A Map is Not the Territory

At long last, with a sigh of relief I can say that I have just put the finishing touches to my next book, A Map of Trengganu (AMoT), and it is now at the printers to be printed, covered, bound and dressed up for somewhere to go: the Kuala Lumpur Bookfair 23rd April - 1st May.

Already I'm all nervous and draped in cold sweat thinking how it will fare when exposed to the sunlight of this mad, wide world. But it will be another one for my slim shelf of modest scribblings anyway, and good luck to the publisher and distributor with the two-thousand or so copies lying idle in their warehouse. I have already said to myself and those who have asked that AMoT shall be my last book about Trengganu.

AMoT will be different from GUiT in some small ways. It will have more original writing than GUiT which came to this world as a garden of Kecek-Kecek gleaned from the years. I have written many long pieces and re-written many of those that were picked from here to put between AMoT's covers. And our wonderful designer Sinead in Ireland has done a beautiful cover for AMoT that I am sure will delight all you bookshop browsers who delight in looking at a book in a bookshop and replacing it onto the shelf once you've read page 99 while the impoverished author struggles to keep warm at home on a diet of stale bread and cold water. (Who was it who recommended testing a book this way anyway?)

I hope some of you will buy the book even if it isn't big enough to stop your door. I hope too that all those people who did me the honour with GUiT will do the same come April. Meantime, here's a snippet from a page of A Map of Trengganu, not page 99, but another:

Unhinged By ThoughtA message in the head transferred to paper; he’d insert it into the crack in the lamp post, sometimes he’d pin it to the lumber. Thoughts from his troubled past, written in Jawi, always in Jawi, the Arabic script adapted for Malay sounds, pencilled in the adept hand of an experienced scribe onto scraps of white school exercise-book paper and left there to flap in the gust of passing vehicles.

No one took any notice of Haji Chik’s notes, the rants of this dishevelled man, hair uncombed, greying at the temples and wisps of curls, his batik sarung pulled knee-high, reeking with the dirt and dust of Tanjong. Distant thoughts, the angst of now, put into the squiggles of a lead pencil in disgruntled bits fallen on rocks of despair. In daytime he produced his handiwork, impervious to the people who’d pay him no mind anyhow, he’d walk into Pök Löh’s café to give a vigorous stir in his teacup as he soliloquised.

There were signs in Kuala Trengganu and writings on the wall, some painted large in the hands of Che Omar, a gangly shadow of what he once had been, with never a shirt on his back, his sinewy legs protruding from dark khaki shorts, never weary from daily travel, always a bucket in hand and a paint brush. He walked with purpose, never fast, his bucket of whitewash connected to his head, expressing thoughts that he’d paintbrush onto the walls of Trengganu. Lofty Omarian thoughts gleaming on Trengganu walls in whitewash, some outside the old building that later became a Catholic church where he and his companion lived.

Lost and Found

Now that GUiT has gone into its third print and looking perhaps at its fourth, I hope you will excuse my self-indulgence as I put on my reminiscing hat. GUiT has brought many good things to me and pleasures that I never thought would materialise simply from writing a book. The son of my second Qur’an teacher (Che Yi) wrote in to say hello, and the son of my first one, a very interesting man, emerged from behind his locked gate as I was looking with sad eyes at a derelict, hand-crafted old Trengganu Malay house where I read my first lines from the Book. I will not hesitate to say that that was the defining moment of my visit to Kuala Terengganu (as is) after nearly a score years.

I was then accompanied by Cik Gu Wan Chik, one of my first teachers at the Sekoloh Melayu Ladang, a jovial and fit man who you probably saw in the Jejak Awang Goneng series of shorts on RTM as the man who twirled a finger at his noggin when Kak Teh asked him about me (a gesture that — according to kak Teh — meant that I was a bit soft in the head). As we were talking, Pak Ibrahim the son of my first Qur’an teacher Pak Haji Ali, emerged and took me on a guided tour of the sad and empty house. And then my Cik Gu mentioned (in front of the camera) that he (Pak Ibrahim) was a distinguished musician, so I said in my half jocular tone, “Give us a song!”

“Wait,” answered Pak Ibrahim, “I must go get my violin.” So that was how we got that mournful, lilting tune that became the signature track of the Jejak.

We met many kindly people: some were old friends; many, complete strangers. Cik Gu Mat — another Cik Gu, bless them all — fed me beludas and gave me a book on the histroy of Trengganu written by the local historian Misbaha (whose son I met in a Trengganu delegation to a Tourism fair in London), and then he introduced me not only to one of the best little restaurants in Kuala Terengganu (The Singgang), but also to the lady who is still, in this age of clockwork electoral candidates and weapons of self destruction, sitting quietly in her house making the beluda with margarine, and condensed milk and stuffing self-raising Trengganu air into the bread.

