Uncle Sam and us

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First time I saw a facsimile machine.

THE flag at half mast at the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur to mark the untimely death of the former Malaysian special envoy to the USA, Tan Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis, was a rare honour for him as well as a testimony of a cordial relationship between the two nations.

Tan Sri Jamaluddin was a diplomat extraordinaire, credited with arranging the visit of President Obama to Malaysia last year. Dubbed by a leading Washington business group as Malaysia’s Best Salesman, he was active in protecting Malaysia’s interests in the US-initiated Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

If and when our country decides to sign up as a party to that trade agreement, we will see in it footprints of both Datuk Mustapa Mohammad, the Trade Minister, and Tan Sri Jamaluddin.

USA and Sarawak

While ambassadors and consuls foster better relationships between their nations with those to which they are posted, ordinary people of those countries establish ties on a person-to-person basis. It is not uncommon for countries which are friends today to be enemies tomorrow and to be friends again, but the personal relationship between individuals of those countries can be sustained much longer.

Before Sarawak merged with Malaya, Singapore and North Borneo to form the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, the state had had good connections with the USA since 1888, when the Americans recognised the Brooke Raj as a sovereign state.

In the early days of Malaysia, Sarawak hosted a Consulate of the United States of America. Kuching socialites and politicians of the early 1970s may remember the names of Robert Dumling, Taylor and John Heimann. These were the American consuls resident in Kuching.

I met Dumling and the Taylors; I knew the Heimanns very well. When I was on a study tour of the US in 1971, the first family I visited was the Heimanns at their Washington home. I had brought (smuggled rather) in my ‘undiplomatic’ bag a bottle stuffed with fried ikan pusu and salted peanuts, favourite of the Heimann children, Paul and Mary. Paul is now a private airline pilot. His mother Judith, came to Kuching last month and gave a talk about Tom Harrisson. Read her book ‘The Airmen and the Headhunters’ to find out about how American airmen were rescued by the Lun Dayeh after their plane was shot down in northern Borneo by the Japanese in November 1944.

Over the years, a number of Sarawakians have been invited to the United States on study tours while many young Americans have been working over here as teachers. Remember the Peace Corps volunteers?

Before my US visit, I had seen films of cowboys and Indians, ‘Billy The Kid’, ‘The Sands of Iwo Jima’, heard about hooded Ku Klux Klan, and read the book ‘The Ugly American’. I thought that the International Visitors Program lasting for 45 days would enable me to see the real Americans. Under this programme, I was free to choose which states or places to visit and arrangements would be made promptly. In the process, I suffered cultural shocks and learnt many new things in life.

At the White House

I chose the White House in the hope of seeing President Richard Nixon in person. I picked  Smithonian Institute in order to see the tiny rock which the famous astronaut Armstrong had carried down from the moon. I had to visit Cape Canaveral in order to see and, if allowed, to touch a rocket. I insisted on going to Iowa because I had to see my niece, Tilley Bunseng, who was studying at Waterloo.

All these wishes were granted and for which was I ever so grateful to my hosts, the State Department.

At the White House, for a week, I was assigned to the office of the Press Secretary, Ronald Ziegler. My job was to read newspaper headlines that rolled out of the facsimile machines and offer my comment, if any, for use by him at the daily Press Briefing. At the press conferences, only reporters from 100 newspapers were accredited; those from newspapers considered leftist were not invited. That’s freedom of speech in America!

One day. I had my wish fulfilled. The President was in the office that day waiting to welcome the visit of four new astronauts. I was to join them, if I wanted to. Was I thrilled to have shaken hands with the President of the United States of America in his Oval Office!

At the United Nations

I was fascinated by the simultaneous translations of the Russian delegate’s speech into various languages understood by the other delegates with their ears covered by earphones. This was a meeting of the Human Rights Council.

Other places of interest

At the Library of Congress I saw copies of the Sarawak Gazette (published in 1870); at the headquarters of the International Junior Camber of Commerce (JCI) at Coral Gable I saw the old Sarawak Flag (1941). At a restaurant in this town there was a notice to customers: “Jews, Dogs, And Blacks Not Allowed”. My host invited me for lunch there but had to declare that I was his Japanese friend. Japanese were deemed to be ‘white’ for the purpose of the rule of that particular eatery.

In Washington, I was slated to visit the headquarters of the Republican Party and of the Democrats, observing how party activists preparing propaganda materials to advance their causes.

At the Legislative Chamber of California I was invited to say a few words – nice words about America, of course. At the Universal Studios, Hollywood, I joined the tourists to see among other things how cartoon films were being made.

In El Paso, Texas, as guest of a family who owned the El Paso del Norte, I was invited to dine at a restaurant built on the site of the house belonging to the notorious gangster, Billy The Kid. From El Paso I was ‘smuggled’ into Juarez, a Mexican town just across the border for lunch there and back without any travel documents.

Then I was asked what else did I want to see. I opted for San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I saw a familiar signature – that of Yusuf Puteh and above his, that of Toh Chin Chye – in a Visitor’s Book. I met Governor Raphael in the name of the Lions International. In Kuching, I was a charter member of the Lions. So two Lions meeting over a cup of strong Arabica coffee.

New Orleans on board the paddle-wheel boat that plies the Mississippi I bumped into a Seventh Day Adventist pastor who used to work in Bintulu. He spoke excellent Iban. At Las Vegas, I did not gamble, do you hear? I chanced to see James Bond, Sean Connery, from a distance as he was walking into his hotel, Caesar’s Place, not far from my hotel, the Stardust. In the evening, I saw a couple celebrating their wedding at a chapel. Who gets married in the chapel in the evening in Kuching?

In New York I couldn’t find my way back to the hotel, so I took a taxi. Between the driver and the passenger there was a barrier made of wire; through a tiny hole you pass the fare to the driver. With that contraption on, there’s no way  you try to rob a New York taxi driver.

Pause

Bored with this narrative which is of no profitable interest to anybody else other than the narrator himself?

On my way home towards the end of March, I spent a couple of days in Honolulu and another two at Taipei. At Honolulu, I met Angki and Yusoff Hanifah – students at the East-West Center.

I was welcomed by several Sarawak students in Taipei. There I lost my bag! I got it back in no time – thanks to an honest taxi driver and efficient police. I was taken to Sun Moon Lake to see a village of the Taiwan Natives by Michael Chong of Matang near Kuching. Michael was running a small bus taking tourists around the city.

Here ended my sojourn in the USA with bonus cities on the

way. The trip was most educational: The Americans were not all ugly; the Sarawak students were eager to come back after their studies and to serve the country.

I have gotten over the cultural shocks, except that racist notice at the restaurant in Coral Gable and my instant Japanese citizenship.

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