Rambling around my ancestral Hainan

Growing up in Singapore and lost heritage

 

Religion is the opium of the people, nineteenth-century political philosopher Karl Marx once said.  Whether it is true or false, it did offer psychological succour to me.  Life was a mystery to me.  It still is.  Religion consumed my waking hours.  Voluntary evangelism with American missionary Albert Leroy Harbin and local understudy Henry Kong as well as Bible studies took higher priority.  Secular studies became a casualty.  My grades from the “A-level” (pre-university) examinations as a private candidate were marginally sufficient to evoke an initial, conceivably sympathy offer to matriculate into University of Singapore’s Law Faculty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry Kong & A.L. Harbin, early preachers in Queenstown (now Pasir Panjang) Church of Christ
Henry 孔 (左) 和 A.L. Harbin, 早期的传教士在女皇镇（现在的巴西班让）基督教会

 

Divine intervention might be at work: I received a last-minute blessing, a change to my first choice, the Arts and Social Sciences Faculty.  With much gratitude, I went down on my knees.  I was reading the subjects that were captivating – Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology.  St. Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Confucius, and Lao Zi were sages who widened my vista, as I voraciously devoured their great works.  Fortunately enough, I graduated with a reasonable degree, an Upper Second Class Honours Degree in Philosophy.

Unfortunately, I was inducted into the army to fulfil the obligatory National Service imposed upon those male citizens born in and after 1949.  The two and a half years were dreadful, even though I had an easier time after I had concluded my six-month Officer Cadet course, almost last in the class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Charging up a hill was part of the National Service men’s gruelling training for 2.5 years. 
      Some hills in tiny Singapore Island were occupied by squatters’ farms and orchards.
                  充电上山是国家军人为2年半的磨练。
          在狭小的新加坡岛的一些山上点缀着农场和果园被占用。

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

            During Officer Cadet training, I (on the right) accumulated the most “takes”.

在见习
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

     Drill with the 60-mm mortar during Officer Cadet training

与在见习军官训练60毫米砂浆钻

 

I accumulated the most “takes” - penalties - during the course.  “Take One” for not having a shining pair of boots.  “Take One” for the “elephant” (an exaggeration for a speck of dirt) in my AR-15 rifle barrel.   “Take One” for the furtive sip of water from the water bottle after a long run.  

“Do you know you can die doing that?”  The platoon trainer bellowed.  

“Take One” is short for “Take one weekend guard duty”.  During my gruelling six months, eight precious weekends were “burnt”, performing guard duties when others were homeward bound to party.  The course instructors “targeted” me.  That was my paranoiac belief.  Frankly, I was responsible for my own predicament.  

For one assessment, I delivered, as assigned, a talk on “Leadership and Esprit de Corps”.  The previous week, an instructor had warned us before the commencement of a military exercise, “When you all assault Pengkang Hill, don’t you ever pluck the farmer’s rambutans.”  But he did just that.  We were watching with envy as he sampled the delicious fruits.  The day finally arrived. 

To be a good leader, I quietly said, one should do what one preaches, which would promote “esprit de corps” among the team members.  For example, I elaborated, if a leader tells us not to pluck rambutans whilst we are charging up Pengkang Hill, he himself should not do so.  Everyone burst out in laughter.

The assessing company commander was baffled by the contrast, the solemnity and tone of my delivery and the spontaneous class laughter.  Obviously, he investigated.  I was hauled up to the office the following day.  Under the three company instructors’ grilling, I was trying to suppress my mawkish smile.  

“Hee How!  You look serious; we thought you are a serious person but we didn’t know that you are really a clown!!”  One of them sternly remarked.

“Sorry, sir.”

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

                 Hee How! You look serious ... but we didn't know you are really a clown!
          启豪! 你出现严重 ... 但是我们不知道你是一个真正的小丑！

 

Over the following decade and a half, I alternated between working in statutory boards and studying for higher degrees, finally reaping a doctorate from Monash University.  Thanks to the National University of Singapore and Australian Government I savoured my four years in Victoria under the University Senior Tutorship Scheme and Australian Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship.  As Senior Tutor, I was paid a salary; as scholar, I was given a living allowance and free higher education.

“You are actually the richest postgraduate student in the Monash Philosophy Department,” PhD supervisor Professor Ten Chin Liew quipped.  Ten was well-noted for his Mill on Liberty and Crime, Guilt, and Punishment.  (He subsequently published three more books.)