There were many, many more people I met in our 3-month speaking and signing tour for GUiT. I hope I shall one day be able to incorporate them all into a book to celebrate Trengganu and Trengganuness. And I wish to thank them all again here for helping me make GUiT a success.

In my talks I often spoke of how each step we take informs on the next, or how present ones shed light on the past and vice versa, ad infinitum, in a series of interconnecting beats in life’s long sidewalk. And how again our paths interconnect with those of others, in ways that are often mundane, sometimes unexpected. In GUiT I wrote somewhat whimsically about the ‘strange object’ in the Masjid Abidin that sent incense smoke curling up to the ceiling at mid-day on Fridays, and then in Kuala Terengganu recently I met Pok Daud who gave me a thoroughly fascinating take on its origin. When I popped into the Masjid one afternoon I found that the object was no longer there, so imagine my delight when, a couple of days ago, this email came from New York:

"Dear Mr. Goneng:

"I write to you from Brooklyn, New York...but I learned of you during my travel in Borneo and western Malaysia. I came upon your book in Melaka (Mallacca, etc., similar to Terengganu or Trengganu), and read it through my travel from the south to the north, on the west coast of Malaysia. After reading your book, I left from Penang and right into Trengganu! I had to! I wanted to sense the life of your home town, I wanted to feel some moment that you felt, I wanted to bring your book alive and I was happy that I did. I met some beautiful people in K.T., such as, Regen, a Tamil, who rode me on his motorcycle around the town and its environs... your book has made its way to NYC and in the hand of a friend. Oh..... the “strange object in the Mosque chamber” (p,220), is now located in Kuala Lumpur. I came upon it at the Komplex Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Conlay (Kuala Seri Utama-Hari Kraf Center), in the main building, right, dead center. I have attached a photo of the same.

"All the best!
Louis Crespo
Brooklyn, New York"

[Reproduced with thanks, by kind permission]

See also:
Ornamental Wonder

GUiT Trail on TV

Awang Goneng will be following the GUiT trail on Galeri Perdana, RTM1 starting Monday 28th January. It will be shown in 4 parts, on 4 consecutive nights. We did the trail over two hot days in Kuala Terengganu, looking for the beluda, meeting old friends and making new ones, and going back to old places that I once knew. The response I had from people we met was tremendous and I'd like to thank every one of them here, including Tuan Haji Yacob Al-Yunani, the last surviving child of Abdullah Al-Yunani of the Pok Loh Yunang book shop. I shall be listing out my thanks later, once we're safely 'home', Insha Allah. In the meantime I hope you will be able to be with us every night, at 8.30pm, till Thursday, on the GUiT trail. The programme was made and directed by Zaharah Othman who also calls herself Kak Teh, a name that sounds vaguely familiar to me. We've probably met before.

See Kak Teh's report HERE.

GUiT on the River

The Menteri Besar of Terengganu hosted an event that I think was unique in our green and fair land, and I am saying this as a completely non-political person. Last week we had a marvellous event in a building that must’ve cost quite a few bob on the river, and I thought it would be attended by at most 50 people who have crumbs of beluda still on their sampin and relishing still their nekbat of sweet memory. I was wrong of course, as ever: there were 300 people in the hall, and after my long, boring speech (during which I had to pause twice to come to terms with a strong surge of emotion that was welling up in my breast) they came and waved 300 copies of GUiT at me for my thumbprint. And I am pleased to say that they also waved their copies of GUiT at the Menteri Besar who very graciously gave them his signature.

At the gathering I met again the man from the Persatuan Sejarah Terengganu (Terengganu Historical Society) who proferred me rokok arab and stuff at the launch of GuiT at the Keda Pök Löh Yunang. At this gathering on the river he appeared again with home-made beluda and much, much more. Thank you Cik Gu Mat, God bless you!

