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Borneo Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Borneo Post
Australia Northern Territory minister's visit reinforces relations with Sarawak
Chan (third left) presents a memento to Cahill. At second right is Hii. KUCHING (June 28): The Australia Northern Territory Government hosted a networking dinner here in conjunction with its Minister for Trade, Business and Asian Relations Robyn Cahill's visit to Sarawak recently. Cahill, who led a seven-member delegation, was in the state capital to discuss potential cooperation between Sarawak and the Northern Territory, given their shared interest in a number of common areas. Representing the state government at the event was Deputy State Secretary Datu Hii Chang Kee, said Sarawak Australia Business Chamber president Rodger Chan in a statement today. In his speech at the dinner, Chan said the programme marked Cahill's first visit to Sarawak. 'This is significant as she has skipped other parts of Malaysia. 'This shows the Northern Territory Government's and her seriousness in engaging with Sarawak. 'There is also a Department of Asian Relations in her government, and this shows how the Northern Territory Government is serious about and focusing on Asia,' he said. Chan added that Cahill's visit to Sarawak reignited the long-standing relationship between Australia and Sarawak, noting that this year marked the 70th anniversary of Australia-Malaysia diplomatic relationship. 'It also marks the 80th anniversary of the landing of Australia and ANZAC forces landing in Bario under Operation Semut. In fact, Australia was here more than 80 years ago to help Sarawak in defending the Japanese occupation,' added Chan. He said since the 1950s, many Sarawakians had, under the Colombo Plan programme, benefitted from Australia tertiary education, and many of them had become leaders of Sarawak. 'The guestimate is that over 40,000 Sarawakians were educated in Australia – not counting those who studied in the two Australian university campuses in Sarawak.' Chan said many people were not aware that the Colombo Plan did not stop at education, as it also extended to infrastructures and services. 'An Australian engineering firm designed and built the Satok Bridge under the Colombo Plan. 'I think we should capitalise, monetise and build on this long-standing relationship. 'There are opportunities aplenty in many fields including green energy, digital technologies, tourism, education, health, trade and sports,' he added. Australia Northern Territory Kuching Robyn Cahill
The Wire
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Wire
Remembering Jim Masselos, a Historian With a Unique Sensibility
History An urban sociologist reminisces on her 40-year friendship with the Australian who contributed to understanding the urban cultures that organised early and mid-20th century Bombay/Mumbai. Jim Masselos (1940-2025) passed away in a Sydney hospital on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. I knew that the end was near; I had talked to him twice in April and realised that his energy was fading and he was taking longer to converse and yet it is difficult to believe that he is no more. In April, we talked about the terror attack in Pahalgam, the changing geopolitics in the world and US president Donald Trump's attack on academia. He was also sad about what was happening to South Asian scholarship in Australia and yet hopeful that the tide would soon turn as young people realise how important it is to do academic work and research on South Asia. I first met Jim in the early 1980s but knew of him before through a childhood friend Navaz Patuck : the Patuck family home in Pali Hill being an open house to so many passing foreigners who came to Bombay. I distinctly remember our first encounter at Samovar, the iconic restaurant at Jehangir Art Gallery. I was doing a doctorate on Ahmedabad's early history and its textile industry and wanted to discuss the parallel trends between the two cities of Bombay and Ahmedabad, both being framed by this industry. Our conversations soon drifted elsewhere because M.F. Hussain was sitting somewhere nearby (for long Samovar was Hussain's haunt). It allowed Jim to start talking about Bombay's culture and the contribution of the progressive movement in art to its history. Did this happen in Ahmedabad and if not, why not, he asked? Since then, we met almost every time he came to India and our paths criss-crossed either in Mumbai or Delhi and sometimes in Kolkata and Hyderabad. Our meetings increased because by then we had a mutual friend in Alice Thorner, another constant visitor and a lover of the city