Nathaniel Tan: Lost and Found, Almost

THIS is what I hate. I go away for one weekend and a man loses five hours of his life. Almost ending up being a face on a milk carton. Almost.

The man in this photo is Nathaniel Tan. Twenty-seven years old, Harvard alumni, a member of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat, also their IT guy.

On Friday, the 13th (hmm ...) of July 2007, the police took him away. At a quarter to five in the afternoon. Of course his pals and workmates go into a dither. Why? He was taken away by three plainclothesmen who identified themselves as Special Branch. It isn't everyday one gets hauled away by Special Branch, so needless to say this is a special occassion, deserving special attention.

Here's where the story gets interesting. At Special Branch's HQ in Kuala Lumpur -- yes, the ironically named Bukit Aman (Hill of Peace), Nathaniel Tan's friends/associates/family people are told that the authorities do not have him in custody. Sorry, not at home.

Good grief, the people think. Our Nat isn't with the cops. Those people who took him away must be bogus fellows. KIDNAP!

The alarm goes up. After all, Nathaniel Tan is worth his weight in gold, at least to all the dear folks who love him.

A police report is lodged: Nathaniel Tan has been abducted by three unknown persons.

The family/friends/associates dash about some more. Lodging a report is not as easy as you think. First, you have to lodge it at the correct police station. Which in this case is the Dang Wangi police station. About half a mile away (metric, be damned) from The Hill through a snarl of traffic and hefty office blocks.

Fortunately, the police are quite kind and come to The Hill to take the report. They also give these folks at ride to the police station to lodge a second report. (Don't ask why a second report. Maybe they forget to do a carbon copy. Maybe they want to report in another language. Maybe ..) But then, the officer assigned to take the report is from a third police station, Kelana Jaya. Nathaniel Tan's folks are told to proceed to KJ to make the statement.

Exhausted yet? Wait, there's more.

The family/friends/associates dash about the next four hours trying to pin down who's in charge of what and where's which and why. Finally, between the hours of 10 and 10.30pm, after turning over almost every rock in the garden, they get a sure word from the cops. Nathaniel IS under arrest for an offence(s) under the Official Secrets Act.

Five blinkin' hours. Five. And running about all over KL and PJ. Man, it is as if Nathaniel Tan's arrest were an Official Secrets Act itself.

Malaysians are always complaining about being given the run-around by people in bureaucracy. Now we can see why they're complaining. Look, who has time to play hide-and-seek on a Friday night? And haven't we outgrown this kiddy game by now?

And with the Altantuya-Abdul Razak Baginda case still being heard, when so many Malaysians are joking about cops whisking people away and turning them into fireworks, surely there's a better way to execute an arrest than this. Think about it: who's the cop, who's the robber. Cops should be the ones who are able to walk tall, with their heads held high, looking you right in the eye, speaking the truth. And robbers -- well, we all know what robbers do.

Nori, An Ingredient For Sushi

Mistress: 'You seem to have been in a good many situations. How many mistresses have you had, all told?'
Maid: 'Fifteen, all told—and all told what I thought of 'em.'

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Vol. 159.
September 15th, 1920.



FOR DAYS, weeks, I have been restless. To be precise, since Pak Lah's wedding. Scores of Malaysians have wished him 'Selamat Pengantin Baru.' Zorba that I was, I had joined in the chorus. And then somebody had to spoil it. Somebody who said: 'Pak Lah, I hope you are a better man now that you've married Jean(ne) Danker.'

What a thought.

Would indeed Pak Lah be a better man? Does marrying your housekeeper-cum-sister-in-law make a man a better man? Does it matter that she is Eurasian, formerly Catholic but Muslim since her marriage and subsequent divorce from (bear with me here) Pak Lah's late wife Endon's brother, Osman? (There is yet to be compelling evidence that interracial marriages among the ruling classes spontaneously translates into better race relations among the plebeian.) Does it matter that she holds a diploma/degree in hotel management and formerly worked for the Hilton?