During those interesting times, a wife entered into my life, introduced earlier by her former college classmate Anita Low, my tutorial student when I was a part-time tutor writing my Master of Arts thesis. 

Josephine is a granddaughter of the late Lau Pak Khuan (刘伯羣; 1894-1971) through the second of his three wives.  Jo’s mother is the only child of Chan Siew Kum.  A founder member of the Malaysian Chinese Association in 1949 and recipient of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for post-war public service, the Ipoh tin mining magnate resigned from the political party when he failed in London in 1957 to secure equal democratic rights for Malayan Chinese from the post-war British government.  His children like Jerome Lau Kwi Hin and grandchildren like Patrick Lau Choon Sam are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

Jo and I delighted in the splendour of Victoria’s lofty Dandenong Ranges, spacious coastline of Great Ocean Road, fascinating gold mines of Ballarat, and little Fairy Penguins of Phillip Island.  The swaying tulips in full bloom, the multi-coloured lorikeets, the sleepy koalas, and even the pock-marked hills of Hanging Rocks rejuvenated our souls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Gold fever in Sovereign Hill, sleepy koala, Fairy Penguin in nest on sandy hill slope
淘金热在君主山， 考拉困, 仙女企鹅巢沙山坡

 

After my completion of five-year service under the scholarship grant terms as a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, we migrated to Australia, where we are now residing.  The memorable days of my teaching career were over.  But the friendship with many colleagues and former students remains through the subsequent decades.  Fame is transient but friendship is not.  I know because I have had, nostalgically, my five-minute - literally - of fame, standing before an audience of four hundred PAP members and guests in the Development Bank of Singapore auditorium in January 1980.  

During the debate-and-quiz session organized by the PAP City East Committee as part of the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the People’s Action Party, I was a member of one debating team (Straits Times, 1980 January 7: “Needed: New generation of voters who can respond”).  S. Rajaratnam, Minister for Foreign Affairs, was the guest-of-honour, who delivered the welcoming speech.  Among the other guests were Goh Chok Tong (Minister for Trade and Industry) and Teh Cheang Wan (Minister for National Development). A. Rahim Ishak (Senior Minister of State, Foreign Affairs) chaired the three-member judging panel.  The motion: “Singapore’s new breed of leaders now being groomed will not be able to cope with the Republic’s future crises because they have so far not been exposed to any real challenge or leadership test”.  Opposing the motion, our four-person team won the tussle against the other team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


 Author (second from the right) listens intently during a debate organized by the PAP
             City East Committee in 1980 to celebrate the PAP 25th anniversary.
作者（右二）人民行动党市东委员会于1980年为庆祝人民行动党25周年辩论中专心倾听。

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 



             My 5-minute of fame!  成名我5分钟！

 

Slightly more than a year later, I was in the team of four Arts and Social Sciences lecturers during a light-hearted debate called by the Arts Club at Kent Ridge (Straits Times, 1981 August 26: “All winners in the verbal thrusts and parry”).  Cheered on by four hundred National University of Singapore fellow students, the student team defended the motion: “Student indifference to social and political issues is a reflection of their lecturers’ indifference”. 

In addition to regular trips to Singapore to meet our relatives and friends, Jo and I have travelled to England, Fiji, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Sabah.  But not China.  Not Hainan.  Language was a problem.  In fact, it was the major problem.  Yes, we could have participated in an organized tour.  But that would have robbed us of the immeasurable joys of a true “holiday”.  We were not inclined towards a strict programme, waking up at early hours, say six or seven in the morning, to the clarion call of a guide.  We had no desire to be rushed from site to site.  That did not appeal.  Our preference is a leisurely stroll into an unexpected shop to ferret out a rare bargain, a piece of cheap clothing or unique jewellery.  We wish to taste the vendor’s food from his roadside stall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        Hong Kong and Macau in 2008  在香港和澳门在2008年

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

   Happy and carefree children of serene Fiji Island  宁静斐济岛的快乐，无忧无虑的孩子

 

 

Seeking roots in exceptional opportunity

 

In an unwitting way we had prepared ourselves for a holiday in Hainan Island.  As avid fans of Chinese martial art movies and television serials, we had consciously selected and retained some Mandarin vocabulary along the way.  We are now at ease with people conversing in Mandarin, comprehending ten or twenty percent of the content, enough - we believe - to get by for a short China visit.  Coincidentally, during our trip to Singapore at the end of 2007, we met - for the first time - my maternal niece, the granddaughter of Mum’s older brother.  