of Mumbai. Our conversations (sometimes with Alice) always drifted towards comprehending the history of the city, Bombay's cultural scene, its immersion in its version of modernity and its cosmopolitan ambience, together with vigilante politics and unplanned urban growth. What did these trends have to do with post-colonial nationalism, we wondered. High tide at Girgaon Chowpatty in Mumbai, Friday, June 27, 2025. Photo: PTI. Jim arrived in India as part of the Colombo Plan which gave scholarships to those who wanted to study in the newly independent countries of Asia – he was one of the first Australians who took this opportunity, travelled to Bombay and completed a doctorate at Bombay University on nationalist ideas in Bombay. He stayed at the Bombay University's hostel at B. Road, Churchgate and met up with many who were studying at that time in Bombay university. Most of these students became his friends and he kept in touch with them over the next four decades as they traversed their own careers as Bombay's and India's politicians, lawyers and intellectuals – part of the newly mobile group educating themselves under the Nehruvian project of the making of modern India. Over time, I met some of them because Jim had a great gift for keeping relationships and learning the current history of India through their eyes. During his early years in Bombay, Jim would walk around the city and discover its nooks and corners and the various neighbourhood settlements of distinct communities living in the city. As we know, this cultivated gaze impacted his historical work (which he later analysed as the intersections between space, identity and community) and allowed him to give us, the readers an insight into urban neighbourhood cultures. Also read: Remembering Jim Masselos, the Australian Scholar of Bombay's Social History In a recent assessment, Prashant Kidambi (2019) has suggested that Jim's distinctive contribution to Bombay's historiography can be understood at four levels. Not only did he document ways in which urban communities were historically reconstituted in the modern city but emphasised how they used their own tools of modernity to do so. Second, Jim highlighted significance of urban space in understanding the city and third, focused on how diverse forms of power have structured social relations in the city. And finally, he has also been concerned with how one form of power – nationalism – sought to acquire and exercise hegemony in the city, sometimes to its detriment. But Jim, through these travels across the city, also became a collector of old books and that of old and new art as it was being in fashioned in Bombay. He learnt not only to become an archivist but also an art historian and a curator of art exhibitions. In the course of his walks across south Mumbai, he started collecting old books sold on the pavements of Flora Fountain and over time accumulated publications not only of late 19th and early 20th century British and Indian authors but also official government reports on the history of the city and on India. When I visited him in Sydney for the first time in the mid-90s, I realised that he had collected colonial documents which included almost all the Royal Commission Reports published by the British. His home had become a make-shift archive and in case anyone wanted to navigate around the rooms in his house, one had to skip and jump over these piles of books lying on the floor and find a comfortable sofa/chair that was empty of such publications. That being difficult, we would end up sitting in his kitchen or conversing at a southeast Asian restaurant at the corner of the street. (Jim was trying to donate this collection of books to a library in Sydney. However, this seemed to be the wrong time – not only was South Asian history/studies not popular in Australia but with a lack of physical space and ongoing digitalisation, no library-administrator was interested in accepting these late 19th century and early 20th century primary sources on India). But most significantly, what was important was the art he collected as he visited the galleries sponsoring the progressive painters in the city and which he collated as he travelled around the country. He had Catholic tastes and his collection included Kutchi embroidery, pichwai, miniature paintings, a dancing Nataraj and the artwork of the Bombay progressive artist Tyeb Mehta, for example. This artwork was depicted prominently across all the available wall space in his home. Thus, in addition to being an archive, his home had become an art gallery! (Later he also collected some Australian Indigenous paintings and hung them up with the Indian paintings). 