Fish from the ocean, tamarind from the land, in the pot they blend

Aden, Yemen

Sailors on a Steamer

Malay Opera

Editorial Board, Utusan

Pa was born in Makkah in 1917

After the Arabs were ‘liberated’ by T. E. Lawrence

From the crumbling Ottoman Caliphate

Also known as the ‘Sick Old Man of Europe’

His father was a Bugis from Klang

In 1911, he arrived in the Holy Land

To advance his studies in Arabic and Quran

There he met and married Sitti, a Perakian

Who bore their eldest daughter and son

Named Azizah and Badarudin

A year later, to the Jawi Land they returned

To set up a madrasah in Sitti’s hometown

Before setting sail for Makkah again in ‘37

This time they settled in Ajaid

A village on the hillside

Overlooking the Grand Mosque

By now, the family had expanded to eight

With Mohamed, Hanifah, Ishak and Hasnah

Thankful for the Almighty’s reward

They turned their home into a waqf

And opened their doors to travellers to the holy place

That November, Pa turned twenty

He began to feel edgy

The walled compound felt stuffy

His feet itched to go on a journey

To places where he could sight see

And know the people and their philosophy  

He hitched a ride on a fruit truck to the port of Jeddah

Where he signed up as a sailor on a merchant steamer

For the next five years

He discovered Aden, Muscat, Doha and Bahrain

He trekked the coast of Iran to the majestic mountains of Afghanistan

On to Karachi, where he boarded another sailing vessel

Which dropped its anchor at Mumbai and Chennai

Before it crossed the Bay of Bengal

To the Pearl of the Orient

And, finally, Port Swettenham

In the late ‘30s and early ‘40s

Singapore was the trading centre

Of the FMS

Also the magnet for reformists and anti-colonialists

Since the early 19^th century

Traders and scholars from Haudramaut

With names like AlJuneid, AlSagoff and alKaff

Had inspired the young men to be change agents

They called themselves Kaum Muda 

They challenged the old-fashioned ideas

Of the Kaum Tua, or Group of Elders

Through writings in the newspapers

Editors, journalists and type-setters of these mouthpieces

Were Malay intellectuals and skilled labourers

Like Pa's buddy Sako and Ma's father Mat Semawi

Ma was a second generation Singaporean

Bugis and Javanese blood coursed in her veins

According to her family folklore

Tok Mat’s father was a Bugis warrior

Who walked around barefooted in his black outfit

Black pants, tunic, sash, headband and kris

That was the way they dressed

Back in the old country as in La Galigo epic

Ma’s maternal side was Jawa Tok-tok

Her mother, Karsinah, was nicknamed Cemplok

Raised by eccentric matriarchs, Nek Tuek

And her adopted sister, Nek Kuchit

Given away by her Chinese family as an infant

Hence, Ma’s Sino appearance and expression

The fair skin, moon face, snub nose, doe eyes

A mild demeanour which masked a furnace

Tok Mat Semawi worked day and night

To feed his large brood

A day job as a type-setter

And night duty as a Bangsawan director

Very dull jobs compared to his forefathers’

Said to be pirates of the straits and seas

Hired by warring factions as mercenaries

Rebels in their homeland and beyond boundaries

Unlike the meek Javanese

Peasants who escaped the Dutch oppression

Poor pilgrims stranded on the island

Short changed by greedy Hajj agents

All the same, the Bugis and Javanese blood

Showed in their speech and acts

The ‘garang’ dimension of the Bugis

Often ruled the ‘halus’ side of the Javanese

And so it was the fiery Bugis in Tok Mat

Which made him jumped ship

Along with editors, journalists and 19 type-setters

And the refined Javanese in him

Which made him sacrifice time

And money

Along with other investors and employees

For Yusoff Ishak’s the Malay Herald

The Malays, Bugis and Javanese

May be employees of the wealthy Hadramis

But to them, the Muslim Arabs and the Indians

Were Jawi Peranakans, or foreign-born

Since most Arabs arrived when they were young

They were looked upon as aliens

Their privileged life

Made the Malays felt deprived

They had their own madrasahs to study Arabic

And they could afford the fees at Raffles Institution to learn English

Heirs to their families’ businesses

They inherited fleets of pilgrimage ships

And rows of textile shops on Arab Street

Printing presses on Cecil Street

Editors-in-Chief of dailies, weeklies 

And humour magazines

Local editors and journalists –

Kajai, Sako, ZABHA and Za’ba 

They loved their pen names and acronyms

They used the newspapers and magazines

To fight for Independence from the Brits

Not happy with Arabs’ control of Malay media

These angry young men planned their own lidah and suara 

In ‘37, Yusoff Ishak left Warta Malaya 

In ‘38, he talked to leaders and activists

At Enchik Daud’s house in Siglap

Business tycoons and generous donors were invited

Tuan Yunan, Embok Sooloh and Enchik Sudin were present 

For three long hours they brainstormed

The final verdict was a Malay broadsheet

The founders chipped in $2,000 for start-up

All over Singapore and Malaya Yusoff went

He coaxed petty traders, teachers, farmers and fishermen

Who parted with their daily wages

And raised almost $2,000 more worth of shares

With three days left to the deadline

And $8,500 short

Enchik Daud and Embok Sooloh dug deep

Into their pockets and forked out the cash

Thus the first edition of the new Utusan

    Which hit the news stands on May '39

The Monteiros, Can-Cans and Cha-cha-cha

By early 1964, Kak Aida had found a job as a sales assistant at a textile shop on High Street, owned by a Hadrami (Arabs who hailed from Hadramaut in Yemen).  The owner’s son, Hamdan, had started work as a roving salesman in Singapore and Johor Baru (JB) when he was barely out of school.  When they met, he was a 26 year old ‘man about town’ while she was an impressionable 18-year old.  He took her into a world of snack bars – chicken pies and milk shakes at Wonderland Cafe on Fullerton Square - and cinema halls – not the flea-infested Central or Queens on Geylang Road but the posh Odeon and Lido on Orchard Road - where there were no controlling parents or annoying younger siblings tugging at her skirt.              

Through Hamdan, she got to know the Monteiros – sophisticated, stylish and living the high life.  The daughter, Patsy, had initiated her to the can-cans - voluminous net petticoats worn under frocks and skirts – and Latin dances - the cha-cha-cha, foxtrot and rumba.  The can-cans came in white, yellow, blue and pink and the palm-size cards came complete with illustrations of dance steps for beginners.  Kak Aida had learned Malay traditional dances like the Joget and Inang in her early teens but that was for work - as part of dance troupes performing for movie scenes at the Jalan Ampas Film Studio and cultural shows at Sea View Hotel in Tanjong Katong - not for pleasure.  Patsy invited her to jazz performances and gala balls at the Adelphi Hotel, where the ladies' hair were coiffed in bouffant hairstyles, and they wore chic party dresses with their slim arms covered in sleek elbow length gloves holding tiny champagne glasses.       

            It was difficult to return to the poverty and deprivation at Kaki Bukit after a whirl of luxury and indulgence at the Adelphi.  Thus when Bapak’s temper tantrums were too much for her to bear, she packed her clothes and moved in with the Monteiros while Hamdan looked for a one-bedroom flat.  Mak panicked and informed a cousin, whose husband worked for the Special Branch.  He tracked them down and thwarted their plans.