Now, personally, I don't know Jeanne Danker. From what I've gleaned so far, she is/was a decent person. No alarming habits, in fact a quiet, go-about-her-work-never-talk-back sort. The kind you would gladly leave your kids with while you and your missus go about a night in town.

Which was probably how the rest of Pak Lah's family, friends and colleagues saw her right up till the second Pak Lah dropped his bombshell.

People are saying Pak Lah's daughter, Nori, took it particularly hard.

Now that I think about it, why shouldn't she?

Let me sidetrack a bit. I have this friend, Lani, who till today hides money from her husband. Why? Well, her mother and aunts tell her that all men are celaka and sial (rotten and accursed). Men, these women say, are deceitful, depraved and disloyal. First chance they get, they'll go after another hussy. When you're old, don't count on them being around. Love you after 50? Love? You'd be lucky he even pays for your Kentucky Fried Chicken. Poor Lani, so she hides money from her man, watching and waiting for the first signs of deceit, depravity and infidelity.

What's the relationship between Lani and Nori, you ask?

Did I tell you Lani has a maid?

For years, I've observed Lani's rough treatment of this maid. Do this, do that. Fool, idiot, hurry up, don't make me slap you. What struck me as odd is how Lani's docile and affable husband just sits back and allows all this to take place. The man's relationship with the maid? Two words: zero contact. Lani's husband has no say whatsoever as to how the maid lives, how she works, whether she should even exist at all in his household. He acknowledges her once in a blue moon with a grunt. Any direction she is to receive, Lani dishes it out. Even if the maid were standing in front of hubby and he wanted a fresh towel, hubby speaks to Lani and Lani then conveys the order to the maid before the towel travels from the linen cupboard to his hands. Remember Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest, the one who repeats everything to and from the ship's computer to the commander? Yup, that's the way things functioned over at Lani's house.

Lani's ghost are all these women who dallied with the men of her clan. Her father ran off with his secretary. An uncle ran off with his maid. Another uncle didn't run off but made the maid his second wife and took her in to live under one roof. Her male cousins -- all company directors, presidents and VPs -- routinely have affairs with female subordinates in the workplace despite being 'happily married.'

Poor Lani. Poor Nori. No wonder they're all flipping. I have a feeling that right this minute a lot of women in Malaysia are pondering their relationship with their maids. To these ladies, all I can say is: choose wisely. Then if you decide to hire them, treat them kindly. For when you die, they might end up being the mistress of your house, the stepmother to your children, the inheritor of all your precious clothes and jewels.

And to Pak Lah: Dear Sir, you are the Prime Minister of our country. In you, lies our dignity. What you do will be emulated by men in this country. It's good that you have a wife. But it's better if you have wisdom.

Saiful Bahri, What Were You Thinking Of, Man!

TODAY I wish to pay tribute to an obscure Malaysian. One Mr Saiful Bahri, who was born in 1924 and died in 1976. I don't know what else this man did, what other tunes he penned, but he was the composer of this wonderful patriotic song which captures all the feelings and emotions I have for this confounded country, a song that makes me howl every time I play it:


Malaysia Berjaya

Malaysia kita sudah berjaya
Aman makmur bahagia
Malaysia abadi selamanya
Berjaya dan berjaya

Berbagai kaum sudah berikrar
Menjunjung cita-cita
Satu bangsa satu bahasa
Malaysia berjaya

Dari Perlis sampailah ke Sabah
Kita sudah merdeka
Negara makmur rakyat mewah
Kita sudah berjaya

Dengan semboyan kita berjaya
Gemuruh di angkasa
Satu bangsa satu negara
Malaysia berjaya


This song hit the airwaves in the 1970s. Snotnosed kid that I was then, I appreciated its simple-hearted qualities: catchy marchband tune, optimistic lyrics, a finale that was one big crescendo.

