EXTRA GAMES AND SCOUTING DAYS
Punta Est, a lovely hotel owned by my disciple, Sifu Attilio Podesta, in Ligure Finale in the charming region of Riviera in northern Italy, is certainly one of the most beautiful hotels I have been lucky to stay in, and I have stayed in more than a hundred hotels in my 20 years of world travel. It is no coincidence that here I wish to continue writing my days at Penang Free School, my alma mater, which I started writing about 30 years since leaving school in 1964. Now on the morning of 20th April 2018, after a delicious breakfast which I thoroughly enjoyed, and sitting in an exquisite garden overlooking the azure Mediterranean Sea, it has been more than 50 years, or more than half a century, since leaving Penang Free School after Upper From Six.
It was also here that I continued writing my autobiography, The Way of the Master, a few years ago after leaving the first few chapters which I wrote many, many years earlier. Actually in rewriting my days at Penang Free School, which I have entitled “The Frees are Brave and True”, started two days earlier when I was about to take a trans-continental flight to Europe to begin my teaching of chi kung and kungfu, but it is in Punta Est that I have some time to sit down and write, especially when I have a full day off before teaching.
From 1958 to 1964, the time when I studied in Penang Free School, on every Monday and Thursday we had extra classes, and after that at 4.30 pm we had extra-mural activities. There were, as far as I can remember, four types of extra-mural activities, namely extra games, scouting, cadets and air-cadets. For pupils in Form One, we could join either extra-games or scouting. Cadets and air-cadets were for those in Form Two and above. Air-cadets were reserved for those who were good at science.
I remember clearly that I wanted to join a scout troop as I was a keen boy scout in my former school, Hutchings Primary School. Before becoming a boy scout, I was a wolf cub.
There were four classes of scouts, which were tenderfoot, second class, first class and king’s scouts. Most primary school scouts had not passed their tenderfoot test. I was one of the very rare scouts who passed the second class test.
However, seeing rolls of footballs in the Extra Games made me change my mind. There were three extra games, which were football (or soccer), cricket and rugby (or American football). They were called “extra games” because the games of football, cricket and rugby were also played by every pupil of Penang Free School, with football in the first term of the year, cricket in the second term and rugby in the third term.
The school year, starting from January till December, was divided into three terms, with long holidays in December, often consisting of seven weeks. During my time, all pupils of Penang Free School, called Frees, were divided into five houses, namely Wu Lien Teh, which was my house, Cheeseman, Pinhorn, Hargreaves and Hamilton. Years after I had left school, three houses, Tunku Putra, Sirajuddin and P.Ramli, were added.
All the eight persons, for whom the sport houses were named, were Old Frees, or old students of Penang Free School. Wu Lien Teh was a famous doctor who beat the dreaded plague in China, Cheeseman was a school master at Penang Free School and later became the Director-General of Education of Malaya before the formation of Malaysia, Pinhorn, Hargreaves and Hamilton were prominent headmasters of the school, Tunku Putra was in honour of Tengku Abdul Rahman, the father of Malaysian independence, Tuanku Sirajuddin Jamalullail was the Raja of Perlis and later the Agong or King of Malaysia, and P.Ramli was regarded as the best actor Malaysia had produced.
Colours were allotted for the houses, green for Wu Lien Teh House, red for Cheeseman House, blue for Pinhorn House, brown for Hargreaves House, yellow for Hamilton House, orange for Tunku Putra House, purple for Sirajuddin House, and grey for P.Ramli House.
Roads in Penang were named after these personalities. Pinhorn Road, Hargreaves Road, Hargreaves Circle, Hamilton Road, Cheeseman Road, Wu Lien Teh Gardens, Tengku Abdul Rahman Road and P.Ramli Road were not far from Penang Free School.
It is appropriate to mention that 4.30 during my time at Penang Free School is actually 6.00 o’clock now. The fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the longest-serving Prime Minister of the country, pushed Malaysian time one hour ahead to save time, and he also made West Malaysian time the same as East Malaysian time which was half an hour ahead at that time.
I took Extra Games in my first year at Penang Free School, i.e. in 1958. In my second year I joined the 8th Georgetown (South) Scout Group. There were two scout groups at that time, the 1st Georgetown (South) and the 8th Georgetown (South). The 7th Georgetown (South) was formed later.
The 8th Georgetown (South) Scout Group, when I first joined it, consisted of land scouts. There were three types of scouts – land, sea and air. I did not meet any air scouts; they were very rare. Even sea scouts were rare. Most scouts were land scouts.
Irrespective of whether one is a land, sea or air scout, the scout movement is divided into two groups – boy scouts for those between the age of 11 and 14 and senior scouts for those between the age of 15 and 18. Before 11 one becomes a wolf cub, and after 18 he becomes a rover scout.
The scout master of 8th Georgetown (South) group, which included boy scouts, senior scouts and rover scouts, was Mr Ch’ng Eng Kee, one of the best scout masters I have known and who has greatly influenced my formative years.
Later, I think in 1960, the 8th Georgetown (South) Scout Group was converted to sea scouting. I don’t know the reason for the converting, but I think a volunteered scouter was an officer in the Penang Volunteer Navy.