I say it was a unique event in Malaysia because not a few people stood up and reminded the MB that heritage is precious, and that what we call our warisan should not be destroyed but preserved. And I put in my voice too and said that development must not be only for the tourists but must also be for the people, and that we should raise not only shop houses but also communities in the Kuala Terengganu of now. I would like to thank Terengganu’s Menteri Besar YAB Dato Seri Idris Jusoh for hosting the event, and for keeping the dialogue going in such an admirable way. This is also the man who opens the door to his office to one and all every Wednesday to hear their grievances – and I hope they will learn much from listening to each other. And I say let’s all work together now regardless of party or colour and make Kuala Terengganu (and indeed Terengganu) a better place, especially for its people. Once the tourists have flown and the winds no longer blowing in the sails of those celebratory barges on the river, Kuala Terengganu is returned to its ordinary people who accumulate the garbage and dig the detritus of this all too disposable society. The tourists can look after themselves in their faraway haciendas of love and their altars to swift travel, but we have to plan wisely: let wisdom — not money — rule.

Since coming back I have re-connected with so many wonderful people: I met many former schoolmates, trembled again before two former class teachers (one, my English teacher, is now practicing law in KT; another, my maths teacher, travelled all the way from Ipoh to give me a hug and then expressed again those dreaded words, “Aku nök gi jjupe ayöh mung!” ("I'm going to see your father!", re my unsatisfactory maths homework), and I was told that Cik Gu Wan Chik is still there in wind-blown Tanjong and that P.Jalil is still among us (but no longer blowing), and that Mök Mèk of the Chee Sek ceranang shop is now still living, with her granddaughter in Kuala Lumpur (and if you must know, she’s 102).

In Six Degrees of GUiT I said how we are all inter-related. I have been re-connected with many more people. I had a very dear friend in Kampong Kolam, Sara Paul, who sadly passed on nearly three decades now. Now her niece in Penang has written in to say:

“I have just finished reading your book and its now in
my mother's hands and she wanted me to say hello to
you. Mum is Mary Emmanuel nee Paul whose family lived
along Jalan Kedai Hilir. I am told you went to school
with my aunty Sara.

“I so enjoyed the book and so is my sister Monica who
is still savouring each page ( i bought her a copy for
Christmas) We had no idea you were in KL for the book
signing or the Paul sisters (Elizabeth, Mary, Rose and
Ann) would have definitely dragged us to KLCC to meet
you. At any rate, we enjoyed the review which appeared
in the NST (which is incidentally, where I work ..
small world, eh?)

“My mum remembers your late father with great warmth as
he used to offer salams to my grandfather daily en
route to the mosque. And to bring this story to a full
circle, Mum tells me that my late father actually
replaced your dad as the Telegraph Master in Kuala
Trengganu ;-)

“Although it has been close to 25 years since we left
Trengganu (Dad was transferred to Penang in 1983) we
have standing orders for nasi dagang, keropok lekor
and roti paung (from Kg China - Capitol Electric)
whenever anyone from there is heading our way.

“Thank you so much for bringing all our childhood
memories alive and capturing them so vividly. Rest
assured that your book is fast becoming a must-have
for many of my cousins who also used to call Kuala
Trengganu home.”

Thank you Marina Emmnuel, you will excuse me now while I go wipe a tear.

GUiT News #3,952

Since touchdown on this sacred soil life has been one big whirl for GUiT, Kak Teh and me: GUiT was launched at the Singapore Writers Festival last week, we’ve been to two weddings (with 2 more in the pipeline), and a modest get-together is planned in Kuala Terengganu.

But let me first tell you about the pizza delivery man. Pizza delivery man was uneasy about the sluggish way GUiT was being handled by the bookshops here, especially in Kuala Terengganu and Kuala Lumpur, so he contacted me to ask for the source of supply, stocked his main bookshop in Kuala Terengganu, and then, in Kuala Lumpur, he passed word around by SMS and email that he’d deliver GUiT to any address within the capital free of charge. He even sent one to Penang (courier charges extra) as a birthday present for someone. When I met Karim a few days ago he said he’d already delivered some 50 books, and he had 4 more orders even as we were talking. But why? I asked, surely Sami Vellu charges and petrol costs would eat up most of his profits? “Yes, I make a little,” he said, “but I do enjoy seeing the look on their faces when they receive the book. And many wanted me to stay so they could regale me with more tales of Awang Goneng and Trengganu!”

So a round of applause please to Karim Omar, the man who sold GUiT like hot, home-delivered pizzas.

And Kak Teh too has been doing her bit: so if you see MPH bookstores now well-stocked with GUiT, you’ll have to thank her and her persuasive ways.