'Dancing to the Flute - Music and Dance in Indian Art'. Jim had an exhibition of the art in his collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the mid-90s. The catalogue was called Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in the Art of India. (In the last decade, he has donated some of these paintings to the NSW gallery, but these lie in the basement!) During this exhibition, he also organised a seminar on four decades of social science scholarship on India, giving us a lens on how he combined art and social sciences in one persona. It is then that I came to realise that Jim was also an enthusiastic art curator and his understanding of Indian art led him to collaborate with the journal Marg and the noted art historian B. N. Goswamy. In the late 2000s he brought groups of Australians to introduce them to India's art heritage and his understanding of it. For the conference in the mid-1990s, he pushed me to write an essay on M.N. Srinivas's contribution to Indian sociology. This was what started me on my project to study the disciplinary history of sociology in India, which still continues. During this Sydney visit, I also discovered that Jim was a brilliant photographer. I had noticed him taking photographs earlier, but when I saw the photographs on his computer, I realised that he had brought his unique historical sensibility to his photographs. Since then, Jim has brought out two volumes on photographs combining company photographs with his own current ones in a then and now text: Bombay Then and Now and Beato's Delhi (text written with Delhi historian Narayani Gupta). In the early 1990s, Alice brought to me a project to put together a conference on Bombay. The idea, she said, came from Jim who during a breakfast conversation at Delhi's India International Centre, asked how an urban historian should write about contemporary Bombay. This led to the organisation of a conference on Bombay in December 1992 and the publication of two volumes – Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture and Bombay: Metaphor of Modern India. Jim wrote a paper for the second volume. But even as we were preparing the two books for publication, we (Alice, Jim and I) knew that Bombay had changed fundamentally after the 1992-93 riots and that we needed to capture the recent changes. With Alice passing away, Jim and I put together a third volume titled Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition. Recently, when the published fourth volume reached him, Jim stated that he had not realised that his innocent question of what it means to write on contemporary Bombay as an urban historian would lead to four volumes on the city. Jim's contribution to scholarship was quiet but significant. Never to brag about himself, he was a soft and gentle scholar/person full of generosity for others. After Rachel Dwyer, Prashant Kidambi and Manjiri Kamat put together a Festschrift, a volume on his honour ('Bombay before Mumbai' in 2019) and Robert Aldrich organised a conference around his scholarship in Sydney in February 2020, I saw a satisfied expression on his face and in his body language, a sense of pride and fulfilment that his colleagues had honoured him and acknowledged his contributions. Characteristically, he gave a sheepish smile and silently accepted the accolades that they bestowed upon him. That was Jim. Urban sociologist Sujata Patel retired as Professor of Sociology from the University of Hyderabad in 2018. Patel and Masselos collaborated to edit a volume on Bombay, one of four volumes that Patel has co-edited on the city. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Borneo Post
31-05-2025
- General
- Borneo Post
Reminiscing the old days in civil service
Chan (right) and his brother-in-law Pang Ming Lee posing in front of the Miri Post Office, in this photo taken in 1988. WHEN I met 91-year-old Chan Choon Chieng for our interview in Miri recently, I was really amazed by his sharp mind. I'm a retiree myself, yet I do not know that the current Miri Post Office near the Miri Civic Centre is not the original site. Chan does. The former head postmaster confirmed to me that prior to 1977, the city's post office occupied a section of the Miri Resident's and District Office (Rando) building. 'Back then, during my younger days, that old post office was quite a happening place. 'When the post office moved to the new premises near the Miri Civic Centre, the office of the 'Majlis Islam' (Islamic Council) occupied the Rando Miri site,' said Chan as he recounted to me his life in Miri over the past 40 years. Chan is now enjoying his retirement in Miri. 'Before and during postmaster's days' It was reported that the Miri City Council (MCC) had recently proposed for 'Miri's Kilometre (KM) Zero' to be set up in front of the Miri Rando building, aimed at making that point a significant historical and tourism site for the city. When told about the Miri KM Zero idea, Chan was beyond happy, making him more enthusiastic to tell me about his days as a civil servant. 'Initially, I wanted to work in the JKR (Public Works Department) as technician, but my application was rejected,' he chuckled. 'Then, I applied to the Post and Telegraph Department; back then, it was an agency under the Crown Colonial Government. 'I secured the post of a postal and telegraph clerk, and I started on May 1, 1960, with a monthly salary of $150 a month. Also, this job came with a yearly increment of $5. 'Then in 1962, I was sent to Singapore for postal training under the Colombo Plan for three months. 'In 1971, I was transferred to the Sarawak General Post Office in Kuching and after five months, I was transferred back to Miri where not long after that, I was promoted assistant postmaster. 'Then in 1977, I was sent to the Kuala Lumpur headquarters for an in-service training for one-and-a-half month, and to the Penang Post Office for another one-and-a-half month. 'At the time, the Miri Post Office was still within the Rando Miri building at Kingsway. 'It was relocated to its own building at Sylvia Road in 1976, when I was promoted the head postmaster.' Chan said the nation's postal services provider underwent restructuring in 1984, and this was followed by privatisation. However, it was a good change for him as he was promoted to assistant director of post and eventually, he became the senior assistant director until his retirement in 1989. 'In 1986, I was awarded the 'Pingat Perkhidmatan Bakti' (Loyal Service Award) by the Governor of Sarawak. 'It was during my time at Miri Post Office in 1987 that I saw an extension of its service, from having 1,000 P.O. (post office) boxes to 2,500. 'The building also underwent major beautification works,' he said. (It is noteworthy to mention that in those days, owning a P.O. box signified one's high status in society. An individual P.O. box was regarded as a business address, in that the person could afford the rather high fee to rent one unit. Thus, the rise in the number of P.O. boxes recorded by Miri Post Office indicated its positive growth in terms of the services provided.) Adding on, Chan cited the special recognition accorded to Miri Post Office just before his retirement as among his best memories in the civil service. 'In 1989, just before I retired, a group of judges from the national headquarters had adjudged Miri Post Office as 'The Model Post Office in Malaysia'. 'I was so proud of our department, mostly because we really adhered to the five-year government's austerity drive when our staff did all the repainting work on the building and carried out the beautification without ever hiring a contractor.' Chan looking sharp in a bush jacket, his usual office attire during his senior-officer years at the Miri Post Office. 'Of oil company, and Singapore' Chan's family actually hailed from Singapore. In 1927, his father responded to a recruitment drive conducted by Sarawak Oil Fields Ltd, the forerunner of Sarawak Shell. 'This was in the 1920s when Sarawak Oil Company was looking for good workers and it needed recommendations from Singapore and Hong Kong. 'Unlike today where jobseekers can apply online, my father Chan Heng came to Miri all the way from Singapore in 1927 with a recommendation letter from Singapore Chinese Engineering Association to support his application to work for the oil company. 'Soon my mother, Chong Sin, came over from China to marry my father in 1930. 'My sister was born in 1933, and I, on July 4, 1934. 'Our house then was at the Shell barracks, which used to occupy a site at the present-day Kwang Tung Road. 'My grandmother Loi Ha, from China, came to join us in 1937,' Chan spoke about his family. In 1940, Chan went to a Chinese primary school at China Street, but this was very short-lived as the school was taken down by the Japanese who invaded Miri in December 1941. 'We had to move to Krokop. Miri was very badly bombed,' he recalled. After the war, Shell Company began to re-employ its workers, including Chan's father. 'However, in 1947, my father left Shell and the family returned to Singapore, with the intention of migrating to Hong Kong later on. 'But this plan never materialised. I ended up attending a Chinese school in Singapore – a combined kindergarten and primary education that lasted for about five years.' Chan accepting his 'Pingat Perkhidmatan Bakti' from then-Head of State of Sarawak, Tun Datuk Patinggi Haji Ahmad Zaidi Adruce, back in 1986. 'Embracing Miri as home' Fate took the Chans back to Miri. 'Father brought us back to Miri in 1950, where he obtained work at Chop Kit Siang, looking after the ship engine of MV Loon. 'In 1951, I joined Ngu Khoon Workshop and became its apprentice. 'In the morning, I went to St Joseph's Primary School at Brighton Road, where I attended until Primary 6. 'In the afternoon, I did motor repairs and welding works, but I stopped once I entered secondary school. 'In those days, the older teens were doing their best to obtain formal education. Many were still in primary school in their mid-teens.' In 1959, Chan obtained Grade 3 in the Sarawak Local Junior Examination. 'Tai Chi every day' Chan said he always had deep interest in the martial arts, and in 1972, he had the opportunity to learn Tai Chi. 'I do Tai chi exercises every day to maintain health and wellness. 'I believe I get to live up until 91, all thanks to Tai Chi – the moves bring the energy, power and force that travel through the body, and give vitality to every cell.' I agreed with the man. When we met, I felt that his handshake was one of the most powerful that anybody could ever experience! I definitely felt the solid steel grip. Chan is the sole surviving student of a Tai Chi school located near the present-day Gloria Hotel in Miri. Since 1972, he has never stopped practising Tai Chi. He does his exercise at Bulatan Park Miri almost every day, as long as the weather condition permits. 'To me, the true essence of Tai Chi is the journey of continuous self-improvement,' he said. Chan looking sharp in a bush jacket, his usual office attire during his senior-officer years at the Miri Post Office. 'Bad experience with Special Branch' Chan said while he was generally happy with how his career had turned out, there was a 'dark period' that he felt was an injustice to him. 'Now I'm in my 90s, I think I can disclose this now,' he said, which piqued my curiosity. 'It was in the 1960s,' he began the story. 'In that period, many Chinese were suspected of being involved in subversive elements. 'Seeing myself as a very faithful and loyal Malaysian, I was surprised and very upset by the smearing campaign targeting many of my fellow Chinese. 'Even more upsetting was how the Police Special Branch, at the time, were very diligent – in the most wrongful kind of way, I must say – in documenting their suspicion.' Chan said he was among a few of those fortunate ones to have gone through such an ordeal and come out alright. 'I had a file, but it has long been 'declassified'. 'Still, I have that lump in my throat whenever I think about it, especially about one particular Special Branch man who made my life miserable.' He continued: 'In those days letters to China were intercepted by the Special Branch, and I believed that he had intercepted my letters to China addressed to a Mr Wong, a former neighbour during our days in the Shell barracks. 'Wong had attended the Chung Hua School at Brighton Road in Miri before returning to China. 'In my letters to him, I did express frustration over the Brits (British) selling opium in China. 'According to my grandmother, my grandfather was once a wealthy merchant, but he ended up bankrupt and later, died penniless, all because of opium addiction.' Chan said the Special Branch had ordered for a room to be provided for their man in Miri Post Office. 'That Special Branch guy really made it hard for me. He needed a promotion and thus, he made me a scapegoat of his every accusation. 'For years, my file remained active under the watch of the Special Branch, and was passed over to any new officer coming in. 'But I stood firm to my belief that I was always loyal to the Malaysian government. 'It took some two decades of changes in politics for my file to be declared 'unverified and unproven'. 'I was able to attain honourable retirement in 1989. 'I proved my loyalty and resilience, but most importantly, nothing bad ever happened to my family. 'The truth prevailed.' Chan (second left) seen among the welcoming committee during a visit by Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, to Miri in 1988. 'Life outside work' Today, Chan is enjoying retirement with his wife Pang Nyuk Foo, 86, who hails from Niah and is a former government midwife. The couple is blessed with two sons: Chan Chun Lee, a bachelor who is a retired company manager; and Chan Meng Lee, a successful businessman now living in Johor Bahru with his wife and their two children. 'Life for us cannot be any better. I am very content.' Right after retirement, Chan joined the Chinese Engineering Association of Miri and got elected as a committee member in 1990. Later, he was made the secretary, which he served for six years until he was elected the association's chairman – a post that he held until 2022. Now, his daily routine comprises going to bed at 9pm and waking up at 5am; getting his Tai Chi exercise in the morning; and then going for breakfast with friends at the Bulatan Commercial Centre. 'After that, it's daily shopping at Krokop 10 Market. 'These activities help me stay active and also bring me closer to the community,' he smiled. 1980s Chan Choon Chieng Miri Post Office
