Susan Abraham

Also, the British influence did play heavily if not subtly, among the Indian middle-classes in Malaysia; those who practiced a Christian faith especially Catholicism. These weren't in the minority at all...

In fact, I remember many young Indian men who were lured to a European and Australian emigration soon after the British left, bearing nothing but ambition. It was a time of high prospects in Germany, free love in Sweden and the swinging sixties in London.

Many Christian Indian women in particular those of the middle-classes, also chose to marry Malaysian men who had found jobs in Britain.

Today, there are any good number of Indian Catholic families in the Klang Valley who could run off the names of kith-and-kin who had left the country for good.

The rest who stayed, wore the British influence in their lifestyle, pinned down among other things, to fashion, cusine and the schoolgirlish excitement of social liberation. Many of us swore devotion to our regularly-imported Jackie magazines.

In the Convent school in Klang especially, a real element of snobbery existed in the Seventies with products purchased for example, from the now defunct Marks & Spencer store at the famous Jaya supermarket in Petaling Jaya. Meanwhile the Fitzpatrick supermarket in Kuala Lumpur, was all the rage in 1973.

Who you were in school at the time meant where you shopped and what you owned. England cradled the ideal sophistication as a status symbol, through the main channels of family, friends and a generous wallet.

Eventually, many Malaysian girls left to study abroad in Britain and never returned. And especially not the nurses...

Also, our harbour town of Port Klang was still referred to by its old name of Port Swettenham, all through the eighties. A silent, lingering attachment with the British, did continue to thread its way through most of our lives and for a long time on.

Enjoyed this fearless, interesting article, designed to stir the senses and perhaps, kindle the odd spark on the subject of ‘lepak.’ Hopefully, you will pen more thoughtful memoirs, Tash.

Wanted to add that in the mid-sixties alone, my cherished picture books in Malaysia, published in the English language, had already winged their way in swiftly from Japan. Those alluring, colourful pages with their shiny covers, were all printed by Toppan.

In 1969 alone, several Japanese shows screened on either one of our two television channels, had begun to prove extremely popular with Malaysian families. Think Marine Boy, Ultraman, Planet Boy, The Samurai and other monster and dinosaur shows, shown at prime time.

There also appeared to be an extraordinary sense of integration experienced by the generation of my parents and myself, during specific periods of the sixties and the early seventies. It was a surreal fleeting era where the remnants of a vibrant British influence continued to intermingle easily with Malaysian society as expatriates waited out their last contracts and I definitely remember inhaling a comfortable sense of my Malaysian identity even while so young.

Nothing felt cold or insular in attitudes towards the British.
Goodwill and neighbourly camaraderie, among us ordinary Malaysians, still fringe the memory.

In the classroom, we all learnt English, Malay and Jawi together. When my British classmates returned to England, years later, my Malay classmates would recall our first real friends with fondness and affection, through dog-eared Brownie photographs and such. No name was forgotten or carelessly dismissed.