The royal wedding of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last Saturday reminded me of the tragic passing of Harry’s mother Princess Diana on 31 August 1997.
A few friends were with me at a Miri entertainment spot on the evening of that fateful day when Queen E II made an address to her nation and the world about the death of the former wife of Prince Charles and the mother of Princes William and Harry. I was on my way to Kuala Belait and was to start an early journey the next morning taking a lift from a newly introduced friend Ir. Anum Lingoh who was working with Brunei Shell in Seria but staying in Kuala Belait. Also joining us at the music joint in the evening were lawyer Christopher Sawan Jiram who was practising law in Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), Brunei and his wife Chang Yi, a teacher. I had known the couple many years before and had been a guest at their Sibu home in the late 80s. Sawan who was to drive early together with us the next morning, was also a principal of SMK Sedaya, Kanowit some years earlier than me whereas Chang Yi’s younger sister Chang Yin was my classmate in 1973-74 at Methodist Secondary School, Sibu.
In fact I was going to Brunei for broke, with no promise of job. I came equipped with just some pieces of paper showing bla bla about my teaching and some other skills after making a wrong decision about leaving a comfort zone and shifting to a more challenging and higher paying job in the public education sector, only to find that the licence was not easily obtainable as promised.
Landing in the sultanate on 1 Sept 1997, Kuala Belait (KB) was my first stop, thanks to Anum, a petroleum engineer and was gainfully employed by Shell Brunei. His wife May was still working with Shell Miri and was waiting to quit for a higher paid job with her husband in Brunei. As such, being alone in KB, he gladly took me as his guest and to help with the usual house chores of cleaning and cooking.
It was also Anum’s idea that I start exploiting my batik painting skill by trying a few pieces that could be exhibited at Shell Club in Seria which he would willingly arrange. So while he was away on one weekend I started my batik painting, my first in many years. It went smoothly and after three weeks, I managed to produce about 20 good ones. By mid October 1997, Anum said a space was reserved for my batiks at Seria Shell Club in Seria. All the 20 pieces were put on show, priced cheaply between B$ 350 and B$700 that were all taken within three hours, thanks to a big number of expatriates among the Shell employees. All the paintings featured Bornean landscapes, cultural traits and motifs, particularly those of Iban ethnicity which appealed to Europeans, Americans, Australians, the Kiwis and others.
A local forwarding company Anyalina employed me as its media relation officer on 1 November with quite a decent pay and allowed me to use a company car, an old BMW with automatic gear that took three days for me to master. By mid November I quit the job to take an offer with Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) teaching Psychology of Education in its Education Faculty headed by my former education lecturer in Universiti Sains Malaysia Penang, Professor Dato’ Dr. Amir Awang, Malaysia’s wellknown counselling and guidance psychologist. I taught for two weeks at the sole Brunei’s university because Brunei Press Berhad, through its daily English paper The Borneo Bulletin, offered me a better deal as a junior sub-editor, thanks to my six-month stint in 1975 as assistant editor of Berita Rayat, an Iban eight-page monthly newspaper in Info/Psywar Section of the Information Department that was under the jurisdiction of the Rajang Area Security Command (RASCOM) in Sibu. Brunei Press General Manager Reggie Sie, a Singapore national who interviewed me, disregarded my 20 years of teaching experience. We became good friends years later after some jamming sessions at the local music joints.
My landing in the sultanate in late 1997 was more or less like a hazy one as Brunei was experiencing a hazy situation and hot weather after almost a month without rain at that time in whereas in Malaysia the Education Ministry declared some sort of emergency situation due to haze and closed the schools for a few days. On both sides of the road from Sungai Tujuh to Kuala Belait and from Kuala Belait to Tutong and then to BSB, one could see fires all the way, razing bushes and forests. When I was in KB, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah led a big group for their ‘sembahyang hajat’ (wishful prayer) to pray for rains. Rains did come a few hours later but only some drops.
September 1997 onwards was also a hard time for a lot of businesses and institutions due to the so-called Asian financial crisis that brought miseries to businessmen and investors. Even the Brunei monarch, one of a few absolute rulers in the world, was reduced from being the world’s richest man after suffering billions of losses due to the financial crisis.
A few days after settling down in BSB, lodged with an Iban mechanic who was related to Anum’s wife May, I was brought around on a ‘familiarisation’ round in the Brunei capital. Jambai, the mechanic, an amiable Iban from Julau, held a red Brunei identity card (permanent residential status) for being married to an Iban lady from Temburong (Brunei’s fourth district after KB, Tutong and Muara). Brunei residents hold yellow identity cards whereas foreigners on work contract are given the ‘green’ identity cards.
Our first stop pertaining to the tour was at the ongoing construction site for the premises of Brunei’s Ministry of Finance as its assistant manager Jimmy Telasa, an Iban from Bintulu, was a friend of Jambai. The site was a fine reminder of Sarawak’s typical boarding school dormitories as the quarters for the workers were similar to those housing the boarders, especially the shared public toilets. We took time to go to the top of the building’s dome, its highest point to get a bird’s view of the surrounding area. A few months later the project stalled and then deserted, just like a number of other ‘white elephants’ in the sultanate.
Nevertheless Jimmy, who gave an English dictionary as a token, exposed me to the unique Thai English within the construction site after we finished with the ‘bird view’ tour of the B$300 million building. In the canteen he let us sampled the language by asking the operator in our Malaysian English the availability of certain goods.
Jimmy asked: “Do you sell any cigarette here?”
Operator answered: “Here, have no sell cigarette. All cigarette have no. A lot of drink and food have yes.”
We had a good time laughing. Jimmy was so eloquent using ‘Thai English’ after having been taken charge of them for months. It wasn’t only the Finance Ministry building that got stalled. Many other construction sites in BSB also closed down largely due to the 1997 financial crisis as well as other factors. With these projects getting stalled, the BSB Iban squatters’ colony also dwindled in size and finally came to a close – leaving the supply of ‘chap langkau’ for BSB’s Kampung Ayer and other areas in utter jeopardy.
Jambai brought me around for my second familiarisation tour days later. This time we took a ride with BSB’s famous water taxis, one of the speedboats that snaked its way underneath the Kampung Ayer residences. One return trip then cost B$2. Upon reaching the other side of the village we went on land and bought some food and then returned to BSB’s side of the river.
I reported for duty with The Borneo Bulletin on 3 December, 1997. Brunei Press Sdn Bhd premises was in Beribi light industrial estate, in Gadong. Jambai let me use one of his repaired and repainted cars, a red Nissan Skyline 1.8 c.c. 1978 model after completing my second week with the newspaper.
By my third month with The Borneo Bulletin, I had sampled driving various car models that were sent for repair at Jambai’s mechanic workshop in Beribi, just a walking distance from our office. Among the models were a Mercedes 280 owned by a Sri Lankan officer with the Finance Ministry in BSB, a 7-series BMW owned by Jambai’s brother-in-law (a Muara Chinese towkay) and few other models. Jambai drove a Kijang, a Toyota make (Indonesian model) which I also took pride in driving to my workplace too.
There will be more stories on Brunei after this one as I was to stay for nearly seven years in the sultanate.