The Star
27-05-2025
- General
- The Star
Lun Bawang sun hats now on show at Sarawak Museum
Hats off: The two Lun Bawang sun hats recently donated to the Sarawak Museum Department. KUCHING: A century-old headhunter's parang and two Lun Bawang sun hats from the 1960s are among five artefacts donated to the Sarawak Museum Department. State Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the parang was received from an individual named Mangu Bueng, who said it had been in his family's possession for almost 100 years. The donor said the parang originally belonged to a group of headhunters who confronted his ancestor in the early 1900s. 'In the ensuing fight, he managed to snatch one of their parangs, and brought it back to Kampung Tebakang Bidayuh, where it became a treasured family heirloom,' he said in his winding-up speech at the Sarawak legislative assembly yesterday. Abdul Karim said the Lun Bawang sun hats were obtained by a foreign couple, Bill and Pam Lavery, during the formation of Malaysia in 1963. He said Bill was posted to Limbang in northern Sarawak in 1963 as a teacher and later served as headmaster under the Canadian Colombo Plan aid. 'The Lavery family left Sarawak in 1965. 'The hats were later passed on to their son, John Lavery, who entrusted it to the Sarawak Museum for safekeeping,' Abdul Karim said. In addition, two unglazed ceramic vases from Santubong were received from an individual named Mohd Rizal Bujang, who claimed that they were discovered in the 1970s by his late father Bujang Abdullah and two others while fishing off the coast of Santubong. 'I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to these donors. 'We hope their generosity inspires others to contribute their historical collections to the Sarawak Museum, ensuring future generations can appreciate our rich heritage,' Abdul Karim said.
The Star
27-05-2025
- General
- The Star
Lun Bawang sun hats among five artefacts donated to Sarawak Museum
The 1960s Lun Bawang sun hats recently donated to the Sarawak Museum. KUCHING: Two Lun Bawang sun hats from the 1960s have been donated to the Sarawak Museum Department from a family posted to Sarawak under the Colombo Plan. State Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the sun hats were obtained by Bill and Pam Lavery during the formation of Malaysia in 1963. "Bill Lavery was posted to Limbang that same year as a teacher and later served as headmaster under the Colombo Plan of external aid of the Canadian government to Sarawak. "The Lavery family left Sarawak in 1965. The hats were later passed on to their son, John Lavery, who entrusted them to the Sarawak Museum for safekeeping," he told the Sarawak Legislative Assembly in his winding-up speech on Tuesday (May 27). The Colombo Plan was established in 1951 following a meeting of Commonwealth foreign ministers in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to assist in socioeconomic development in South and South-East Asia. The 1960s Lun Bawang sun hats recently donated to the Sarawak Museum. The sun hats were among five artefacts recently donated to the Sarawak Museum, Karim said. He said an old parang was received from the descendants of Mangu Bueng of Tebakang, Serian, who said it had been in his family for almost 100 years. "The donor said the parang originally belonged to a group of headhunters who confronted Bueng and his wife in the early 1900s. "In the ensuing fight, Bueng fought bravely and took one of their parang. He brought it back to Kampung Tebakang Bidayuh, where it became a treasured family heirloom," he said. In addition, two unglazed ceramic vases from Santubong were received from Mohd Rizal Bujang. "According to the donor, the pottery was discovered in the 1970s by his late father Bujang Abdullah, together with the late Ibni Zen and the late Othman Zen, while fishing off the coast of Santubong," Karim said. Extending his gratitude to the donors, he hoped their generosity would inspire others to contribute historical artefacts to the Sarawak Museum. "This will ensure that future generations can appreciate our rich heritage," he added.
