Are Schools An Undeclared War Between Student Insurgency & Authority?

(In the staff room at SMK Jerangau playing tutor to 13 year olds wanting to learn English. Yes they do want to learn on the face of it but sharing the same track is a coach load of giggles, pinching, pushing, ribbing and the frequent latah which is as earthy - nay anatomical - as they come. Habsah on the right has three stepmothers. I've visited her at home, the only teacher to visit students at their homes, and got a load of durians dumped on me.) Oops, problem downloading the pic. Will try again.

In the Bilik Rehat (Rest Room?) at the hostel at SMK Jerangau. Topics up for discussion include the importance of English, hysteria and dogs in Islam. The subtext? Jokes and giggles galore.


Students feel entrapped between the compulsion to be at school and the urge to express their natural and age related instincts. They are entrapped between rules and their need to feel free and not being imposed upon. On the one hand they understand and accept the system and they do want to learn but it also creates a sense of us versus them, of them being compelled by authority to do things that run counter to their natural inclinations, of adults expecting a level of behavior which young minds are not mature enough to cope with. Students also sense a difference or conflict between schools and society at large or at home. One folksy difference suggests this. Schools are fond of putting up large words on walls exhorting students to do one thing or another. One, for example, says, stop eating before you feel full. In the home environment, when attending kenduris, students often hear hosts urging guests to eat to their full:"Makanlah sehingga kenyang!"

Now all this dichotomy creates a sense of war between students and the teachers, the authority figures. This results in a game of hide and seek or an incipient insurgency in which students will resort to all sorts of guiles and wiles to break or get even. So you get a two-tiered agenda at schools. Incredibly, the declared purpose of dishing out an education and passing exams does get by and passes muster, but even more incredibly, the undeclared insurgency burbles over right under the very noses of the teachers.

The insurgent warfare flows and switches seamlessly between downright intransigence and jocularity. Both come and are made of the same stuff, more or less. Outright bullying exists alongside consensual bullying. Thus a victim lookalike not only welcomes harassment but may even provokes it. All this is for the purpose of adding an extra dimension to or a distraction from the declared purpose at hand. It is a tableau of coping mechanisms morphed into gang culture.

To be continued.

July 10 & 11: Tun Mahathir, Tun Abdul Rahman Abbas & I

Hey, didn't know Pulau Pinang Governor Tun Abdul Rahman Abbas who celebrates his 71st birthday today shares it with me. I turn 63 today. The background article in the NST says he is a fitness buff and is fit as a fiddle. Now that is something! Wonder if he writes nonsensical verse too, hehe!

On another page, a smaller news item reports Tun Mahathir celebrating his 84th birthday at Putrajaya, July 10, yesterday. Hmm, horoscope neighbors. Does it say something too, I wonder. Tun Mahathir is not renowned as a fitness freak but he does write, so.

HOP: Beach Returnees At Two Past Noon

With Pulau Kapas on the horizon and the contrast between shade and sun as counterpoint, these students part walk, part run along the burning beach at Marang to return to their hostel in the swelter of the afternoon heat after performing their Friday prayers last week, jolting a photographer from his revelry under the shade. A sea breeze helps to dampen the effect.

Photographically speaking, the trees provide a framework of silhouettes to heighten the contrast between shade and the sun.

Led Zeppelin's Sinuous, Anacondic, Orgiastic Moby Dick

While driving along the lonely, cow-pad padded Tok Kah road between Jerangau and Kuala Dungun on a hazy afternoon today, my loose-ended mind dithered between letting the imagination or the radio fills in its vacuosity. My fingers kept pressing the button to find the English language station which I had not locked on. The volume was on low. The reception was not as good as it could be. One of the stations had some drum work on and I settled for that. I didn't up the volume right away but the drum beat sounded promising and after a minute I turned it up. Then the exclusive drums began to work its magic. I turned up the volume some more and I was floated up on its strength and expanse. I wasn't sure if it was playing on the English language station or another, let alone the identity of the drummer. After a long, soul-satisfying five minutes of rapturous drum extravaganza, the familiar voice of the English language deejay came on and in his typically many-worded style, said the solo drum work was by Led Zeppelin entitled Moby Dick.

That's it, guys - big it, dig it! If any stimulus can take me on a wing and a song heavenwards, Moby Dick does it for me. It brought me as close to God as possible for the day. The station played a few more of Zeppelin's songs with vocals and guitar work thrown in. Moby Dick is pure drums.

Hear it on YouTube and see what it does to you, if you haven't done so already.

Seeing Eye Dog

I've seen a few programs on Animal Planet etc about how dogs are trained to be in useful relationships with humans. To see these trained and loved dogs is a refreshing and welcome difference from seeing undisciplined and uncared dogs left to roam about or minimally cared.

