Off Stone 2: Kee Thuan Chye, Lam Seng Fatt, Choong Tet Sieu, Angeline Lim & Susan Chan
KEE THUAN CHYE
THUAN CHYE and I have been friends since 1966 when we met in Form 1 at Penang Free School. He was kind enough to contribute two items for the exhibition: a display of his books and a presentation, ‘A Word with You: Readings and a Chat with Kee Thuan Chye’. The following are two pieces about him that were carried in the exhibition. Click on the boxes to read:
From 007 to bullshit busting. **Click to read
THUAN CHYE got into writing even while in primary school. After watching the first James Bond movie when he was only 10, he tried to write his own James Bond novel. And after watching a school staging of As You Like It, he tried to write his own Shakespearean play!
In university, he was actively writing poetry and drama, seemingly set on a trajectory towards serious creative writing. But, ironically, after graduation, he desperately needed to get a job and landed up in a newspaper. That turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
He had to reorientate to writing logically, objectively, analytically. He thus lost the words for poetry, and his drama writing took on a political bent. The focus on politics intensified after he retired from full-time journalism in 2009, and this has remained to the present time.
Damned for doing what a journalist should do ** Click to read
THUAN CHYE has dabbled in several things in his life, but it was as a full-time newspaper journalist for more than three decades that he derived a decent living. During that time, however, he often clashed with his bosses over their editorial policies and practices. Motivated by the personal belief that he was doing the job a journalist should do, he invariably pushed the envelope in whatever way he could.
As a section editor, he invited public discussion on taboo subjects, got controversial figures to write columns that dealt with sensitive issues, and also wrote articles that challenged the newspaper’s norms. For doing some of that, he
was often punished.
Nonetheless, out of this chequered career, he can lay claim to some credits. His movie review column ‘Cinemagoing’ in the New Straits Times ran for a few glorious years; the ‘Literary Page’ he created for the New Straits Times raised
eyebrows and got people talking; and ‘Mind Our English’, which he created for The Star to help raise standards in the use of the language, is something that is still remembered.
A Word with You: Readings and a Chat with Kee Thuan Chye
Review by Lam Ghooi Ket
‘It was the biggest mistake of my life when I chose to become a journalist,’ Kee Thuan Chye told us, in a self-deprecating manner at this event.
At this informal gathering of 40 friends, colleagues and admirers, it was his intention to regale us with anecdotes of both his youthful and mature efforts in poetry and prose. In between the recounting of his chequered career, Thuan Chye invited a few of us to read aloud a few pieces of his work – selected to offer
a shorthand of his arc as a writer. This was an entirely pleasing experience.
We all know of his relentless pursuit of journalistic integrity and speaking truth to power, together with his politically conscious plays that he had written and staged. But this afternoon, something else was brought to the fore. Thuan Chye as a poet.
From A Fairy Tale, that subtle tribute to John Donne, we heard ‘I’ll suck inviting cumquats / you’ll pluck mandrakes shrieking with delight’ in a plethora of imagery and metaphors culled from cultures east and west, yearning and reaching for a sense of union and harmony – and in all its fantastical recalling of such, suggesting its impossibility.
From Between Fairies and Werewolves, we seem to hear the bleak echoes of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets in ‘Let me dream of peacock gardens rising out of groaning pavements; Our lily faces know too well the stomp-stamping of boots…’ — tight despair and desperation in every contradicting beautiful line. Could this be his poetic-self grasping and wrestling with his political persona?
Compare these with his Peace, Progress and Prosperity and A Change is Going to Come. Both are, at heart, an indictment of the country’s decades of moral and ethical decline among her leaders, though their emotional tones are settled on opposing sides of the spectrum. They are the collective voices of the people. The earlier two poems are darker, but they arise from the same depths.
Is Thuan Chye a cynic? Or an idealist? Whatever we may believe, make no mistake that he made the biggest mistake by becoming a journalist. No. Every word he has written is a pebble, a stone or a rock that goes to build a pathway to help us understand ourselves in our struggle for clarity of purpose and freedom. And that pathway would open new horizons for those who come after… Isn’t that what poets do?
