new car, a Mercedes 500SE. I wonder why Judy would not lend us this car?!

The Opel Commodore was bought from a lottery ticket seller. One day this man[25] won the car in Sarawak for selling the ticket which won the first prize of the social welfare lottery. The prize was a brand new Opel Commodore. He was not quite sure whether it was genuine or not. So he brought the ticket stub to try to sell it to Dr. Chan above the Chartered Bank on High street. Hong Nam was a very shrew business man even then. He was willing to take a gamble. He told this man to wait for a while in the clinic’s waiting room. Immediate he called the social welfare lottery board in KL, confirmed that it was genuine and immediately wrote out a cheque for half the amount. The man accepted! It was a win-win situation for all. After 5 years’ use, the car still fetched the cost price![26] Malaysia is surely a land of great opportunity for all the early Colombo Plan graduates like him. One of his school mates, Abdul Taib Mahmud became chief minister and Dr. Chan was once the finance minister of Sarawak. He replaced Sim Kheng Hong when that old man finally retired.

After sixth form in St. Joseph’s Kuching, Dr. Chan went to Sydney U to study medicine under the Colombo Plan scheme. He returned to work as a doctor for the government. They sent him to work in Limbang hospital. He bought his first car, a Volkswagen beatle. Judy was a Peace Corps volunteer working in Limbang and it was a very small town. On completion of his 5 year bond, Dr. Chan opened one of the first private clinics in Miri. It was originally called the Star Clinic, situated above the old Chartered Bank on High Street. He changed the name to Chan Clinic. Later on, as the town expanded he moved to his own premises on Brooke Road, opposite the pork market. As his business expanded, he employed a locum[27] and joined the SUPP, standing for election as a candidate for Council Negeri. His political career was very successful. Today he is a Tan Sri and the deputy chief minister of Sarawak.

[22] The other rigs were: Jumbo, Trident 1, Aquadril, Sedco A, Chris Segar and Margie.
[23] Tan Sri, Dr. George Chan, deputy chief minister of Sarawak.
[24] The car belonged to Dr. Chan. He had an account with the Shell service station. He paid Mr. Lim for the car’s petrol and service monthly.
[25] elder brother of Mee Hua towkay in Miri
[26] He had a real bargain there! It was possible because he had the cash and the know how to confirm such a win on the spot. Information is power!
[27] Dr. Chan Toh Hang