SEPT 19 ― In a Malaysia that is becoming more racially polarised and
economically dichotomised, the passing of my Chinaman friend, Yap Keng
Hock, on August 14 was a sad moment.
We, his Melayu friends, called him China Yap and he loved every bit
of it. We could very well be the last Malaysians who could call each
other by our “bangsa” and not a bit offended by it.
But in public, we would refrain from calling out to each other by our
bangsa ― Melayu and China ― for fear that we might offence the
sensibilities of the new Malaysian generation who are not used to the
kind of camaraderie that once defined our multiracial and cross cultural
relationship.
Our group comprised the late Captain Mahyuddin Ahmad of Kulim, Kedah;
Yap, the executive director of Media Prima Berhad; Ahmad A. Talib and
yours truly.
Mahyuddin and Yap collaborated in business. When Mahyuddin was a
manager at Marco Shoes in Klang, Yap supplied moulds and dyes for Nike
shoes that the company was then manufacturing under licence. Yap learned
mould and dye making in Japan when he was sent there by his early
employer, Matsushita.
Mahyuddin went on to set up a mill in Kulim to produce castrating
rings for animal husbandry. Mahyuddin’s business was inherited by his
children and all of Yap’s four children are working in the family
business together with Yap’s younger brother, Gary.
When I was introduced to Yap in the late 1970’s, he was running a
makeshift foundry in Klang. I noted in my report in the Business Times
newspaper that his foundry looked more like a pigsty than a factory.
He enjoyed every bit of the report and told me later that even
American bankers found his story inspiring. When the factory caught fire
and was totally destroyed, he built a better one.
Yap was indeed a kampung boy who made good thanks to his Malay and
English education, and the fact that he was born and raised in a mixed
rural town in Negeri Sembilan.
Today, there aren’t that many Malays like Mahyuddin and Chinese like
Yap, who attended bilingual multi-ethnic schools where the command of
the Malay and English languages built bridges and tore down communal
fences.
Sadly today, the Malays and other Bumiputeras attend national
schools, the Chinese go to Chinese-type national schools and
Tamil-speaking Indians go to Tamil-type national schools.
They all call themselves national, but they are separated by
geography, language, culture and quality of education. To add to the
confusion we also have private and international schools where the
better-off parents are free to send their children.
Little surprise that when products of this fractured school system
meet each other in later life, they are already influenced by deep
racial, religious and cultural biases that makes the fostering of a true
bangsa Malaysia nearly impossible.
As I grow older and many of good friends of those unprejudiced times
are either dead or struck down by age-related illnesses, I look back at
the past with a mixture of satisfaction and nostalgia that we were once
true Malayans (and later Malaysians). Wallahualam. ―
kadirjasin.blogspot.com
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