Lim Chong Yah: An Autobiography - Life Journey Of A Singaporean Professor

Life Journey of a Singaporean Professor

Chong Yah Lim

• Publisher: WS PROFESSIONAL
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789813203068
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Biographies

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Why are some nations rich and others poor? Why do the citizens of some countries lead a happy, prosperous life while others struggle in terrible want?

This book takes the reader through the eventful life journey of one of Singapore's best known economists and educators, Professor Lim Chong Yah. Born in Malacca, the author planted tapioca to feed himself and his family, caught fish in paddy fields and was thrown in jail as a 10-year-old during the war. He fought to win a Commonwealth scholarship to get a decent education, met the love of his life at a Chinese New Year party, became a Professor at two of the best universities in Asia, and went on to write one the most widely-used economics textbooks of the time, Elements of Economic Theory.

At 84, Lim Chong Yah is as feisty, indomitable and curious as when he was a small, cheeky boy catching fighting fish in those paddy fields. And he still asks the fundamental question of how each of us can make a difference.

-->0 Readership: General readers interested in Singaporean economists, academia in Singapore and the history and development of political, social, and economic circumstances in Singapore. -->
LIM Chong Yah, Chongyah LIM, 林崇耶, Economics Department, University of Malaya, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Oxford University, Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford, Singapore, Problem Publications0

CHAPTER 1

CHILDHOOD YEARS

A bolt from the blue

It was a bright and beautiful morning; I was barely eight years old and I was in the Primary 2 class in the Bandar Hilir English Primary School in Malacca. I was listening to our teacher telling our all-boys class the story of Aladdin and the Forty Thieves.

Then I saw a completely unexpected person. Uncle Cheng, my father’s brother-in-law, who had married his younger sister, suddenly appeared standing by the side of the classroom. The teacher hurriedly went out to talk to him. They spoke in whispers. The teacher came back and said quietly to me: “You have to go home, your mother has passed away.”

It was a bolt from the blue.

Although I was dazed by the news, at the same time, I wondered how Uncle Cheng, who could not speak a word of English or Malay, was able to obtain permission to take me home. As far as I knew, he could only speak Hainanese, the family Chinese dialect spoken in our home.

We walked silently the 400 metres from my school to get home. We were careful to enter by the back and not the front. It was considered inauspicious and disrespectful if we were to go in by the front. Ours was a long house, distinguished by its two wells; one, the bigger one, in the front courtyard and the second, in the back courtyard.

All my siblings had gathered, seated in the back courtyard, their feet immersed in a separate pool of water. I did not understand the significance. I just followed suit; I did what I was told to do and did what they did. All of us were sobbing.

My family comprised an elder sister, Chong Tee, who would soon assume the role of matriarch of our household at the tender age of 12; myself as the eldest boy, my second brother, Chong Lian, a third brother, Chong Wah, and my youngest sister, Chong Fong, who was barely two years old. I recall having a sibling every two years.

The loss of our mother (Quek Ah Mooi) was a blow to all of us and especially to me, as I was her favourite. I tried to find out what had taken her away from us. It was tuberculosis which was rampant and a scourge at that time. My mother was slender and petite in appearance and quite reticent in temperament.

Looking back, I noticed that whenever she was ill, she would keep herself completely apart from us. So we were not really aware of her suffering as she was in another room. It must have been tough for her. We had been kept ignorant of her illness and because we were so young, we also did not notice much as we were more interested in playing.

My eldest sister was quite precocious. She slipped into her new role as matriarch with ease, preparing food for the table at the appropriate times. Our house had many other residents; one family comprised distant relatives; the others were tenants, some of whom had very colourful backgrounds.

The mixed residents

The house we lived in comprised 10 rooms, shared bathrooms and a big kitchen where all the residents would take turns to cook and often giving each other food as well in the true community spirit of gotong royong commonly practised then.

Our family shared the well in the front courtyard, from which we drew water for cooking, bathing, and washing; for drinking we relied on potable tap water. The well in the back courtyard was for emergency use. Each well would have a fish, a fairly sizable fish. I was told that should the fish be dead, we should not take water from the well, especially for cooking and drinking.

There was one household whose occupants spoke only Malay even though they were ethnic Chinese. They were Peranakan or Straits Chinese, descendants of intermarriages between migrant Chinese men and local Malay women in the British administered Straits Settlements of Malacca, Singapore and Penang. In Malacca, the Peranakan called themselves baba (for men) and nonya (for women). They were kind and helpful; the lady of the household taught my eldest sister how to cook Peranakan dishes which are rich in spices and chilli. She also liked to talk to me and from her I learnt to speak Malay.

In that rather hotchpotch group of tenants was a man from Shandong, China. He was tall like most of the people coming from that province. His job was to sell baskets made of soft pliable wire; he did this in the garden at the back of the house. I loved to watch him using his hands to make the containers during the weekends. He went out during the week to sell them. He ate mantou (Chinese steamed bun) instead of rice.

There was another family with a special interest to me, for they were Hainanese like us. The man of the household would go to sea — I was told that he worked in a lighthouse where apart from his duties he would spend much of his time fishing and salting his catch. He came back once a year to his family.

I noticed that every time he came back the wife would be in the family way. His return was looked forward to not only by his wife but by the other residents for he would bring with him all kinds of fruits like berries and his prize catch of salted fish, which he would distribute to every household.

There were about 20 people living in the Bandar Hilir house. They were all ethnic Chinese but of different backgrounds; how they all managed to get along was a marvel and everyone was happy to help each other out.

I have fond memories of our house in Bandar Hilir and the residents who shared it with us. I still think of them and wonder about their families.

Apart from the three families I have mentioned, there were some other single tenants.

One of them, a pretty young woman in her 20s, I noticed, occupied the best room in the house and every evening, she would come back with a different man. Sometimes, she would come back with two men. I was curious about her. I found out later that she worked as a cabaret girl in a nightclub. I guess my father would simply rent out his rooms to any law-abiding person who could pay the rent. The pretty woman was the only one who did not mix with the rest of us.

Growing up in Malacca

There were two other single women, both sisters of Portuguese descent. They were not among our residents; they lived next door but enjoyed coming over to our house to chat. There was nothing much by way of entertainment in those days and it was common for neighbours to drop by.

Bandar Hilir was a well-established settlement with many people of Portuguese descent. The majority were Chinese baba-nonya and the rest comprised all kinds of other Chinese and Malays. But all groups lived harmoniously together.

The Portuguese sisters, who were in their 20s, worked as teachers and would insist on teaching me English. They told my mother to let me go to their house next door so that they could teach me English.

They also taught me nursery rhymes. The only thing I did not like was their bread; it was too salty; whenever I returned home I had to drink lots of water.

Years later, when I was appointed a lecturer in the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur in 1960, they came to see me one day. It was a welcome surprise; they said they had read about my appointment in the newspapers. I was delighted to see them and at dinner that night they could see how fruitful their efforts had been as we conversed entirely in English!

Our neighbourhood of Bandar Hilir was very peaceful. We never saw a beggar and we harboured no feelings of insecurity. As young children, we could go everywhere safely by ourselves in the whole neighbourhood and even beyond in rural Malacca.

Malacca was, and still is, rather cosmopolitan thanks to its history. It was a Malay sultanate in 1400 before being colonised by the Portuguese in 1511 and the Dutch in 1641. In 1826, it came under British rule and was part of the Straits Settlements together with Penang and Singapore, before it joined the Malayan Union with Penang and later the Federation of Malaya in 1948. All this has imbued Malacca with a rich cultural heritage. Little wonder it was given UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008. On reflection, living and growing up in Malacca must have affected my international global outlook.

So it was in this kind of harmonious environment that I was brought up. All my younger siblings were born in the house in Bandar Hilir. I was born in another part of Malacca and our family had moved into the house when I was still a baby. I was told that I was born in a coconut plantation in Bachang, Malacca. That was how I came to have the name ‘Yah’, which means coconut palm.

Years later, my younger sister, the youngest in the family, would say to me, “You know why you are named after a coconut tree? Coconut trees stand out tall, majestic and elegant and I think you were and still are my coconut tree.” I was moved to hear that.

My father, like many Hainanese, owned a coffee shop which was moderately profitable. He had two workers to help in the daily operations. I found it fascinating to watch them at work, to see how they prepared kaya, a breakfast spread made of egg and coconut milk that people relished at that time and even now.

I would also watch them preparing coffee for the table. Before serving, they would dip the cups and saucers in hot water to sanitise them and keep them warm. I liked to help them too, if circumstances permitted.

My first rebellion

Because of my father’s hands-off attitude in child upbringing, my siblings and I were left largely to manage on our own. We loved the outdoors and spent much of our free time camping out. We did what we liked, mostly flying kites, climbing trees and catching birds and fish. We also did kite-fighting, which involved trying to down your opponent’s kite in mid-air by cutting his string. To do this, we would grind glass and coat our kite strings with it to give them a cutting edge.

We enjoyed catching fighting fish and other species such as ikan arowan, ikan botol (so-called because it is shaped like a bottle) and ikan sepat, all of which thrived in the paddy (rice) fields and wetlands or sawah of Malacca. We would hunt for these types of fish and after scooping them place them in water-filled tanks. So we had many fish tanks in the house. We learnt to dig for earthworms to feed the fish and ensure there was oxygen in the tanks to keep the fish alive.

Thanks to this childhood pursuit, I still have a fish tank in my Caldecott home in Singapore today brimming with arowan, botol and sepat fishes.

One afternoon, my brother Chong Wah, who was just four years old, came home crying, with a broken arm sustained when he fell off a tree. Someone carried him back. Fortunately, we knew of a Chinese physician in Bachang, 10 kilometres from our home, who was able to mend broken bones.

Another incident not long after involved my other brother Chong Lian, who went missing. We searched for him everywhere in the neighbourhood but could not find him. It was only at night, about 8 pm, that he turned up; he said he had gone off with Jack, a Eurasian neighbour, to visit the island of Pulau Besar, just off the coast of Malacca.

After these episodes, fearing for our safety and presumably well-being, my father decided to get a stepmother for us. One day — it must have been Saturday or Sunday — I looked out of our house and saw a trishaw with my father in it next to a woman roughly of his age-group. I was stunned.

We were introduced to her; however, we found out she could speak only Cantonese so our communications with her were very limited.

When she cooked, it would only be Cantonese dishes which we were not familiar with, having grown up eating mostly spicy Peranakan food — because of which...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Opening Poem
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Timeline
• List of Photographs
• Royalty Statement
• Chapter 1 Childhood Years
• Chapter 2 Dark Clouds Over Malacca
• Chapter 3 A New Childhood Life
• Chapter 4 Journey to University
• Chapter 5 Life as a Civil Servant
• Chapter 6 Farewell to the Civil Service
• Chapter 7 My Days in Kuala Lumpur and Oxford
• Chapter 8 Return to My Alma Mater
• Chapter 9 Life as Dean
• Chapter 10 Life in the Old Economics Department
• Chapter 11 Overseas Sabbaticals
• Chapter 12 Surprises in Academia
• Chapter 13 New Lease of Life in Ntu
• Chapter 14 Problem Publications
• Chapter 15 Setting Up Institutions
• Chapter 16 The Lighter Side of Life
• Chapter 17 A National Calling
• Chapter 18 Building Bridges
• Chapter 19 My Family
• Chapter 20 Personal Health Problems
• Chapter 21 Reflections and Recollections
• Closing Poem
• List of Publications
• Name Index
• Subject Index