Let me just go back to Karim and his pizza delivery style because earlier, I mentioned his main bookshop in Kuala Terengganu. In Singapore I said that GUiT’s spiritual home is the Abdullah Al Yunani bookshop, and I’d be happy to see a fisherman or a farmer launch my book there as GUiT is actually a book by and for the common people. Well, as happens, Karim is married into the Al-Yunani family, and the Abdullah al Yunani is the Keda Pök Löh Yunang that I’ve been telling you about here and everywhere. So we’ve both sat down and planned something there — God-willing, GUiT will be launched at the Keda Pök Löh Yunang in Kuala Terengganu (Trengganu as was) on Christmas Day, this 25th December 2007. It will be a very modest event with a cup of tea probably to cheer everyone up, and a book-signing and reading (maybe) for afters. I suggested to Karim that we’ll start the day by reading a little prayer for almarhum Pök Löh but no, he counter-suggested, we’ll read a little prayer for everyone mentioned in GUiT who’re now no longer with us; and I think it’s a capital idea. So, if you’re footloose and fancy free, and at a loose end on top of that on Christmas Day, please do call at the Alam Akademik book shop in Kedai Payang in Kuala Terengganu and be with us. You may not want to buy the book, but please do come for a cup of tea, and as it’s seasonal, we’ll call it the MONSOON CUPPA, a people’s festival of book and banter. But please watch this space for up-to-date news.

For me personally, GUiT has come alive in more ways than two. GUiT’s launch in Singapore was its official birth, and then the books are now in the shops without further hiccups. What’s more amazing is that I met a person who told me that his friend is the daughter of ‘my cousin Dah’ (rf. GUiT, ‘Fish On A Bicylce’), and another wrote to me to say that Pak Minggu mentioned in GUiT a propos Panggong Capitol was a friend’s father, and when I was doing a book signing in London someone prompted me to talk about Tuan Haji Salleh (Misbaha), Trengganu’s famous amateur historian. I did, and then the prompter came back: “That’s his son standing there behind you!” And as one thing leads to another, I find that I’m related to Karim Omar, the pizza delivery man, by links matrimonial.

I can tell you many more stories like that but you have things to do, and the flood water’s rising in Terengganu, and the kettle’s on the boil.

Thanks are also due to my re-discovered seafaring friend Jaflam for arranging tea time at the coffee shop in Kinokuniya last Sunday. You may want to read about it and see the photos at Elviza’s. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who attended, and to young Luqman Zain, my newly found young friend who, I hope, will grow up lawyering like her charming mother, or, at the very least, take up pen and paper and turn himself into a great writer.

I am humbled by the unexpected success of GUiT, and my sincere thanks to you all!

GUiT Night

Good People!

It is the early hour of Thursday morn. We have just got in and eaten a portable kebab (is there any other?) picked up on the way home after a signing session at a Malaysian-owned hotel in the heart of London (yes folks, London's got a heart!). Late night yesterday we signed twenty copies of the book, and then, in the heat of the thing, we signed five more. They were all Terengganu (as is) people and friends, and we were indeed honoured by them all. What a way to end the day before we were kebab-ed into another.

I'd like to thank all you good people who have reported from the shops and made enquiries here and there, and thanks especially to Iskandarsyah for the most amusing report from the front-line on the GUiT guerrilla warfare on the front lawn of a Malaysian bookseller. My friend A.H from Damansara Heights went to his Times bookshop for a copy of GUiT, and of course he could not find GUiT there, so he bought a book by Salleh Joned instead. Never mind, A.H., old S.J's a mate of mine and I'm pleased to be indirectly contributing to his coffers.

For all your kind words and support here and there: thank you, thank you! But I must mention drbubbles whose remark touched me greatly:

"I believe GUiT is never much about Terengganu. It transcends geographical barriers or even regional culture."

I would like to respond to all your inputs someday but for the meantime please accept my grateful thanks: I love you all. (Please see below for more comments by you good people.)

Thank you for all your invites for talks, I shall see what I can do provided you're within 300-mile radius of Hyde Park Corner. And to the kind person who asked yesterday, yes, we might do another get-together in London soon, and please ask your friends to email us if they'd like to come too. At the moment we still have more orders than we have books in the UK, but with a bit of luck we'll have a dozen or more copies within the next few days. But if you're within 300 miles of KL and are still looking for my humble book, please do speak to your bookseller.

COVER NOTE: Many people have asked about that splendid looking house under those coconut trees on the cover of GUiT. Well, I've had more than one confirmation that the photograph was taken in what used to be Kampong Paya (Trengganuspeak, Ppaya) in Marang, Trengganu. The latest to come in with such confirmation is my friend the talented Trengganu artist Chang Fee Ming, and he should know for it was Marang that inspired him in the early days of his career. Thank you Fee Ming, and thank you to Encik Hadi for telling me that your in-laws used to live just a few doors away from there. Kampung Paya is, alas, no more.