Reviews & Press : : Days Gone By: Growing up in Penang

The Star, 11 November 2007

Tale of love and loot
A patriach makes a fortune in tin-mining and the next two generations squander it.... This classic Malaysian Chinese family saga makes a compelling biography.
by Choong Kwee Kim

LIVING in a distant land does stoke a nostalgic yearning for familiar faces and places. Itis exactly this kind of longing that resulted in a delightful family biography by author Christine Wu Ramsay.

During her homecomings, leisurely pursuits like mahjong would often hold sway and proximity sometimes doused the fascination for family history, but Wu would nevertheless pore over old family photos, spellbound by the images and tales told in passing.

But it was not until the death of her loyal amah or domestic servant, Ah Kwai, that she felt compelled to compile the photos and stories into a book she called Days Gone By: Growing up in Penang.

“Ah Kwai’s death in 2000 gave me a massive jolt. It made me think of mortality and filled me with a sense of urgency to write seriously,” says Wu, 67, an organic chemist by profession, former art gallery owner and now an exhibiting photographer in Australia.

The death of her amah inspired Christine Wu Ramsay to write Days Gone By. – CHRIS LIM / The Star

Her 175-page book contains over 120 photos and was first published by Macmillan Art Publishing in Australia in 2003. The revised edition, published by Penang-based Areca Books, was launched last Sunday.

The book tells intriguing tales – culled from Ah Kwai, family members, relatives and childhood memories – that begin in 1876 with the arrival of Wu’s Hakka great grandfather, Leong Fee, in Penang.

It spans four generations, and includes the author’s first 17 years in Penang until her departure for Australia in 1957.

Wu’s conversational account of the clan’s financially-endowed past and good fortune squandered by prodigal sons is personal yet not prosaic or aggrandised to alienate readers outside the family circle.

From humble beginning as an odd-jobber in Penang at the age of 19, Leong Fee found his fortune at the tin mines in Tambun, Perak, and rose to the rank of Vice-Consul for China in Penang.

An amazing story – of how her great grandfather unwittingly discovered tin sticking to the roots of his stunted coffee seedlings during a fit of destructive rage over his failed crop in Tambun – is redolent of the kind of oral history told with a mixture of myth and mirth during family reunions.

In Wu’s book, the inclusion of colourful family anecdotes in various versions, supplemented by documented information on a progenitor of historical significance, adds an interesting human touch to the narrative.

Like most Chinese family sagas played out on a foundation of inherited wealth, the fruits of toil reaped through the prudence of the pioneering first generation were macerated by the extravagance of the second generation.

The chapter on the immediate descendants tells of a life of leisure; her grandfather exhausts the family fortune with his expensive taste for imported cars, race horses and indulgence in clubbing, dancing and mahjong.

“It is incredible how everything is gone within one generation. Leong Fee used up all the energy and drive in the family genes, the second generation did nothing but enjoy and by the third generation, there was not much left,” says Wu, a mother of two who married an Australian.

Strong women also feature prominently in the family story and chief among them is the author’s great-grandmother who was the eldest daughter of Leong Fee’s employer Cheah Choon Seng, a wealthy businessman and Kapitan Cina of Aceh, Indonesia.

The matriarch is described as an alcohol-swigging first wife who wielded immense control over the roost. She vetoed the selection of subsequent wives, but renounced all worldly pursuits and power for a spiritual life of prayer and contemplation in her twilight years.

The intriguing tales of the extended family including the servants are also not devoid of pathos. There is a chapter dedicated to the story of Ah Kwai and another to the unfortunate bondmaid Loy Hey whose love marriage to an opium addict led to her death in a premature childbirth.

Dramatic accounts of the war years and the author’s exploits at St George’s Girls’ School, all make for a riveting read for those who love to take a voyeuristic peek into the past.

After a photography book now in the works, Wu plans to write a sequel, an autobiography on coping with life in Australia.

‘Days Gone By’ retails at RM50 and is available at major bookstores.