The part which particularly appealed to me was 'satu bangsa, satu negara.' One race (or people), one country. Man, how daring was that! What was Saiful Bahri thinking of when he wrote that, I wonder. Surely the man, being Malay, knew exactly what he was writing about. Knew the meaning of the words he so carefully chose. Or was that a slip of the mind?

For whatever reasons, this song spoke to me. So much so that that year (I forget which, but it was one of those 1970s year), when the Education Ministry issued examination forms which had a 'fill-in-the-blank' for a pupil's race, I gleefully scribbled 'Malaysian' in every single one of those forms.

A fit my class teacher had. 'What's the matter, tak paham simple instructions ke!' she snarled, quite forgetting she was the Malay Language cikgu.

'Sorry, maam,' I said, 'I thought we were all satu bangsa, satu negara.'

Cikgu M waved the papers at me. I spent the rest of the session erasing 'Malaysian' next to the tiny box which said 'Lain-Lain (Others).'

Later I remember they taught us a new song. 'Aku Anak Malaysia.' And they made us all buy t-shirts which had the Malaysian flag and the words 'Aku Anak Malaysia' (I'm A Child of Malaysia) imprinted on it. Seven bucks that t-shirt was. Money I gladly parted with. Wore that t-shirt for years. Until it frayed. Until the flag faded. Until people complained I was looking like a curry puff about to burst out of its skin.

But before that, a man came to our school. The same man who put up the words to 'Aku Anak Malaysia' on a chalkboard, taught us how to sing the song, and then after that, gave a very strange fifteen-minute lecture on how little children needed to know their history. Great, I thought, I love history. But then the man said this: 'Hah, listen baik-baik, children. The Indians come from India, the Chinese from China. And the Malays come from.. here.'

WHAZZAT?? What's the man talking about? First, he spends half the day teaching us we're 'Anak Malaysia.' Then he tells us we Indian come from India, Chinese from China. What Indian? What Chinese? I looked at the sea of Malaysian faces around me and did the only sensible thing anyone would do under such circumstances. I put up my hand.

'Haaa.....' the man exclaimed. Pleased that he had a question from the floor. Pleased that not all of the kids were busy picking kutu and surreptitiously playing la-la-li-talimpong behind the chairs. 'Yes, saudara, what is your question?'

Saudara. Empowering word that. So I said: 'Sir, I'm confused. Are we anak Malaysia or are we Malay, Chinese, Indian?'

Chapel Hall was ahushed. You could hear a pin drop. Yes, in those days, it wasn't haram to hold assembly in Chapel Hall.

The man smirked. 'Oh, we must all be proud of our past, our history. That's why we say Malay, Chinese, Indian. To remember our past. But we are all 'Anak Malaysia' today.

'Sir,' I persisted. 'If I am Anak Malaysia TODAY (yes, I half-shouted out the word), then why is it when exam time comes, we still have to fill in the forms saying we are Indian, Chinese, Malay and Lain-lain?'

The assembly broke into thunderous applause. The man blushed. I sat down with goose pimples all over my arms.
I was aware of a knot in my stomach. Something which felt like it was alive.

'But, but' the man stammered, 'Don't you think history is important, that we need to be reminded of our history?'

The knot in my stomach made me jump to my feet. 'Sir, history is only important if it is good history. If it brings peace, makes people want to be friends with one another. Sir, if in my history my moyang was a criminal, I don't want it brought up over and over again. I rather that history die so that I can have a new future, a better future.'

Again my schoolmates cheered. Cikgu M was looking at me with a peculiar glint in her eye. Something akin to delight.

Anyway, back to Saiful Bahri and his song. I heard it again yesterday. In my mind, when I was resting alone in the evening, recuperating from a hard slog of a day. But this time, instead of being a rapturous melody, Malaysia Berjaya played itself slow. Strident. Off-key. As if Saiful Bahri was sitting down at an old broken piano and had arthritis in his fingers. All of a sudden, with no warning, the tears welled up again.