To me the most impressive example of a working and loving relationship between man and dog, nay between humans and animals, is the relationship between a guide dog for the blind and his owner. The selection, rearing, training and matching of dog to owner is a rigorous and long process drawing upon science and human love. The most telling example of this understanding and cooperation between man and dog is the fact that the dogs are taught to disobey their masters and rely on their own instinct, intelligence and training to save their masters from possible harm. An example of this is when the owner is about to cross the road thinking it is safe to do so as he does not hear any motor vehicle but the dog will not cross if a bicycle is coming across their path.

In 1996, during a sojourn in Australia, I came upon this white Labrador guide dog and its owner walking down the mall in downtown Adelaide. It is my third actual encounter with a seeing eye dog, the other two occasions being in Italy and Germany. The girl in the right of the photo is Adira (Abby), my eldest daughter, when she was eleven.

Introducing Goody Two Blogs!

That's Koh Han (3rd left) after the prize giving ceremony. The guy he beats in the final is to his right. The two finalists in the above 70 kg category are on the right.

Folks, here are two new blogs I'd like to introduce. One is Han's Journey managed by Teo Chin Han, a former student whom I taught English last year at a private college in Kuala Terengganu. He won the inaugral Terengganu arm wrestling contest held at Giant in Kuala Terengganu over the weekend in his under 70 kg weight category. We plan to paddle a double kayak to Pulau Kapas soon. Do visit his blog listed in My Blog List.

Another new blogger is Captain Wong, also listed in my blog list. He shares my interest in the great outdoors particularly kayaking and cycling. He is also an experienced sailor. His house with a nice lawn rises like a lotus flower in the generally swampy and unkempt surrounding just off one of the channels of the Cukai river.

His kayaking and cycling stories is a must read for all kayaking and cycling trippers.

HOP: Nina Goody Two Pics

Nina on Kapas Island.

Nina at Teluk Bidara.

HOP: Ten Precious Days With My Kids

Sara showing guarded caution by standing on the other side of Captain Wong as he tries to put the seven week GSD puppy into a sitting position. He has a nice lawn beside his house beside the Cukai river in Kemaman.

Dr Zaffa choking on his tea as he comes face to face with his niece for the first time. Nina's aunt looks down benevolently from her perch by the door.

Now what else do kids get thrilled by?

Jinking it up at the DdD plot of land.

Down on Kuala Dungun beach.

My second and third brothers died in their infancy in 1951 and 1952 and were buried at this graveyard in Dungun. Unfortunately their gravestones were unmarked. I'm the only surviving person who knows of their burial.

Last month I took Zaliza to visit the graveyard. Two weeks ago I took my kids. At first they didn't feel good about it. I had to explain to them that it was an act of respect and charity to visit the dead.

The kids at the sea cave at Teluk Bidara where a month ago the Tomas Cedhagen family from Sweden also visited.

Sara and Nina with their country cousins and Auntie Munoh, at Guntong, Besut. The cousins and aunt, although country, are doing quite well thank you.

A rather nice shot of Sara at Teluk Bidara. Just as Mother would not leave her house without a bundle of plastic trash bags, so Sara would not venture out without bringing her nice kiddie bag of the moment along. In it you can find all her worldly possessions of the day minus the proverbial dead toad.

This is only the second meeting between Nina and her grandma, my mother. They met for the first time when Nina was six in September 2001 at the funeral of my father. The contrast between youth and age and their body English say something.

HOP: Harvest of photos.
June 1 - 11: Period kids with me.

Pulau Kapas, Fantasy Island: Harvest of Photos

The Captain is a hands-on manager of the Captain's Longhouse homestay. It has been his routine for much of a decade now to amble about the longhouse, the separate kitchen and dining outbuilding, the ample compound with a broom sweeping floors or a kitchen knife cutting onions and his perpetual pacifier - the almost always unlit pipe.

Stay long enough and you can turn into a good imitation of Somerset Maugham writing pen sketches of the colorful characters on Kapas island, the captain included.
His kitchen hand whose name I cannot recall is another. His is a Mr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character - a hard worker by day and a hard something else by night, well, on some nights anyway. Then there's the Dutch woman, the Mak Cik Gemok, her long-haired son, etc.

The view of the mainland from the beach front of the Longhouse.

Koh Han, Sara and Nina outside a small cave along the beach.

Sara walking on the white sand from the bar to the Longhouse. Sara is going through a phase of growing up blues and doesn't take kindly to her photo taken, often turning her back or hiding her face. She is making an exception of this one. And everywhere that Sara went, her kiddie baggie is sure to go ...

Nina playing badminton in front of the Longhouse.

There is a whole bunch of Orang Putih, mostly Dutch, who are sojourning at a duplex of chalets across the fence - a steep rocky outcrop actually - from the Longhouse who came over to party the night away on June 5 when we were there.

This is Jane, the only dog on Kapas island. She doesn't know she is a dog and thinks she is human. She is a friend to all unless you show fear and start to run in which case she would oblige by giving the chase, and bark, just to add growl to gruel. The millennium run then begins but is usually short-lived with only thumping hearts and embarrassed looks at the much ado over nothing. Other creatures frequently seen at the Longhouse include a snake, a monitor lizard, birds and squirrels.

Koh Han, as he likes to be called, being the eldest in his family, lending the Captain a strong hand to position a tempayan of pirates' punch - a concoction of the Captain's which presumably would have earned the yoho of the pirates of old.

Capt Longhouse looking his fiercest at his Dutch neighbor who came a-visiting bearing rusty tins of canned food as gifts. F-words were freely exchanged but they sound more like clucking chickens to me! There is a long standing feud between them over major issues of the world such as who burn the plastic rubbish and pollute the environment, etc. The Capt calls the Dutch woman a drama queen and she does look the part. They have been at each other's throats for years without a single drop of blood spilled so I guess you can say the scenes are taken out from the film set of Fantasy Island or the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Sara and Ajai having a spot of beach ping pong beside the Longhouse with the steps leading to the central courtyard in the background. A vessel of water stands at the bottom of the steps for washing sand off the feet.

Teo Chin Han and Captain Shariff Abbas at the central courtyard of the longhouse.

This is the central courtyard area of the longhouse at Captain's Longhouse, a homestay on the island.

Island people the world over tend to adopt different mannerisms or nurse some fantasy to differentiate themselves from mainlanders. Without completely going overboard, they would show a touch of flamboyance and insouciance just like pirates do. Just like clown fish and coral reef, pirates and islands have a symbiosis that has spawned many a high tale of adventure and romance. Pulau Kapas is no exception. See my other posting of the island.

Malaysian Father & Son CycleTouring On A Tandem

This is retired policeman Borhan bin Ahmad, 52, from Sungai Tiram, Johore, astride a tandem bicycle with his 10-year-old son on a cycling tour from Johore through Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Perak, Selangor, Melaka and back to Johore.

I chanced upon him on June 2 in Setiu along the Kuala Terengganu-Jertih road and we exchanged addresses.

Me & Sara On Kapas Island

I betcha David Beckham wouldn't be able to hold a candle to my beach bare when he turns 63! What with his drinking and westernizing, if you know what I mean! Pic taken by Nina.

Minding Mother

All old people experience a decline in their physical and mental health. The rate of decline is a variable and many causes are beyond our control. However there is still an ample margin in which we can do something to slow down its rate and spread. The rules of good health are generally well known. It is about eating, thinking and living right. Yet it is surprising how many people ignore the rules. Often it is a vicious spiral. Ignorance affects health and poor health worsens ignorance.

My mother is a case in point. Here are a few highlights. For the first time in her life, last week she condescended to take mutivitamin supplement. I gave her a 10-day supply of Shaklee's Vita-Lea. She also consented to have her nails cut with a nail clipper ... another life first. After the first time ended without drama or trauma, on the second occasion she actually asked to have them done!

Her list of peculiar ways are legend and legendary. She likes to keep plastic bags. Some have been piled up in corners and other odd spots - like under the cushion - in her house for years becoming dust traps and hiding places for cockroaches.

Taking her on an outing last week, I noticed her grabbing one of the plastic bags with more crumpled plastic bags inside as a sort of bundle and handbag as though she was bearing gifts or keeping her personal things. Maybe there were her personal things deep in the many layers of bags.

Her ailing ways are part real, part acting. Over the years and more pertinently, lately, the ailing is getting more real and the acting less. Work that out yourself! I'm not sure what I meant either! Hey, senescence is getting to me too!

No amount of advice to take care of her health by the rules of science can make her budge from her "cara sendiri" ways garnered from the pre-Japanese war days of her youth.

For one, she has never set a tooth brush to her mouth. She prefers to clean her teeth by rubbing it with salt. She does not use soap or shampoo. Maybe there's a point or two there which CAP might approve of. I don't know if my balding head is due to the use of shampoo.

She has never held a fork and spoon let alone chopsticks and on this one she is not about to chalk up another first!

Oh, and another lifelong habit she won't give up on is taking half an hour to finish her bathing. I take about two minutes. Hussein Hamid holds the record of five seconds when he was at MCKK. His glamor name then was Bacin which roughly translated means rotting fish.

Teaching Maths & Science in English

To end the controversy of whether to teach M&S in English or Bahasa Malaysia, I suggest we teach the subjects in both languages so students and teachers may choose to learn or teach in either language or using a mixture of both. That is what is happening in reality anyway. It is unnatural to force either teacher or student to work in a language they are not comfortable with and competent in. It is like trying to brush your teeth with your left hand. The instinct is to revert to the right hand.

Extending this logic further, we should also open up schools and other subjects to the same options. Let popular demand determine the outcome. In many cases the preference would be predictable. Rural schools would have a preponderance of subjects taught in and students opting for BM while urban schools would tend to show the opposite pattern. We need not segregate schools into English and Malay medium but have both in the same schools according to the teachers' and students' preferences. It is the best compromise where no one loses out. It is having the best of both worlds.

Down the line, make available texts and question papers in both languages so students can choose to take exams in either language (but not both?!).

The tug of war at an accident scene

The main eye-witness and helper cradling the victim while regaling onlookers with a blow-by-blow account of how it happened right in the middle of the busy Jalan Pasir Panjang road in Kuala Terengganu at about 8 pm on June 12.

After managing to persuade the helper cradling the victim and the onlookers to get the victim into the car of another onlooker who was willing to take him to hospital my contribution was minimal - just holding up a foot.

The accident victim at the Kuala Terengganu general hospital the following day with his brother by the bedside.

Time and again I've arrived on an accident scene to see onlookers onlooking and doing nothing. They just look, ask what happened, perhaps feel "there but for the grace of god goes I ... ", feel lucky it is not them, linger on and chat or discuss the mighty issues of the day which is of course the accident, or move on. Some express sympathy and might even help in some way like picking up scattered belongings if any and perhaps cradle the head of the fallen to give some semblance of comfort and sympathy. But the general shared feeling is one of not knowing what to do or not wanting to do the wrong thing.

Arriving on an accident scene, I'd size up the situation, and then try to get the onlookers to help pick up the fallen guy - if that is the best thing to do - and get him to hospital. I use my voice, body language and that all important gesture - the actual act of attempting to lift the guy up. Invariably the onlookers would galvanize into action and help carry the victim or victims. Moments earlier I would have asked from among the onlookers if anyone was able and willing to take the victim to hospital. In my experience, just by asking, someone would always volunteer up.

In this particular scenario, I had to play gentle tug of war with the guy who was cradling the head of the fallen victim. He wanted to stay on cradling the victim's head in the middle of the busy road because he said he didn't want to move the unconscious victim fearing he might feel pain or aggravate a broken bone. My concern was to get the victim to hospital as fast as possible.

The helper was not only cradling the head, he was also describing how he was the first to reach the victim and what he had seen to the onlookers. I suspect he was enjoying the role playing and the attention at the expense of taking the victim to hospital without unnecessary delay. The victim was also bleeding, all the more urgent not to tarry. After a minute or two he conceded to my urgent pleading and a number of us onlookers carried him to the car of another onlooker.

The following day I went to visit the victim at the hospital.

Kapas Island, Fantasy Island - I

Above: The Mak Cik Gemok complex of chalets on Kapas Island today where Bahrin used to work eight years ago. The lady behind the MCG name bought the land in the late 70s for peanuts and today she has just sold off the whole complex for a cool RM4 million. Standing under the name arch are Sara with her face turned away from the camera, Ajai, Ko Han and Nina during our visit to the island on June 5 - 6.

Above: Limah, Zaitun's daughter, and my mother at Limah's house during the visit.

Above: Zaitun and my mother at Limah's house in Rusila, Terengganu, last week. They had not met in years. I had not met Zaitun since she was 10. Now she has six children.

Sometime in 2001, two workers on Kapas Island off Terengganu crossed the narrow channel between the main island and the islet called Pulau Gemia in a double kayak. This is a routine trip which they do almost daily. On this fateful day, the kayakers disappeared. The body of one of them was recovered the following day but not that of the other. In fact both the other paddler and the whole 16-footer fibreglass kayak disappeared without trace. All efforts, both mundane and by bomohs, fail to come up with any evidence. The missing youth had a RM36,000 insurance on his life but because they could not find his body, the insurance was not paid out. In the absence of any hard evidence, unveriafiable stories of the spooky kind abound. One has it that an apparition resembling the missing youth, complete with lifejacket and kayak paddle, is sometimes sighted.

The name of the lost youth is Bahrin Sulaiman and he happens to be related to me in some way. I met his younger sister, Zaitun, last week and it was she who told me the story.

I proposed to Zaitun and her mother, Limah, 78, that we visit Pulau Kapas and go to the beach nearest where he disappeared and cry out his name in the hope that his apparition might make an appearance. Then we would ask how he was doing and whatnot. This would provide the emotional closure to the whole episode. The trip and the attempt to contact him would provide symbolic closure if his apparition does not make an appearance.

Limah balked at the idea but we argued that she was the best hope to get Bahrin's response. My calling his name might work too as I had one or two close encounters with him when he was still alive. I used to coach him in boxing.

So readers, watch this space, and you might yet get a sequel to this story if we do get to go on a ghost hunt.