Some of my best movements in life were spent in scouting. Besides our scout meetings on every Monday and Thursday from 4.30 pm to 6.00 pm when we learned special scouting skills like observation, knotting and first aid, we often had hiking and camping, which usually occurred in weekends.
Some of my happiest times were spent in hiking and camping. I fondly remember a hike from Teluk Bahang to Muka Head. Both Teluk Bahang and Muka Head were, and still are, names of places on Penang Island.
Teluk Bahang was a small fishing village, where Jubilee Camp was located, a camping ground for scouts where I had spend much time and derived much happiness. Some new buildings have been built nowadays but it is still not urbanized.
In nostalgia many years later I went to Julibee Camp with my wife, but we found it deserted. The pool which was contained by a rectangular cement low wall, and which collected running water from the nearby mountain, from which scouts at the camp took water for cooking and for boiling tea, was still there, though probably in my boyish imagination the water appeared clearer and purer in the past than now.
However, last Saturday on 19th May 2018 when my wife and I had a car drive round Penang Island, the area was condoned off by a developer with the pool not in sight. Nevertheless, we found a small bridge along the road over a stream which I remember ran from the pool.
Just in Teluk Bahang village before the pool, as we came from Balik Pulau on the way to Georgetown, the shop where I used to frequent with other scouts during my scouting days more than half a century ago, as well as a few other houses on the same row deserted and also condoned off.
Earlier before reaching Teluk Bahang village we came to a straight road. I told my wife that as a boy scout I used to hike along this road. Earlier still we came to a large dam. I told me wife that the dam was not there in my scouting days; it was all jungle.
The path to Buka Head was covered with virgin jungle all the way. At Muka Head there was a sandy beach where people could have a swim after a long hike from Teluk Bahang. On top of a small hill there was, and still is, a lighthouse, which overlooked the Indian Ocean.
I also remember another hike from Balik Pulau to Batu Ferringhi. Balik Pulau was a small town then with only one main street, but now many new buildings have been added. Batu Ferringhi was a small village then, but now has developed into a prosperous urban area with many luxurious hotels, restaurants and condominiums. If you go to Batu Ferringhi today, you must not miss its night market where a lot of souvenirs are sold at relative cheap prices.
What was most memorable about the hike was when reaching Batu Ferringhi I slipped on a sandy area and fell down a slope. I landed with a piece of wood almost piercing my important sex organ.
I recalled yet another hike from Balik Pulau to Ayer Hitam, where the famous Kek Lok Si Temple, or the Temple of Eternal Bliss, is located. I camped at the field of Sacred Heart Secondary School, which still stands. It was a long hike through woods and jungle, but passing some wooden huts along sandy paths. This hike, after leaving camp at Sacred Heart Secondary School, went up a narrow path to a small hill. It inspired me to write a poem later, entitled “The Difference”.
One of the most memorable hikes was from Penang to Taiping with my childhood good friend, Soon Hoe Choon, who is now a businessman living in Australia. We were each given two eggs, some flour and, if I remember correctly, two dollars and sixty cents. It was an endurance hike and we were not allowed to take any lifts from passing cars.
In our innocence and ignorance, we thought that the shortest distance between two places was along a railway line. So we walked along a railway track. It was at night, and there were a lot of mosquitoes swarming around us for supper. Whenever we stopped to rest, mosquitoes would settle on us and drank our blood. We didn’t know there was a road not far away parallel to the railway track where certainly there were no or less mosquitoes.
By then I had been practicing Southern Shaolin Kungfu every night, except Sunday night, under Uncle Righteousness. I was healthy, but weak. Every time I stopped to rest, Hoe Choon would reprimand me, saying what a weakling I was despite practicing kungfu.
About learning kungfu, I must conclude this chapter with my fight with Ch’ng Lim Chee. When I was in Form 1 at Penang Free School in 1958, I had a misunderstanding with Lim Chee over a small matter. I could not remember what the matter really was, but the subsequent fight had a great effect on my later kungfu development.
I thought I could beat Lim Chee easily as I already had 3 years of kungfu experience, and I was known to be a dedicated kungfu student. After school we went to a nearby rambutan plantation, which has now been cleared for new houses, with a lot of schoolmates cheering.
But my kungfu proved to be useless when the fight began. We just rolled on the ground flinching our punches aimlessly. Although the fight was declared a draw, and Lim Chee became my good friend, I found out that my kungfu was useless for fighting. It set me on my mission to look for sparring opponents to improve my kungfu combat, which I recorded in my autobiography, “The Way of the Master”.
I remember that later I visited Lim Chee in Kuala Trengganu. We had some friendly sparring. He controlled my two hands, and I did not know what to do. Students of Shaolin Wahnam, the school I found to teach chi kung and kungfu, now can easily free themselves and counter-attack if their two hands are held.
At that time I had not learn from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, the third generation successor from the Shaolin Monastery from Quanzhou in south China, from whom I benefited tremendously in kungfu combat.
Lim Chee also told me that it was difficult to break the bottom of two bricks lying one on top of another. When I had learned from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, not only I could break the bottom of two bricks, I could also teach some students to do so. It showed my remarkable progress in kungfu.
Later Lim Chee learned chi kung from me. It gave him good health, vitality and longevity.
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