Recording a bygone age

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 12 June 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

Here’s another first-time novelist who’s embarking on a literary career – at the ripe old age of 81! PHILIP GOLINGAI speaks to the engaging Chong Seck Chim, who has startlingly similar ideas about not writing ‘about our grandfather’ that a certain young first-time writer has.

“Everybody has a ‘life’, especially by the time you’ve become a senior citizen,” Chong explains. “You know people and their stories. You have your own. And you weave them together.”

Chong Seck Chim

And what the ex-Malaysian ambassador to Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) has woven is a 184-page novel set against the tumultuous backdrop of Japanese-occupied Malaya, and which follows the escapades of Ah Kiew.

He started weaving his tale a few years ago. As one who writes to amuse himself, he took his time because “I’m not beating any deadline.”

There’s no doubt, he adds, that being a former book reviewer for a local English daily helped.

“I’m my best critic. I’m a very impatient man. I don’t have time to stay with a book that goes on and on,” says Chong, who used to write Geography textbooks for the Oxford University Press.

Nevertheless, “just like cooking, you can read all the wonderful cookery books, but when it comes to the crunch, you must have the skill, aptitude and interest to put all the ingredients together.”

Is he Ah Kiew, the protagonist?

“Yes and no. The novel has facts mixed with fiction. It has to be, otherwise who cares about the ordinary life of Ah Kau and Chandra? Our lives are not that exciting after all.

“I wouldn’t say it is a historical book, but it’s a record of the past and will bring memories for people like me, who lived through the war.

“I belong to an age that has gone. There are so many things in my book that talk about the past, which obviously no one in your generation can know of as nobody talks about the old times.”

On his memory of the Japanese Occupation, Chong says: “I was in Kuala Lumpur and the war seemed so remote to us. It was peaceful, unlike the upheavals in Seremban and Johor Baru, where the Japanese had ‘cleaning up’ operations against the Chinese.”

Many of his contemporaries feel the urge to write a book, he notes. “They get it published on their own as they cannot find a publisher. No wonder ? because their stories are so self-centred. But one must be humble to realise that we do not belong to a momentous epoch, like in China.

“Our (Malaysian) experience is not that world-shaking. We could write about our grandfather, who we might think is one hell of a man. But the average reader might not agree. So, inevitably, you have to invent. That’s what I have done with my book.”

His next writing project?

“Time is running out,” says the man who reads French books to keep his mind sharp. “That alone is a big deterrent. And let’s face it, I don’t have the stamina and drive any more.”

Looks like Once Upon A Time in Malaya will be his one and only novel. “Unless I happen to get a fantastically good idea,” Chong says.

Then the old man’s face lights up as he adds, “What I would like to do is write a book like Harry Potter, but based on Chinese mythology.”