The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| Bygone era of Brickfields comes alive in book by veteran journalist Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:11 PM PST  The Vivekenanda Ashram, constructed in 1904, remains a oasis of calm in bustling Brickfields. – File pic "Brickfields was a quaint neighbourhood then, and most of the houses were occupied by the Ceylonese, Tamils and the Chinese. I used to travel on a horse cart to the Convent of Holy Infant Jesus Bukit Nanas. Sometimes, I would take a rickshaw. "Everyone was treated with love and respect, and the elders were referred to as uncles and aunties," said Franscina. Though she had difficulty recalling the year she got married and the year her husband passed away, the memories of her sojourn at the quarters and the life in Brickfields between the 1930s and 1950s seemed to be permanently etched in her mind. Franscina had a pet name, Fortune, and she was one of the 100 people present at the launch of the book Brickfields and Beyond: Stories from the Past, at the Lutheran Hall in Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad. This book was written by Balan Mosses, a veteran journalist, columnist and a pastor. His first book was Brickfields: A Place, A Time, A Memory. BALAN'S RECOLLECTION OF HUNDRED QUARTERS Balan who also grew up in Hundred Quarters, during the 1950s and 1960s, immortalised the neighbourhood in his latest book. Hundred Quarters will be demolished in 2013 to make way for commercial development. Hundred Quarters was built in 1915, and it is made up of three rows of terrace houses (two storeys), with two rows facing each other along Jalan Chan Ah Tong and Jalan Rozario. There is also a row of single storey quarters facing Lorong Chan Ah Tong. The houses have a simple yet an elegant facade. Apart from Hundred Quarters, the adjoining football field has made way for a car park and some stalls. The area adjacent to Lorong Chan Ah Tong used to have a row of shop houses, but now, it is a panorama of never ending arches and endless festivities living up to the image of Little India. At the launch of his book, Balan revealed his feeling for Hundred Quarters. "Indeed, Hundred Quarters epitomises the neighbourhood. Brickfields has grown so much on me over the years that I am sad that the place will be torn down. It not only shaped my outlook of the world, but it was also instrumental in moulding my character and personality to a large extent," he said. Both Balan and Franscina still have great memories of Hundred Quarters. Though its occupants (the government servants) can only live there until their retirement, they have a lifetime of memories to cherish. BALAN'S NARRATIVES In his book, Balan narrates the close knit neighbourhood through an anthology of 15 short stories. In this book, Balan makes a transition from non-fiction into fiction by bringing some of the memorable characters in the neighbourhood to life. These characters include Toppeh, Sando Maniam, Sundari and Gourmand. He gives a vivid description about the life in the past, the ethos and the social order then. Nevertheless, over the years, Brickfield has evolved to a great extent. Literally, everything has changed in the last ten years. Even Franscina pointed out that during her stay, the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, as depicted in the book, was only a small chapel with vegetable farms and orchards surrounding it. She pointed out that Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad was mostly filled with farms and coconut trees, unlike the traffic congestion and high rise buildings that are present today. She also recalled the brick kilns that were everywhere in the neighbourhood, which gave Brickfields its name. Today, the place does not have brick kilns. Franscina left the quarters and Brickfields in the 1950s, after her marriage. PRESERVING BRICKFIELDS Balan believes that today's societal dynamics are different from what they used to be in the past. There are fewer instances where people of different cultures and backgrounds interact with one another. On one side of Brickfields, there is opulence and development in every noon and corner, and on the other side, there is urban poverty, where the poor people have been pushed into one corner to make way for development. While town planners can only think of building more commercial complexes in Brickfields, Balan and other long-time residents of Brickfields are finding ways to preserve the soul of Brickfields and to help those in need. Through the Zion Lutheran Church, Balan initiated the Hands Across Brickfields welfare programme five years ago to help the poor. All the proceeds from this book will go towards helping these people. Next year, the curtains will fall on Hundred Quarters but it will be an embodiment of an exemplary neighbourhood where people of all cultures and backgrounds enjoyed each other's company.– Bernama |
