A Blast on a Birthday

It was supposed to be a quiet birthday celebration together, just the two of us. A whole day enjoying the spring Monday Bank Holiday of 1980; the first time I celebrated the birthday of my husband of a few months. It was a beautiful day but we chose to remain indoors, perhaps a quiet dinner later at Khans of Bayswater or El Efez, our two favourite haunts.

In spite of the hustle bustle outside the window; the whole world walking in droves towards the park, we refused to budge and sat lazily on the sofa watching what must have been a John Wayne movie. And then, it happened. First the programme was interrupted to show developments on the events that had the world glued to the TV for the past few days. It was to be the latest on the siege of the Iranian embassy in Princes Gate, across the park from where we were.

On 30th April 1980, a six-man team of the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRMLA), took over the embassy, taking 26 hostages; staff and people who had gone there to get visas to travel. They killed a hostage and threw the body outside the building,

This was my first taste of terrorism, bomb blasts and security alerts; with more to come.

On the screen, several men (SAS) were seen on the balcony of the building and before too long, we heard what seemed like a distant thunder; both on screen and from outside the window. It was real drama unfolding almost at our doorsteps. It was scary. We looked outside the window and people stopped in their tracks and were looking at the black smoke billowing from across the park. Within a few minutes, five gunmen were killed and 19 hostages were saved.

Yes, I still remember the evening of 5th May 1980. London, or rather the UK has always been a playing field, fertile grounds for foreign terrorist groups or freedom fighters, depending on how you see it.
Tomorrow, 29 years on, we are hoping for a quiet celebration, with four children and five cats.


Happy Birthday AG and thank you.

I feel a syaer coming but that will have to wait.








The one I prepared earlier:
Syaer untuk Sang Suami

When Awang Meets The Pengembara at the Royal Asiatic Society

Thanks to: www.mamoo.tv
Since the birth of GUIT, life has somewhat changed, not least because my bag weighs a few tons more, causing a strain on my shoulders while walking and pretending to AG that I wasn’t carrying any copies of GUIT. The unsuspecting writer/husband would only be aware of my marketing ploy when I fish out a copy to flash it in front of unsuspecting and vulnerable buyers.

Soon, he will be writing on Why You Must Never Allow Spouse to be Marketing Manager/Agent!

Take a simple outing to the bank in Oxford Street for instance. After a very tedious transaction, I spotted a familiar face at the bureau de change. It was none other than a former Finance Minister (FFM). I knew instantly what I had to do, much to the horror of hubby and son who were prepared to make a dash out of the bank, but decided against it in case people thought they were running out with bags of money. So they waited while I waited for the opportune moment to flash GUIT before FFM. Admittedly, FFM hails not from Trengganu but a neighbouring state. But what is a few miles between states, eh? Aaaah, he said, you’ve not been home since those days? Yes, we admitted, recalling his visits to the London head office when we were minding the shop in Fleet Street. Needless to say, he walked away with a copy of GUIT in his hand.

Then of course it was the Conference to celebrate 50 years of Britain/Malaysia relationship and an interview with our Foreign Minister ended with, Er, can I be so bold as to give you something?
“Ah, he is a good writer – I must read this,” he said and walked away for all to see with a copy of GUIT. I then waylaid Datuk Dr Munir Majid at the same event, and whetted the appetite of our Minister for Domestic Trade all the way from Southampton to Dublin recently. He too left with a copy of GUIT.

My husband suspects people will soon be crossing the road when they see me!

Well after all the trouble I took to get friends, (including Dato Shoe) to bring over the books, you can’t blame me for finding ways and means to publicise it. After all I have publicised other people’s books so why shouldn’t I do the same for my own husband?

That is easier said than done. My dear friend Dr Annabel Gallop had the same apprehensive feelings about telling people about her father’s second book – Wanderer in Malaysian Borneo. Both Awang and Pengembara (Christopher Gallop) are painfully shy and bashful about their books, so it left us wife and daughter to do the publicity campaign. Annabel decided on an evening to celebrate the two authors at the Royal Asiatic Society – a better place we couldn’t find for our celebrated authors! It is home to some very precious Malay manuscripts, such as hikayats that Raffles brought back with him.

Dr Ben Murtagh from SOAS (my former lecturer) did a good job introducing the two authors, drawing parallels between their reminisecne and travels with his own and Annabel pointed to the similarities between the two - both using pseudonyms and both kampung boys – one from Kuala Trengganu writing in London and the other from Wimbledon writing in Penang.

This is not Chris Gallop’s first book – he had written Wanderer in Brunei Darussalam some years back and both books are based on his weekly contributions to the Borneo Bulletin. A man I truly admire, one for having such an intelligent and wonderful daughter who is an authority in Malay manuscripts, and secondly for his perseverance and tireless effort to study. He did his MA in Malay literature in 2001 at the USM at the age of 70. That spurred me on to do mine in the same area three years ago and he kindly gave me a copy of Winsted’s English Malay dictionary to get me going.

The man who claimed to be Awang Goneng spoke at length about why he wrote the book – remembering the sounds and tunes of yesteryears and watching the stars from the plastic sheet in the roof of their house. He managed to tug at the heartstrings of a few unsuspecting friends who then parted with some money to buy the book.

Tash Aw took a break from his writing and we appreciate that very much.

All in all, a wonderful evening with close friends and family. In a sense the journeys of the authors which started from two different places miles away brought the two families of the Wans and the Gallops even closer together at the RAS.

Ton Din’s kuayteow and Pn Jamilah’s curripuffs were the talk of the evening and beyond. We came home and looked at the photographs taken by another dear friend Azman. What a wonderful evening.

Thanks to www.mamoo.tv

So, thank you all.

Growing Up and Growing Old with Awang Goneng

SELAMAT HARI RAYA
MAAF ZAHIR & BATIN
DARIPADA KAK TEH SEKELUARGA

An update:
A special Hari Raya indeed! We have all received our presents. They came through the post from the publishers. Six copies of Growing Up in Trengganu!!!
All the sayang mamas got one each and are reading about their grandma, whom they had never met , about their grandfather they met very briefly and most important of course about the experiences and the environment that had helped shaped their father. What a wonderful present!


Congratulations my Awang Goneng from Mrs Awang Goneng.

I will never forget the morning I woke up as Mrs Awang Goneng. I was checking my emails when I read one that addressed me as Mrs Awang Goneng as opposed to the usual Mrs Wan, telling me to forward the email to Mr Awang Goneng as the sender had not been able to reach him.

The sender was indeed someone from the publisher of the book, Growing Up in Trengganu and since the AG in question was busy typing on his PC behind me, I just forwarded the email to him. Life during the last few months had been like that – we sat back to back, each facing our own PC, forwarding and replying each other’s mails.

When AG (as he is now known among blogger friends) said GUIT was very much a top secret project, I can assure you that he was telling the truth. I was literally in the dark until only quite recently. I’d wake up to find him sitting in semi darkness typing away. Writing comes to him quite effortlessly whereas for me, I’d toss and turn a few times before I could produce an intro.

GUIT has indeed given me a peek into the world that my husband lived in, a world I never knew existed before this. There is a good reason for this. Two weeks after getting hitched to this Awang from Trengganu, we left for this foreign shores. That was almost 28 years ago and by then I had only visited Trengganu twice; once as a cadet in Kesatria (those good old ITM days) and the second one as a young bride being introduced to hordes of relative-in-laws who spoke a strange kind of language to me, calling me names such as Mek Jarroh!

In fact, the week in Trengganu was almost like a crash course in Trengganuspeak that didn’t quite work. Before becoming his Mrs, I had never once heard him speak in his Trengganu dialect. In fact I had never heard him speak Malay! Our courtship was conducted in English entirely and it was such a cultural shock to the system when the morning of the night before, sitting at the breakfast table with my new in laws, I heard strange words coming out of this man who had become my husband.

I learned and remember a few such as bekeng, songo and se’eh. And now with the guide to Trengganu speak in GUIT, I hope to understand him more.

It was under the tree right in front of the big newspaper office in Jalan Riong that the question was asked.The question that was to change and map our life for this past 28 years. We were sitting in his old battered VW when he said, Do you want to go to London or stay here? I didn't think twice and for selfish reasons, I said London. I wanted to smell the fresh spring flowers and experience the first drop of snow and various things that he talked about in his lovely long letters to me when he was the London correspondent. I wanted him to take me by the hand, like the words he sang to me from the song by Ralph MacTell, and lead me through the streets of London that I had become familiar with from days spent playing Monopoly. Yes, I wanted to come to London.

And London did something to him and to me. He yearned and talked about his Trengganu a lot. It takes being away for so long for someone to remember clearly how things were in those days.

For me, the words he paints of Trengganu make me want to go back and see it again, the stories that he tells of his Cik (mother) make me wish I had known her and had tasted the delicious food she used to prepare for him when he was small. She could have taught me a thing or two. I had seen her photographs, but I never knew her. It makes me wonder whether she would be proud to have me as a daughter in law. I guess I would never know.

Anyway, before I get too sentimental, I believe the book will hit the bookshops in Malaysia and Singapore soon. I think the publisher has also taken it to the Frankfurt Book Fair. So, to quote
AG in his entry here, “ go out and buy a copy or three, and recommend it to your teh tarik man, workmates, mother-in-law and the man/woman you exchange glances with at the traffic light. It will, if anything, keep an impoverished author in work.”

And if I may add, that will indeed help to buy an extra can of cat food for his loyal friends who kept him company when he was doing the book.

Please look at the write up by blooker central here.

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Praying together for GUIT to be a bestseller