Living in the capital of Hainan, Zhang Cai Hong (张彩虹) came to visit her cousin, another maternal niece, who had recently married a Singaporean.  Showing the pretty young lady in her twenties around the tourist sites, and getting acquainted with her and hearing her stories, was a pleasure.  The familial connection was established, prompting this exploratory trip to Hainan.  That she may answer any unpredictable cry for assistance is also a comforting thought.  Indeed, she and her family are more than helpful.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

My maternal niece Zhang Cai Hong at Singapore Zoo; showing her around was a pleasure.
       我的表弟女儿张彩虹在新加坡动物园; 我已经幸福展示她的地方

 

By four in the afternoon, the plane is over Hainan’s southern coast.  The sky is blue, without clouds.  The valleys and mountain ranges are clearly demarcated.  Settlements are few.  Half an hour later, passing fogs swiftly obscure my vision.  As it descends, the plane vibrates.  My heart is in my mouth.  Entering more fogs, it cruises steadily for about five or ten minutes.  The baby is crying incessantly.  Suddenly, water splashes belt the windows.  It is raining outside.  The sky is dark.  I am seating just in front of the left engine.  It is now invisible.  I am anticipating a dry and sunny welcome.  This is not what I have expected.  The stewardess reminds us to keep our seats upright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 



             10 Minutes to Haikou Meilan International Airport, 2011 May, evening
10分钟到海口美兰国际机场，2011年5月，晚上

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

        Haikou, green fields and farms, evening  海口，绿色的田野和农场，晚上

 

 

 

 

Haikou pristine environment    海口原始环境

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

                               Haikou Meilan International Airport, nearby houses
                     海口美兰国际机场，附近的房屋

 

Soon a town materialises.  Then a river.  And many houses.   Skilfully, and to my great relief, the pilot gently lands us on the scheduled time: 5.15 pm.  Five “Deer Air” planes with red tails and yellow stripes are docked at the tarmac.  These jets, I later learn, belong to a subsidiary of Hainan Airlines.  The flat and long white terminal is about fifty metres in height.  In a neat row on its roof are five distinctive pyramid-like structures with “steps”, suggesting that they are airport administrative offices shaded under sun louvres.  In front of them, a network of steel pipes clasps two huge Mandarin characters in red - 海口 - and similarly coloured bold letters: HAIKOU.  Two similar pyramid-like structures are on the far right.  Attached at regular intervals to the terminal are six or seven aerobridges, ready for incoming planes and passengers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

                  Haikou Meilan International Airport, plane landing, surrounding farms
            海口美兰国际机场，飞机降落，周边农场

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Haikou Meilan International Airport, 25 km by road to Haikou city centre
    海口美兰国际机场, 25公里公路海口市中心

 

Ironically, the largest airport on the island is quiet.  Together with second-largest Sanya Fenghuang (Phoenix) Airport in the south, Hainan Meilan International Airport currently caters to domestic and regional airlines from Macao, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, and even Siberia.  In operation since May 1999, it is also one of ten largest airports in China with a capacity of processing nine million passengers.  In 2005, seven million passengers passed through its gate.  Five years later, the number reached almost 8.8 million.

Only one other plane has landed before us.  Some sixty or seventy passengers are milling anxiously around the carousel.  Within half an hour, bags, boxes, and luggage of all sizes and shapes emerge.  Everyone pushes ahead.  Those standing behind the front row lean forward and stretch their necks.  After collecting our suitcases and boxes of biscuits and “Three-in-One” coffee sachets, Mum and I head for the Custom-and-Immigration booths.  

Slowly manoeuvring her small magnifying scope over the photograph and surrounding details on my Australian passport, the lady sitting behind the checkpoint counter is alert for indications of illegal alteration.  Finding none, she gazes at me suspiciously.  She throws a question which I conjecture concerns the year or town of my birth.  In my limited pidgin Mandarin, I hastily explain my origin in Hainan in 1949.  And gesturing to the lady in front, I volunteer: she is my mother, who took me at the age of four to Singapore where I studied and worked.  Satisfied when I add my migration to Australia during adulthood, she lets me through.  My first hurdle is cleared.  I am relieved.  Welcome to Hainan.  The last thing I want is to be deported even before I step on Hainan soil.  My journey now begins.  I am excited.