LAM SENG FATT
SENG FATT and I were colleagues at The Malay Mail when I was there from 1978-82. I have known about his interest in photography for a long time. I was delighted when he said he would to take part in Off Stone where he exhibited two pieces on his Tofu series. Here’s what he has to say about them:
Tofu series, Suprematism and tribute to Kazimir Malevich
IN 1915, Russian artist Kazimir Malevich painted ‘Black Square’ and in 1918 he did ‘White On White’, which were among the most famous works of the Suprematist Movement that he founded. Suprematism focussed on pure geometrical abstraction in painting and Malevich in his initial works used simple geometrical forms such as squares, circles and crosses and his palette was limited to black, white, red, green and blue.
The ideals of Suprematism stressing the supremacy of form have always fascinated me and I have always wanted to experiment with focusing on form in photography. I was looking for an object that was quintessentially Chinese — or Asian — and a block of tofu fitted the bill perfectly. I had been planning to use tofu as an object of form for many decades but I never got around to doing it until former-colleague Siang Jin contacted me a few months ago about his plan for the exhibition.
So the block of tofu was used as the square in my take on Malevich’s ‘White On White’ and was coated with shoe polish (because I had no black paint) for my take on ‘Black Square’. They are my way of paying homage to Kazimir Malevich for his pioneering role in moving from realism to abstraction in art.
Seng Fatt‘s bio ** Click to read
Journo of many traits
SENG FATT has been a journalist since 1976, starting as a crime reporter in New Straits Times. He was later sent to The Malay Mail where he covered general and entertainment news. Over the years, he has written articles on politics, music, art and architecture. He was part of the team led by sifu Eric Peris which held several photo exhibitions in the 1980s. He held his first solo exhibition in the late Victor Chin’s gallery in the early 1980s. He left New Straits Times and joined The Star as an assistant editor. His journalism journey took him to a stint at cable TV operator Asian Broadcasting Network in 2013 after which he ended up in The Edge as a senior copy editor. He has written books on Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and photography.
CHOONG TET SIEU
TET SIEU and I met for the first time in 1983 when we joined the Regional Office for Asia-Pacific of the International Organisation of Consumer Unions (IOCU, now Consumers International). The office in Penang was headed by then IOCU President Anwar Fazal. Tet was a co-ordinator for IBFAN (International Baby Food Action Network) while I worked as the ROAP’s Publications Officer. We have come a long way since then. This is her story...
Pottery after 10+ years hiatus
I picked up pottery at a studio in Hong Kong after Asiaweek closed in December 2001, and soon became hooked. But return to full-time work led to a hiatus of
10-plus years and my pottery journey only resumed after retirement and my return to Malaysia at the end of 2016. Life in Ipoh and its environment have given fresh inspiration for my ceramics.
28 years in Hong Kong as a journalist: I started as a reporter with The Star. However, the newspaper’s suspension in the wake of Operation Lalang prompted a move to Hong Kong in 1988 to take up a job offer there. I wound up staying for about 28 years, working in publications from The Standard to Asiaweek and the South China Morning Post.
Cave Art series (left) and Silent Guardian series
Cave Art series
Motifs in the series derive from prehistoric rock paintings found in the Kinta Valley, primarily those at Gua Tambun. Just a 10-minute drive from Ipoh town, the site holds the largest display of neolithic art in peninsular Malaysia – researchers have recorded 640 rock paintings estimated to be between 2,000 and 5,000 years old. Featuring abstract patterns as well as human and animal forms, some panels are as high as 25 metres above the floor of the site, which begs the question: how did the ancients get up to those heights?
Silent Guardian series
Although we don’t see Orang Asli adopting tattoos these days, they were still used by tribes in Perak until after World War II. Herbert Dennis Collings, a curator of anthropology at the then Raffles Museum of Singapore, did substantive studies of the Orang Asli during his travels in the Malay peninsula, and compiled a proto-dictionary of the Semelai language. His sketches of face paintings and tattoos of the Temiar and Lanoh tribes on a reconnaissance trip to Upper Perak prompted this series of sculptural heads.
