Thursday, March 24, 2022

This Petition Needs Your Signature. Today!

The qilin, said to be present at the passing of sages or illustrious rulers is just part of the mortuary art on the 1884 tomb of Foo Teng Nyong facing destruction in Penang. Sign the petition to save it. https://www.change.org/p/save-massive-one-of-a-kind-138-year-old-grave-of-foo-teng-nyong-wife-of-chung-keng-quee

 

Thursday, March 17, 2022

Call To Save Grave of Foo Teng Nyong, Wife of Zengcheng's Chung Keng Quee

 

A large and unique tomb from 1884, the final resting place of Foo Teng Nyong ((Hú Dīng Niáng 胡丁娘) ), wife of a colourful 19th century native of Zengcheng (Zēngchéng qū 增城区), Chung Keng Quee (Zhèng Jǐngguì 郑景贵), is facing the threat of destruction to make way for a high-rise apartment project in Penang, Malaysia (Mǎláixīyà, Bīnchéng 马来西亚槟城).
Foo, who was born in 1849, died in 1883 and was entombed in 1884 when her final resting place was completed at its location off Jalan Bunga Telang, Fettes Park, Penang, Malaysia, well outside the protection of the George Town Heritage zones.
The structure is large, and its architecture very different from the traditional shape and form of Chinese graves found in Malaysia, even those of her well-known husband, son Chung Thye Phin (Zhèng Dàpíng 郑大平) and nephew Foo Choo Choon (Hú Zichūn 胡子春).
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Chung Keng Quee
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Chung Thye Phin
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Foo Choo Choon
Unlike the usual case, the coffin is uncovered by soil and instead rests, above ground, in the centermost of the several vaults that make up its base. A shrine-like headstone conceals the man-height vault enclosing the coffin while the other vaults on either side of the coffin are concealed by panels sculpted with fruit, flowers, trees and mythological beasts like the imperial dragon and mystical qilin.
Today, a petition to save the grave has garnered over a thousand  signatures appealing to Penang authorities to save this nineteenth century artifact for the study and appreciation of future generations.
According to a newspaper report, it is unknown how or when the land on which Foo's grave rests, left family hands to end up in that of a property developer. Penang State Heritage Commissioner Rosli Nor who comfirmed that the landowner had sought permission to demolish the grave to build high-rise apartments is reported to have said, “I have visited the site and I find that it has very unique carvings and beautiful designs which are rarely found.” Rosli said a proposal he had received involved cutting the grave up into pieces and relocating it elsewhere. “I don’t agree to this because cutting it up will destroy it, it has these unique carvings, these might be destroyed in the process so my recommendation is still to protect it,” he is reported to have said.
In early March Rosli said they would be documenting the site, after it had been cleaned up to provide access, in preparation for a proposal to preserve the tomb. The proposal would have to be placed before the Penang Heritage State Council, chaired by the Chief Minister.
In the meantime those wishing to see this grave preserved fear that it may be destroyed before the relevant measures are put into place to protect it, as has happened in the past.
Foo's husband, Chung Keng Quee (native of Zheng New Village, Lianan, Fuhe Zhongxin, Zengcheng) who had come to Penang to mine tin at Larut, Perak, in 1843, had been ennobled by the Qing government for his acts of charity supporting the Qing government including donations for the Zhili flood relief (1871) and the Sino-French (1883-1884), during which last, his wife passed away and was buried.
"Even if you ignore the personalities involved," said Jeffery Seow (萧舜良) a great grandson of Foo Teng Nyong and Chung Keng Quee, "the art and craftsmanship alone of this grave from 1884 should be enough reason to save this grave."
Seow is hoping to garner sufficient public support behind his petition to effect a temporary protection order to ensure the safety of this grave before it can be listed as a heritage site.
Link to petition: https://www.change.org/p/save-massive-one-of-a-kind-138-year-old-grave-of-foo-teng-nyong-wife-of-chung-keng-quee


Please sign and share today! 

Sunday, October 19, 2014

THE VIVEKANANDA ASHRAM, BRICKFIELDS, AND WHY WE MUST SAVE IT.

THE VIVEKANANDA ASHRAM, BRICKFIELDS, AND WHY WE MUST SAVE IT.
by Jeffery Seow

The Vivekananda Ashram was built in 1904, an expansion of the Ramakrishna Mission established in Singapore in 1896.[1] Making an appeal through the New Straits Times in 2004, D. M. Ponnusamy of Taiping wrote,[2]

"I refer to the letter "Don't move ashram, consider other options" (NST, March 9) and agree with the writer that the Vivekanda Ashram should not be shifted.

Swami Vivekananda was a great spiritual leader of his time and he visited Malaya in June 1893.

He first dropped by in Penang and later in Singapore when he was on his way to Chicago to attend the Parliament of Religions.

As a result of his visit, the Ramakrishna Missions were established in Penang and Singapore. The Vivekananda Ashram in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, was built in 1904.

This ashram is now 100 years old. This is a heritage building and the Indian-Ceylonese community should join hands to preserve it.

The Indian-Ceylonese group lost one heritage site in Kuala Lumpur 25 years ago.