2 January 2011 is historic.  I am going back to the land I have not seen for over five decades.  An indescribable sensation overcomes me.  A euphoria.  It is like I am coming home.  Yet a nagging fear surfaces, a fear that the familiar feeling would be subsequently dashed when my expectations go unmet.  I expect a warm welcome, the embracing arms of a parent for her long-lost child.  This must be the same expectation in the souls of thousands of overseas returnees.  Pre-visit preparation hitches pale, and misgivings fade away.  

As an Australian citizen, I am required to apply for my three-week tourist visa in advance.  This I did in Singapore.  The requirement of a return flight ticket from Singapore to Hainan was misinterpreted by me as a requirement of evidencing my Sydney-Singapore return flight ticket.  Fruitlessly producing that ticket to the Visa Processing Centre in Raffles Place one day, and then rushing to People’s Park the following day to book a Singapore-Haikou return ticket, dampened my spirit.  Singaporeans are fortunate, being exempted from visa application if their stay is less than fifteen days.  Their passports will be stamped with a tourist visa on arrival in Hainan.  

Cai Hong and her father are waiting.  Near them, about a hundred visitors, hosts, and relatives are mingling and talking.  The gentle swish of clean, unpolluted air is refreshing.  Cai Hong is glad to see us; she happily welcomes me.  I am also glad to see her again.  She introduces me to her father, a decently attired man of about my height.  Enthusiastically, we shake hands.  

Guo Tai (Hainanese pronunciation: Kok Hai) was not yet born when I left Haikou in 1953.  He is the youngest of Uncle Jia Chun’s three children.  Born after the Second World War, Guo Tai and his two brothers were unfortunately deprived of a continuous formal education during the chaotic, formative period of the People’s Republic.  Besides studying, they toiled in their parents’ paddy field and pepper-and-vegetable farm neighbouring their family home, a walled compound enclosing two houses.  Now a car-repair mechanic, Third Cousin lives in Haikou with his wife and son.  Fa Gao is working for a manufacturing company in Guangzhou after recently completing his secondary education.  Living near them and married to a businessman, Cai Hong has a two-year-old daughter.  She works for China Mobile, one of the major Chinese telecommunications companies.
 

 

 

 



 

 


                               

            My maternal cousins: Zhang Guo Tai (left), Guo Dian, and Guo Ping
         我的表弟: Zhang Guo Tai (left), Guo Dian, and Guo Ping

 

Three taxi drivers approach, asking if we require their services.  Cai Hong later tells me that their fare to Haikou is 100 RMB ($20).  Although the capital is situated fifteen kilometres northwest of the airport, the distance by road is twenty-five kilometres.  The taxi fare is relatively cheap for Australian travellers.  In Sydney, the fare for the same distance would be at least A$70 ($90).  Australian tourists are better off hiring taxis in Hainan than using public transport.  The convenience and time saved outweigh the financial savings.  To experience the locals’ daily lifestyle my wife and I, however, would frequently hop onto the bus.

After briefly exchanging stories about our histories, we head for the car park across the entrance.  Guo Tai carries the two parcels containing biscuits and coffee sachets while Cai Hong drags Mum’s small suitcase.  As I trudge across the hall with my luggage and laden haversack, the polished marble floor visibly reflects the profiles of foundation pillars and pots of plants on my sides as well as some travellers directly in front of me.  Not a shred of litter is evident.  The walls are brilliantly white.  No hand smudge is left by recalcitrant tourists as a memento of their presence.  The few shops are quiet.  Hainan is still an unspoiled paradise.  I am fortunate.  

Outside, the sky is, however, grey.  It is drizzling.  With the winds, the predicted twenty-seven degrees Celsius turns out to be about twenty-four or even less.  There is winter in Haikou in January.  Wiser from her previous sojourns in Hainan, Mum has worn her jumper minutes before we land.  Guo Tai enquires if I am feeling cold.  Twenty degrees is still comfortable for me, I reply.  That is the truth.  I am armed for clement weather.  My favourite black vest is in my suitcase. 

Our itinerary is planned around the winter months because the summer months of July and August can be humid with temperatures ranging from twenty-five to twenty-nine degrees Celsius.  In the northern parts of the island, a hot thirty-five degrees Celsius may cook the tourist’s face for more than twenty days annually.  During January and February the temperatures range from a slightly chilly sixteen degrees Celsius to a pleasant twenty-one degrees.

End of Chapter 1

Copyright 2015

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