Fun fact: Dennis Collings and his wife Eleanor, whose families lived in Southwold, Surrey, were close friends with Eric Blair (George Orwell).
ANGELINE LIM
I HAVE known Angie since the early 1980s when she met and later married one of my best friends, the late Soo Ewe Jin, journalist and columnist, best known for his highly popular and influential ‘Sunday Starters’ for The Star. Angie and I were colleagues at The Edge for a few years. I have long admired her artistic skills that have been used to decorate their home and to raise money at charity exhibitions.
From wordsmithing to expressing nature’s beauty
As a journalist, Angeline Lim enjoyed the demands of wordsmithing. She worked in various roles in the media – as sub-editor at the New Straits Times Group, copy-editor at The Edge, and assistant editor at The Star – before joining Petronas as a writer. Now in retirement, she finds communicating through images equally compelling. Painting on canvas to express nature’s beauty is particularly life-giving for her.
Storm: Covid-19 threw the world into a perfect storm in 2020. Haunted by the spectre of death and isolated from community, I painted for consolation. Dark images emerged on my canvas. In ‘Storm’, a deepening gloom engulfs two calla lily blooms – one tenuously clinging on to life, the other withered. Yet light penetrates the shroud, offering hope in the darkness. The pandemic took its toll, claiming victims indiscriminately, relentlessly. None were spared the grief and loss in its wake. Those who survived the cataclysm are changed inexorably, some tragically broken by the turmoil but others made stronger in spirit.
Verdant: While humanity languished during Covid-19 lockdowns, the environment thrived. I was delighted to see parks growing luxuriantly and wildlife flourishing as human activity all but ceased. ‘Verdant’ is a tribute to the tenacity of nature. The bright sun depicts hope; birds in flight reflect an unbounded spirit that soars above calamity. The lush landscape is a reminder that no matter how dark the night, day will break again. Besides helping nature to heal, the pandemic ‘anthropause’ also heightened awareness on the complex ways in which species are interlinked and how all of life needs to be protected and respected.
SUSAN CHAN
SUSAN and I met at Malaysian Business in 1984, when a team of us, including its then editor, Shaik Osman Majid, was tasked by Managing Editor Dr Noordin Sopiee to revamp the magazine. We were to turn the business monthly into a bi-monthly news magazine. At the time, any demonstration of Susan’s love for practising art was still on a ‘back burner’.
From the written word to oils and pastels
Journalism was the first, and last, of my work career; so also the magazine I worked for – Malaysian Business magazine. I started as a reporter, then sub-editor and ended up as Assistant Editor, before I turned to freelance editing. All along, my penchant for art had been put on the back burner; until Houston and Covid-19 rekindled my passion, at two separate points of my life.
Exhibited are two paintings, depictive of my art journey: an old oil painting and a recent soft pastels.
Spring Has Sprung (copy Inspiration from a painting): While living in Houston for a couple of years, I encountered a qualified artist from China, who turned his garage into a studio to teach art. He gave no structured lessons, but taught through ‘learning by doing’; most times he asked us to select a picture/photo/painting that we wanted to learn how to paint, briefed us on how to start and left us to it, giving comments or showing us how to correct our work. I came across a picture of an oil painting of three girls sitting in a field abundant with Spring flowers and was inspired to paint an enlarged version of one of the girls. This is my portraiture of it, and a favourite among the many oils I did in Houston.
Park Photography (soft pastels): During Covid-19 lockdown, I sought solace in art. But I chose a new medium – soft pastels, using YouTube as my Instructor. Soft pastels are pure pigments bound into little stubby sticks that allow one to combine drawing and painting at one go. The colours are amazing, and it has become a learning, continuous challenge for me to accentuate their vibrancy in my paintings, be it figurative, still life, landscape or animal, or any subject that captivates me. I painted this painting from a photo taken by my nephew of his dad passionately photographing wildlife in a Dublin park, as the beautiful wintry sun was setting.