This was the Tamil Physical and Cultural Association, popularly known as TPCA, near the Kuala Lumpur Hospital. This was the pioneering place where sports began in Malaya, in 1911. Today there is not TPCA building but the old-timers in Kuala Lumpur still reminisce about the activities of TPCA."

Who Was Sawmi Vivekananda?

Swami Vivekananda was born, Narendra Nath Datta, on the 12th of January 1863, to the Datta family of Simla, in  Calcutta, and was the grandson of Durga Charan Datta. Durga Charan Datta was literate in Persian and Sanskrit and inclined towards a legal career but gave everything up for the life of a monk after the birth of his son, Vishwanath. Durga Charan Datta was twenty-five years old, at that time. Vishwanath Datt grew up, gifted with the ease of learning. He mastered English and Persian and delighted in studying the Bible and the poems of Hafiz, the Persian poet. As was his father, he was inclined towards a legal career and this he did pursue, and became a successful lawyer practicing his profession at the High Court of Calcutta. Narenda Nath learnt his first English words from his mother under whom he mastered the Bengali alphabet. His mother was also his first source of knowledge about the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the first holding the greatest fascination for the young scholar.[3]

He was sent to primary school at six years old. Shortly, after picking up the wrong sort of vocabulary from his primary schoolmates, he was removed, and tutored privately. His progress was fast. He was reading and writing whilst others his age were still struggling with their alphabets. He had a photographic memory, and learnt just by listening to his tutor. He had memorised almost all of the Sanskrit grammar, the Mugdhabodha, by seven years of age, which is also when he joined Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar's Metropolitan Institution, his intelligence immediately being recognised by his teachers and classmates there.[4]

When he entered college, first at the Presidency College, Calcutta and then at the Scottish Missionary Board's General Assembly's Institution, he astounded his Indian and British professors with his intellect. Principal W. W. Hastie remarked, 'I have travelled far and wide, but I have never yet come across a lad of his talents and possibilities. He is bound to make his mark in life.' Narenda Nath, exceeding the limits of his curriculum, mastered Western logic and by his final year he had mastered Western philosophy, and ancient and modern European history.[5]

When the sage Sri Ramakrishna and Narenda Nath first met, it is said that the great sage broke into tears of joy, telling him that he had been waiting for him, for a very long time. While Narendra Nath first thought the sage a madman for his outburst, but soon came to realise that Sri Ramakrishna was not mad but touched by the divine.[6]

In 1884 Sri Ramakrishna was seated, surrounded by his disciples in the middle of a discussion on compassion for living beings when he suddenly fell into a transcendental meditative state and from a translike state asserted that it was service to man, recognising him to be the manifestation of God, that was paramount rather than compassion for others. In those words a window opened in Narendra Nath as he saw how they reconciled devotion with non-dualism, Bhakti and Vedanta. He determined, then and there to make that realisation of the connection between Man and God, the common property of all.[7]

Not long after, on 16 August 1886, Sri Ramakrishna succumbed to cancer, after leaving the rest of his students to the care and guidance of Narendra Nath. Narendra Nath remained at Barangore until 1888, when he left Calcutta for Varanasi, Ayodhya, Lucknow, Agra, Vrindaban, Hatras, and the Himalayas, and later to other places including Ghazipur. Eventually he broke away from the Barangore monastery in July 1890 and by February 1891 had become a solitary monk, wandering two years through India. He shared in the conditions of man, being considered a pariah one day, and a guest of Prime Ministers and Maharajas the next. In a demonstration using a photograph of the Maharaja, Prince Mangah Singh, as an analogy, he explained that devotees do not worship stone and metal images of gods and goddesses, but use those images to bring to provide a focus for their devotional, worship and meditations. 'They do not worship the stone or metal as such. Everyone, O Maharaja, is worshiping the same one God who is the Supreme Spirit, the Soul of Pure Knowledge. And God appears to all according to their understanding and their representation of Him.'[8]

He had become Swami Vivekananda. And the Swami saw the illness that was prevalent throughout the land. He noted, "We as a nation lave lost our individuallity, and that is the cause of all mischief in India. We have to give back to the nation its lost individuality and raise the masses. The Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian, all have trampled them underfoot. Again, the force to raise them must come from inside, that is, from the orthodox Hindus. In every country the evils exist not with, but against religion. Religion therefore is not to blame, but men.[9]

On 31 May 1893 Swami Vivekananda departed Bombat and from there he journeyed to Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, Hongkong, Canton, Nagasaki, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo. Returning to Yokohama he sailed to Vancouver from where he travelled by rail to Chicago.[10]

The first session of the Parliament of Religions opened in the great Hall of Columbus on Monday 11th September 1893. In his short address, he said, "If there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite, like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and Christ, on saint and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development which in its catholicity will find a place for every human being, from the lowest grovelling savage not far removed from the brute to the highest man towering by the virtue of his head and heart almost above humanity. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature. Offer such a religion, and all the nations will follow you? The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.'[11]

The Vivekananda Ashram As A Symbol

Malaysia is a land of many cultures, many beliefs, many religions. And, because of all this diversity, while we should rejoice and celebrate in it, violence instead has come of it. There is no better time than now and no better place than here to celebrate all the good that can come from being different and for all of us to see how very similar we are to each other, because of, as much as, in spite of, all those differences. Swami Vivekananda preached for respect among each other and described a universal faith, side-by-side with whatever was the belief of the adherent. And he argued that we all worshiped and prayed to the same God, just not in the same way, and that that was okay. This is probably one of the most powerful and profound thoughts in all the world. And the Vivekananda Ashram in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is the symbol of that thought.