| An Englishman abroad and a Japanese scandal Posted: 03 Dec 2012 04:13 PM PST  TOKYO, Dec 4 — The corporate execution took just eight minutes. The board of Japanese camera and endoscope maker Olympus Corp voted unanimously on October 14, 2011 to fire president and CEO Michael Woodford, one of the few foreigners ever to run a major Japanese company. There was no discussion and Woodford was not allowed to comment. His secretary had been told to leave the building so he could not say goodbye to her. He was ordered to leave his apartment within a few days, and told he must take the airport bus when leaving the country, rather than a company car. The summary justice was almost unprecedented in Japan's corporate culture. In his memoir "Exposure — Inside the Olympus Scandal: My Journey from CEO to Whistleblower," (Portfolio, $27.95/RM85), Woodford (picture) explains how his dogged attempts to find out about a series of suspicious deals had put him in direct confrontation with the board and management teams that had run the company for many years. Woodford looked like a safe choice when he was promoted to be president of the company six-and-a-half months earlier. He had started with Olympus in 1991 as a medical equipment salesman in Britain, and had steadily climbed up the corporate ladder. He regarded Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the chairman and the previous holder of the president's job, as his mentor. But any idea that Woodford would not rock the boat dissolved after a Japanese magazine Facta published several articles reporting on "Mickey Mouse" deals Olympus had done that had nothing to do with its main businesses. These included its purchase of a maker of microwavable dishes, a cosmetics mail order firm, and a hospital waste company. There were special purpose companies based in the Cayman Islands, and payments of massive fees to advisors. Woodford called in accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, who produced a damning report. But his attempts to get those involved in the deals to be accountable led to his ousting. He wasn't going to go quietly. He mounted a campaign to get shareholders to replace the board. He was prepared to return to run a reformed company, but it became clear that Japan Inc. was not going to let this foreigner radically transform the way things were done. Olympus' board, its Japanese shareholders and bankers closed ranks. Grew up in poverty As Woodford launches this book — which is likely to be followed by a movie — and goes on the international lecture circuit to talk about the need for corporate reform in Japan, he acknowledges his mission is very difficult. The resistance to change goes very deep. Despite all the media coverage in the past year, there is still much that hasn't been explained about the Olympus scandal. While much of the appeal of this book is in its thriller-like elements — justifiably or not, Woodford and his wife feared for their lives — it is also fascinating because of the personal elements that he introduces. We learn how Michael Woodford grew up in a harsh environment after his mother left his father at an early age and took him to live in poverty in Liverpool. His home didn't have a bath and he had to wash in a public bathhouse. He faced racial taunts as a child attending a Jewish school and possessing vaguely Asian features, which he explained without providing detail came from his father's side of family. Most relevant, Woodford writes of developing from an early age a distinct sense of justice and civic responsibility. After stealing chewing gum from a store, his conscience drove him to return it. Witnessing as a teenager a fatal crash that killed a motorcyclist led to a life-long commitment to road safety. He has been involved in more than 1,000 road-safety projects. If he sees a road danger that could be reduced he will stop to take a picture and send a report to the relevant traffic authority. We also learn how Woodford's insecurity at home helped to produce the drive to build a sales career after leaving school at the age of 16 without any major qualifications. It is a combination of that sense of right and wrong, the insecure man's determination, his sense of civic duty, and his determined nature that led him to expose wrongdoing at Olympus. Nightmares Woodford also shows how his battle with Olympus impacted his Spanish wife, Nuncy, who had not wanted him to take the job in Tokyo in the first place. At the height of the stress on the Woodfords from the scandal, she began to have nightmares in which she screamed, "They're going to get us." And at one stage things get so tense between the couple that a panel gets smashed in the front door of their home. There are also, though, surreal moments. Such as the Woodfords' decision not to call the police on their neighbour's kids when they had a rowdy party for fear that armed officers — who were on call to protect the couple — would storm the place. And at times Woodford gets carried away with his new "rock star" status as he is mobbed by the Japanese media at the airport. Perhaps the most poignant moment comes at the end of the book when Woodford has a clandestine rendezvous with the original whistleblower, an Olympus employee who had provided Facta with much of its information. The whistleblower apologises for not going straight to Woodford with the scandal — "I didn't know you weren't one of them." It may say a lot about the current state of corporate governance in Japan that this whistleblower remains anonymous. In the United States, a whistleblower in such a high-profile case might by now be featured in the media, be writing a book, and be claiming a big reward. In Japan, they live quietly, in fear. — Reuters |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Books To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan