Welcome to Soon Lee's Personal Information Page
I might as well start from the beginning. Well, almost the beginning anyway. I was borned in Penang, Malaysia althought my home town was actually a small country town or called Kroh. The main reason was there was no hospital in Kroh. The photograph in the left shows an early me standing in front of the family car, a classic Morris Minor.
My grand parents came from Guangdong Province in Southern China. In fact according to my grand father, a group of them walked all the way from China to Malaya. Talk about epic journey! When I was young, every night after dinner grandpa used to sit with us (me and my brothers and sisters) and told us interesting stories about this journey while we were enjoying deserts and fresh tropical fruits. One of the stories that I will never forget was about his journey across Thailand. He told us that in Thailand they had the luxury of 'elephant mobile' i.e riding on elephants. But after a few days he was unable to cope with this luxury anymore because he was getting so 'sea-sick' that he decided to tough it out and walk the rest of the way. It must have been a tough journey walking through thick tropical rain forests with its usual occupants like snakes, spiders, mossies, leeches ........ you name it!
Anyway they eventually came across a rather nice looking valley and I suppose they were also a bit sick of walking, so they decided to stay. Through the hard work and determination of this group of pioneers, a village was born. It is now a town called Intan, North of Perak next to the Thailand border. My father was born in Intan and after he completed his education overseas the family decided to relocate to another town.
Kroh is approximately 9 miles West of Intan. For some strange reasons every V.I.P who came to town wanted to change its name. Kroh was, I presume a name given to the place by the British during the colonial era. The name was changed to Keroh and then subsequently changed to Pengkalan Hulu by the Sultan of Perak. I will use the original name Kroh for nostalgic reasons. Kroh is a remote and beautiful place. It is situated at the very North corner of Perak State, on top of the Main Mountain Range, in a beautiful valley surrounded by majastic mountains, a beautiful lake and rivers. It was passionately known as the '9 miles' town because from Kroh it is 9 miles to Intan, 9 miles to Betong a Siamese town and 9 miles to Baling a town in Kedah state.
My family moved to Kroh long before I was borned. They acquired a beautiful piece of land, approxmately 10 acres not too far from the town centre. My grand father being a very keen gardener had over the years transformed it into a paradise of flowers and tropical fruits. By the time I came along everything was in place to ensure a secure, happy and adventurous childhood. Within the compound there were six other families who were either related to or close friend of our family. This close-knit community provided all the necessary ingredients for an exiciting childhood. By the time I started school at the local Chinese Eok Kwan Primary my little 'gang' of 8 was very well established.
We spent a lot of time together exploring the surrounding, playing and getting into lots of mischievous and sometime dangerous activities. We all loved fishing and every opportunities we had we were down the river or the rice fields fishing. I remember at one time when we were walking along the bank of the 'padi' or rice field looking for fish and frogs I saw this big black snake sunning itself in the middle of the padi field. It was the time just before the sowing and the field was wet and muddy. I decided, for some unknown reason, I must kill this snake. So I grabbed a stick, stepped into this sticky mud and started moving towards the snake. But before I could get near enough to give it a wack, the snake turned and charged towards me. I tried to run back onto the bank but the mud was too deep and I could not move. In the meantime the snake was approaching fast. I panic and threw the stick at the snake. Luckily the stick deflected the snake a fraction and it brushed pass my leg and went straight into the creek. My friends told me later that I stood there like a zombie and looked a shade of green. I didn't dare to go near the padi fields for the next two weeks. But after that everything went back to normal.
During the tropical fruits season we spent more than half of our weaking hours on trees picking and eating tropical fruits. There were rambutan, lungsat, mangostine, mango, luku etc... At some seasons we had so much fruits we picked and sold them at the local 'pasar' or market to make some pocket money, so that we could buy useful things like fishing hooks, fire crackers, comics and catapults. We all had our personalised catapult and we carried them with us everywhere we went. I suppose we were like the cowboys in the Western movies with their 6-shooters. I could remember one of the mischievous things we did with our catapults. Hornets were fairly common around Keroh. Just to give you an idea of the danger, hornets are like bees, only 100 times more aggressive and lethal. Hornets normally build their nests on tree branches. These nests vary in sizes. Some are as big as a small size bean bag. Our idea of adventure and fun was to shoot the nest into pices with our catapults and then laid flat on the ground really still. We could heard and feel thousands of hornets flying just centimeters above us. If anyone moved the consequence was unthinkable!
Within the Chinese traditions and customs there were lots of festivals. Out of them all my favourites were Chinese New Year and the Moon Cake Festival. Chinese New Year was especially fun and grand duirng my childhood years. Besides getting lots of 'ang pow' (Red packets containing money), playing with fire crackers, family gathering and big feast, it was also Grand father's birthday.
That called for celebration in the grandest scale. Every Chinese New Year Grand father ran a big outdoor party where almost everyone we knew were invited and that was laterally the whole town plus relatives and friends from out-stations. The Moon Cake festival on the other hand was a much quieter affair but still lots of fun in a different way. I loved eating the 'piggy' moon cakes. But the best part was the lantern parade. We made our own lanterns and paraded around the compound visiting all the families and singing moon cake festival songs. It was such a lot of fun and strong feeling of community spirit.
My father was a qualified electrical engineer. Besides running an electrical shop and rubber plantation business he was also responsible for the electrical supply for the town. But best of all he was responsible for the local movie house. Every movie that came to town we got to preview it before it was shown in the cinema. May be that's why I love going to movies.
Since there was no high school in Kroh, after primary school I had to move to a city to continue my secondary education. That was the first time I had to leave home and say good bye to my happy childhood, thus entering the second phase of my life. My father decided to send me to the most famous school in Penang, the Chung Ling High School which was also his former school. In Penang I was boarding with my aunt who was staying within walking distance to my new school. I found this change had tremendous positive effects on me. I felt grown up all of a sudden. I felt more mature and more confident in taking on more responsibilities and looking after myself. During the high school years besides studies I participated in lots of extra carriculum activities such as soccer, photography, badminton, basketball, cross country running etc. After completing Form 3 in Chung Ling I decided to change to an English school to further improve my spoken English. I did my Form 4 & 5 in the Penang Technical Institute. Towards the end of Form 5 the thought of further studies and overseas education started to creep into our daily conversation. The U.K, America, Canada and Australia were some of the possibilities discussed. To me, Australia seemed like a great destination.
It was late January 1968. There was a big gathering of family members, relatives and friends at the sleepy Penang Airport. It was a big step for me. A major turn along the road of my life journey. I was very excited and looking forward to the challenges and the new experiences ahead.
My new experience started the minute I stepped onto the plane. Being the first time travelling on an airplane, it was quite a pleasant experience. At those days you were treated like V.I.P's. Well at least I felt like a V.I.P. When the plane flew over the Equator I was presented with a Nepture Certificate in recognition of my virgin crossing of the Equator. Unfortunately that tradition did not survive the passing of time. I arrived in Melbourne Airport in the morning and after clearing Custom I set foot for the first time on this strange and yet wonderful land. Melbourne put on a sunny and warm Summer welcome for me. All I got was an address and I had absolutely no idea where to go. So the best option was taxi. "Good morning, mate! Did you arrive to die?". "I beg your pardon" I said. Very strange language, I thought. I showed him the address and he said "No problem, mate". In the taxi I was wondering why he kept calling me his 'mate'? I didn't even know him. Strange and interesting sights zooming pass. I wasn't really sure what to expect in terms of distance. But half an hour later he was still going. I had a look at the tariff meter. My God! It was already A$25 which was equivalent to about $80 Malaysian, a lot of money especially for taxi! I was starting to worry. At the end of the journey the total taxi fare was A$50. That was a lot of money and an interesting experience.
I was boarding with a landlady and went to the local Highett High School to do my Form 6 or Matriculation. After Matriculation I continued my tertiary education in the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology doing Electronic and Communication Engineering. At the end of 1974 I graduated with a Bachelor of Electronic & Communication Engineering. I started my working life with the Swedish Telecommunication company called Ericsson early 1975. Recently I changed my career path completely and now I am working in the Conservation and Environment areas. My Curriculum Vitae
A recent family photograph taken at Sue Peng & Dennis's Wedding 28th June 2008.
L to R: Paul Yan, Sue Peng, Dennis, Soon Lee, Julia and Gary