Notes
.
[1] Rajendran 2014 p.30
.
[2] NST 15 Mar 2004 p.13
.
[3] Tejasananda 1995 pp.7-9
.
[4] Tejasananda 1995 p.11
.
[5] Tejasananda 1995 p.17
.
[6] Tejasananda 1995 p.23
.
[7] Tejasananda 1995 p.32
.
[8] Tejasananda 1995 pp.37-42
.
[9] Tejasananda 1995 p.46
.
[10] Tejasananda 1995 p.49-50
.
[11] Tejasananda 1995 pp.52, 56-57.
.

References
.
New Straits Times [Kuala Lumpur] 15 March 2004.
.
Rajendran M., Sarjit S. Gill , Balakrishnan Muniapan, K.Silllalee and S. Manimaran 'A Critical Analysis Of Siddha Tradition In The Context Of Malaysian Hindu Culture.' Life Science Journal 2014;11(7). 27-32  <http://www.lifesciencesite.com/lsj/life1107/005_22971life110714_27_32.pdf>
.
Tejasananda (Swami). A Short Life of Swami Vivekananda (15th Impression). Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama Publication Department for Swami Mumukshananda. 1995.
.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

Merdeka. Do we need another theme?

Merdeka. 

A powerful word and a powerful idea. And one that can be found at the heart of not a few nations. 

Idependence. Standing on your own. This was the word, the idea that brought people of different colours, creeds, together over fifty years ago, right here in this land we now know as Malaysia. 

In today's paper I read that, "All four Pakatan Rakyat states have agreed to adopt the Coalition's National Day theme of Sebangsa, Senegara, Sejiwa (One Nation, One Country, One Soul). What a load of horse shit! 

It's just as bad as the BN's 1Malaysia. The only consolation is that those Pakatan States won't be spending on their themed activities anywhere near what BN has on its themed activites. And that's about the only consolation. 

Sebangsa, Senegara, Sejiwa? 1Malaysia? 

Halo?? Wake up??!! 

What could possibly be stronger, clearer or more meaningful than Merdeka! 

Merdeka is already an idea. You need another idea to celebrate that idea? What talking you man??!! Go fire you Ad Agency, Your PR agency etc! 

There is nothing, I repeat NOTHING, more powerful or relevant than the idea of Merdeka - Independence. 

Except, of course, unless it is the broader idea of BEBAS or freedom which also encompasses the idea of MERDEKA or independence. 

Because when you look into it, that is what our forefathers were fighting for when they fought for independence. The freedom to make their own choices. 

Here I see political parties and coalitions trying to outdo each other. Either by the themes they come up with or by the mud they try to sling at each other. 

History is a great teacher. Read Governor Cavenagh's memoirs. 

Governor Cavenagh? You don't know? 

What are they teaching in history today? 

Governor William Orfeur Cavenagh was governor before Jervois and Andrew Clarke. Anyway, Cavenagh remarked in his memoirs that he did not understand how men who otherwise stood for honesty, justice and truth (I paraphrase here), could end up twisting, exaggerating and completely mangling truth, when they faced each other on opposite sides in Parliament. 

What he said then is every bit as true today. 

And these people are the ones we have placed our trust in to lead us, and to act on our behalf in our best interests? 

Shame on you. You behave worse than kindergarden children. 

BEBAS. If you don't like MERDEKA so much that you have to think up new themes, why not BEBAS? Freedom. 

Freedom from tyranny. Freedom from lies and corruption. Freedom from nepotism and despotism. Freedom from crime. Freedom from injustice. Freedom from tampering with public votes. Freedom from radioactivity and health hazzards. 

For those who have not yet done so, PLEASE read my wall. Click the LYNAS article link and read all of it. ALL of it. Read it slowly. It will show you why, if you do not protest now and have LYNAS shut down BEFORE the general elections, later it may be too late. Then click the other link with the LYNAS facepic badge and show your support. Or if you don't like that, then at least put on a Bersih badge. 

BEBAS. Freedom. People have the power. But only if they see it. 

The people we elect into government, are just that. People WE elect. 

Years ago in the Philippines it was not so much about people wanting Aquino heading the country. It was more that they were sick and tired of the Marcos regime. 

THEY THE PEOPLE made it happen there. We the people can make it happen here. 

I don't like threats. Do you? But that is what the people WE elect into government, to represent OUR interests, have been doing. Threatening us. I do not know about you, but I think that is just wrong. 

We do not need any more themes. We do not need any more ideas. There are none as powerful, short, sweet, succinct as MERDEKA or BEBAS. 

This national day, let us celebrate our independence. Let us celebrate our freedom.