The Englishman and his Chinoserie Mission

mGf Yan@yantouch.wordpress.com recalls someone who has had left a strong imprint of her growing days -- it's a case of her finding what I believe "The Singer and His Song" comtemporarneously.

BIG word, used out of necessity.

" The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

contemporary

SYLLABICATION: con·tem·po·rar·y
PRONUNCIATION: kn-tmp-rr
ADJECTIVE: 1. Belonging to the same period of time: a fact documented by two contemporary sources. 2. Of about the same age. 3. Current; modern: contemporary trends in design.

NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. con·tem·po·rar·ies
1. One of the same time or age: Shelley and Keats were contemporaries. 2. A person of the present age.
ETYMOLOGY: Medieval Latin contemporrius : Latin com-, com- + Latin tempus, tempor-, time + Latin -rius, -ary.
OTHER FORMS: con·tempo·rari·ly (-tmp-râr-l) — ADVERB


Sisdar Yan aka Phyllis Wong in the more formal settings of Chinese and English press world, particularly in The Land Below The Wind, wrote a piece yesterday that resonated with Desi's mental landscape of late -- fidning his way back as a Malaysian with Chinese blood ancestry, trying to find the best of the cultures -- historical and present and future -- that impacted/continue to impact on a national of a country entering its 50th year of nationhood. We are a people in "transition" -- hence many among my category are fidning out slowly the ripeness of the "bana" in me. Banana is a rcih fruit commonly found in many lands -- even in the wild -- so it's not a disparaging comparision. Be thee proud, Saudara Mave SM, that your, okay, my, yes, Our Prime Minister, Pak Lah, likes to eat bananas! Furthermore, he had much Chinoserie blood flowing through his (and his beloved wife, the late Endon Mahmood's, bless her soul) veins.

From "Yan’s Corner - In Touch
Home September 25th, 2006

I left part of myself in Sarawak

"Thanks to Winnie of The Connection for putting up a Hymn of Praise written by Rev David Hill MacDonald that prompted me to find out this interview done by me on 13th September 2002 and published in The Borneo Post.

"I have the priviledge of walking down memory lane with some very imspiring and distinguished persons for the past four months in my course of work. Life of journalist is colourful and just full of life!

If you are from Sarawak, in particular from Sibu, if you are struggling with learning of Chinese, if you want to know what’s Bishop’s Soup, if you want to know how a person could leave part of himself in Sarawak and take part of Sarawakians with him, please read on …. it’s a little of history, may be nostaligic to some, but surely all honour and glory go to God!



'The engine throbs into life, and the boat vibrates... People are still clambering up the gangplank, women carrying children and bundles of vegetables, followed by other small children sucking on ice-cream…

Highways are waterways in Sarawak. Some people ply the river in small craft powered by outboard motors, but most are content to let the public launch trundle them home from market.

Bicycles, sacks of meal, oil-drums, timber, pigs, hens, ducks, edibles and passengers all seem to constitute a legitimate load...'


This was how Rev David Hill MacDonald described Sarawak, in particular Sibu back in 1959.

Rev MacDonald was one of the early missionary pastors from England who served in Sarawak from 1957 to 1960.

After 42 years, he is back “home” here in Sibu. During the afternoon at Ida Mamora’s house, I joined Rev MacDonald as he reminisced about life back then. He bantered on about old friends, missionary work, the youths in Sarawak, sowing seeds, and studying Chinese."

~~~~~~~~~~

I am always beguiled by Chinese classics like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin and Dreams of the Red Chamber?; oh yes, those martial arts movies,made famous by Bruce Lee, Ti Lung, and Jet Li, Chow Yun Fatt, Chen Loong? -- but pretty "selectively". I tried reading the originals in Mandarin, but patience being not such a youthful virtue, this half-baked 'goreng pisang', (Theels, does this description fit thee?) often gave in to temptation reading the English translations, often abridged. It was through direct exchanges with Mr Coww -- who just came back from doing seven months' International Service! in China; bordeless world, remember? -- that prompted Desi's write yesterday on his China's journey "second home". I'd put down anything I plan to do when Mr Coww calls for a coffee talk while I sip teh-C. Holy Cow, How apt, a 2-in-1! -- a more scholarly Chinoserie plus Shakespearean classicist combined into one is hard to come by than Mr Coww.

And tonight we are planning a Royale Banquet with Miss Zhang Ziyi!Indeed, many of us are Coming Home.

Don't anyone here accuse Desi and friends of being any less patriotic merely on account that we also appreciate our cultutral roots. WE were born with Chinoserie blood -- no one can change that FACT! -- and in defining patriotism to King and Country, I would refer any contending Thomases to refer to two Merdeka Day Essay Series in this humble blog.

Back to present day's nostalgic journey back to just before and after Merdeka 1957 Malaya -- when Sarawak and Sabah had NOT joined the later expanded Malaysia -- Yan's article recorded a common feature that impacted loys on the Malayan residents in the British settlement days. When the British and their stiff upper lipped British Residents and Estate managers and British companies' bosses, led lives of leisure and pleasure served by Chinese samfoo-ed maids and Ahmad chauffeurs, and the Indian gardener at their Master's and Maam's beck and call in their villas. In Kuala Lumpur, they rank their stengah at the Dog and in rigid. regimented ways stole glances at the local Chinese lasses with their bee-shaped slender bods waspin/wisping by as the maddogs played cricket in the blazing killer Malayan sun.

Quite a "breed" (again this word is used with that positive quality, unlike normal disdainful one, in it:)apart from these upper class of colonials were the missionaries. They took as their first task to learning the local languages, inclduing Chinese, Malay, and some rare species, maybe Tamil. mGf Yan's nostalgic story yesterday reaffirms in my mind that despite all the "evils" of British dominance, there is a treasure they left us which enriched?continues to enich our Malaysian ways -- their language. And to some grateful sections of the population,the Missionary Work in the outskirts that brought early benefits of the civilizational process. The opening of the mind.

People like Yan and Desi will forever have a place in their hearts for this brave class of souls who ventured out of home territory to serve. Service beyond self. Like what some writers also learn to do, but often several walks behind. That sort of service is for people fired by a calling. A writer's call can be hot and fiery -- but never nigh that of a man called to be a voice fo The Word. I can say with privileged knowledge Yan and Mr Coww possess some of thhat fire. For Desi, by contrats, it's merely candle light.

When that runs out, we make do catching some fireflies among the bushes and throns and twigs, yes?