Greetings members I decided to take this last opportunity (as immediate past President) to write a message for the December2008/January 2009 edition of the MCG newsletter. Officially my term finished on 31 October 2008 but I wanted to share with you all the good news (makes a change from my nagging!) that we have a couple of willing volunteers who have agreed to take on the President and Vice President roles on the Board. This is great for the future of the group. Elise Hill will take the President position and Pam Boucher will take the Vice President position – these two appointments will be formally confirmed when the MCG Board next meets on 25 November so from that date these two ladies will hold these two positions through till the 2009 AGM in May next year. I am grateful to them both – both ladies are active MCG members, have both been on the Events Planning Team with me and both are members of Explorers. Invariably they are both at most MCG events – I am sure they are known to many of you and I know they will do a great job leading the team into the future – thanks to them both for accepting these roles. The other good news is the Events Planning Team now has two fantastic ladies currently sharing the EPT Convenor role and the team continues to work well together – my thanks to Brylie Henderson and Ginny Connolly for taking over and sharing the leadership of this team of willing workers. At this stage, neither Ginny or Brylie feel ready to hold the EPT Convenor position on the Board and effectively that remains a vacant position, however in the interim they will both attend Board meetings (as observers) and will lead the EP Team very ably. As their knowledge and confidence grows, I am confident one of them may decide she is happy to be a fully fledged Board member. I wish them both all the best and know they have the support of the team they lead. This team does need more members to take part as it has shrunk a little of late and will lose a few more people over the next few months – please talk to Ginny and/or Brylie if you would like to join the EP Team and help make a contribution to planning events for MCG members. Many hands make light work! I am delighted to be able to leave this group in the capable hands of these dedicated members – I urge all of you to support them. Organisations like MCG rely totally on willing volunteers to make them happen – I have loved being so actively involved – give it a go! To all of you – have a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year. If you are travelling for the holidays, keep safe. 23 January will see Steve and I winging our way back to New Zealand after three very interesting years in Malaysia. We take many fond memories with us and I will miss the MCG a lot. Kind regards and best wishes to you all. Farewell. Lin Streefkerk PROGRAMME OF EVENTS
REPORTS FROM PREVIOUS EVENTS Explorers' Group B - Visit to Wei-Ling Gallery In October, a group of ten Explorers from Group B visited the Wei-Ling Gallery in Brickfields. The gallery is located in a lovely old Chinese shophouse on Jalan Scott. Lim Wei-Ling, the gallery director, kindly agreed to open the gallery early on Monday morning to accommodate our trip. Wei-Ling explained that the building had been completely renovated after a fire destroyed the interior of the building in April 2006. The resulting building is a wonderful space for an art gallery with three floors full of natural light and large open spaces and walls to accommodate the works of art. An interesting detail in the renovation is the glass tiles in the floor that allow you to see the charred wood beneath. The current exhibition at the gallery is entitled “Vice and Virtue”. Every year, the gallery hosts an exhibition entitled “18 @ 8” where 18 artists display their work at the gallery at 8 Jalan Scott. This year, there is a slight variation with 9 artists displaying 2 pieces each. Each artist was assigned one vice and one virtue in a random draw and asked to create a piece of art to demonstrate this vice or virtue. Wei-Ling introduced us to Rachel who took us through the exhibit. While showing us the eighteen pieces of art (most on canvas, some ceramic), Rachel asked us what we felt the vice or virtue was and what the artist was trying to say. Interesting discussions followed with all of us developing a greater appreciation for the thought and work the artists had put into their creations. Wei-Ling explained that the gallery has chosen a mandate to nurture and support Malaysian artists and prefers to represent artists who are passionate about their work. We could certainly see this passion and intensity in the various works that make up this exhibition. It was an interesting morning and the Explorers had many questions to ask about the gallery and the exhibit. Wei-Ling Gallery has a very good website with information about the gallery and its location, current and future exhibitions and the artists. See it at www.weiling-gallery.com. It is well worth a visit. Pam Boucher
Travel Tips - Incredible India On 23 October, a group of 19 MCG members met at Lin Streefkerk’s home to hear a talk by Cathy Weston on her trip to India in 2006. Cathy illustrated her presentation with wonderful photographs that captured the colour and spirit of the country. Cathy wanted to experience the many aspects of this diverse and complex country and spent a lot of time and effort researching and making the complicated arrangements for the trip with the help of an excellent India-based agent. Cathy and her husband Peter arrived in Delhi in January and were presented with garlands of flowers at the famous Imperial Hotel. She was immediately aware of the beautiful, colourful clothing worn by Indian women and went out the next morning to buy a wonderful Kashmir pashmina shawl to brighten up her travel clothing. They were in Delhi for only one-and-a-half days, but it was enough to experience the chaos, noise and the amazing sights of the city. It was also was the beginning of their education about the bewildering array of Hindu Gods and Goddesses and about the story of the Ramayana. Some of the places they visited were the Red Fort, the tower of Qutb Minar, Jama Masjid (a mosque which can hold 25,000 people) and the house where Gandhi lived and where he died in 1948. One of the moving photographs was a simulation of Gandhi’s last footsteps in the garden leading to the exact spot where he was assassinated. Next, Cathy and Peter traveled through Rajasthan, the most westerly state of India stretching from Delhi to Pakistan. They flew to Udaipur (the white city), a “small” city of 400,000 people and then traveled on to the Aravalli Hills to see a magnificent Jain temple, then on to the city of Jodhpur (the blue city) and Jaisalmer (the golden city), an attractive city from which the beautiful “patchwork” pieces made of old saris and wedding dresses come. One of the highlights of this part of the trip was a night in a tent in the desert in an area not far from the Pakistan border. .. chilly but a great experience! They traveled on to Jaipur (the pink city) and then to Ranthambore National Park. Here they went out in a large open-topped truck looking for “pugmarks”, as tiger paw marks are called. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a mother tiger and her two 14 month-old cubs. Although there are 35-40 tigers in this protected park, they are rarely seen, so this experience was thrilling. Another highlight of the trip was visiting the incredible Taj Mahal in Agra. Cathy said it was even more magnificent than she had imagined and they spent several hours at this World Heritage site. They were also very happy that they had decided to splurge and stay in the Oberoi Amarvilas Hotel, where every room has a view of the Taj. Cathy and Peter then traveled south by train to the towns of Jhansi and Khajuraho. temples at this World Heritage Site, set in a green park-like setting, have some interesting erotic carvings. They then traveled by air to Varanasi on the Ganges River. Cathy had some fascinating pictures of the rituals and ceremonies which they saw beside the river and at the ghats along the side of the river. Here they saw the most disturbing poverty, however, with women and children begging for food, hungry babies and many homeless people, both adults and children. After visiting Aurangabad and the cave and rock temples of Ajanta and Ellora, Peter and Cathy flew to the southern state of Kerala. Southern India is very different from Northern India, with tropical weather and colourful trees and flowers. Cathy had wonderful pictures of rubber and tea plantations, trucks with towering loads of hay, and many of the spices which grow in this area and which make the masala spice used in “chai” tea. A relaxing night on a rice barge completed their stay in Kerala. The final stop was Mumbai, with a day spent visiting the dhobi ghats where 5000 men known as “dhobi wallahs” do the washing for thousands of individuals, restaurants and hospitals, a beautiful Jain temple during the second day of a wedding ceremony, and driving by the Towers of Silence where Parsis are laid to rest after death to be picked clean by vultures. Cathy and Peter had an amazing trip and came back with thousands of photographs and many beautiful treasures for their home bought during the trip. India is a land of contrasts and Cathy managed to capture this with her talk and wonderful photographs. She really “caught the flavour” of the country with the variety of areas of India they visited and the experiences they experienced. It was the trip of a lifetime and we are grateful she was willing to share it with us. After the talk, we were treated to delicious South Indian food prepared by Lin’s helper, Lilly…a truly delightful end to an informative, interesting, and enjoyable morning! Pam Boucher
Talk by Dr. Joh Voll Members and guests gathered at Badan Warisan for a special lecture by Dr. John Voll, Prof of Islamic History and the associate director for the Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding (CMCU) at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. These seaports drew traveling merchants from diverse backgrounds, including the Buddhists (Chinese), Dr. Voll recommended that we visit the historical museum in Malacca which provides a graphic representation of how the sultanate governance structure was set up in earlier centuries. Secondly, this unique political structure has reduced the occurrence of radical nationalist movements by Malay nationals. While there were uprisings in the 1950's and 1960's by the Chinese tin miners organized around the His final key point discussed Malaysian “culturalism” in more depth. Led by Anwar Ibrahim in the 1970s, Malaysian "culturalism" emerged to help Malays establish an identity and push the government towards
Explorers' Visit to Shalini Ganendra's Art Gallery On November 19 we went to Datin Shalini’s Private Gallery to listen to the artist Chin Kon Yit and view his latest exhibition “Gems of Heritage”. The works feature true masterpieces showing his mastery of depicting such delicate objects as Malay jewellery, each painting taking him at least 2 weeks to complete. He explained that to get the gold colour, he had to mix many colours together for the finished beautiful effect of gold. Nyonya porcelain urns and Chinese lanterns and the Chinese auspicious guardian lions and Ganesha, the Hindu god of Success, all these made it into a beautiful collection. Some people could almost have come to blows over buying the works of art!!!! Chin said he could only afford to stay at collage for one year. When he did the paintings for the KL sketch book his first 40 paintings where all turned down but he did not give up and started again. Are we not pleased he did? The Sultan of Selangor and Perak have commissioned him to do books for them. He is an unassuming man but with great fun in him. He was not confident of his English skills so he brought his daughter Yuan along to help him. We all enjoyed our morning, having the books brought to life for us. If any of our members would like to have signed copies of Sketchbooks, Kl. Penang and Malacca please contact Shalini on sganendra@gmail.com the books are priced at RM 100 each. Elise Hill BOOK CLUB REPORTS Title: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror In 1951, Mossadegh became Iran’s first elected Prime Minister. Educated and shrewd, he was hugely popular rabble rousing nationalist. His target was the colonial British and particularly the Company held the monopoly on Iranian oil and gave back little. His first act was to nationalize the petroleum industry: Britain blockaded Iran, Iran expelled all British diplomats (and spies), and intransigence on both sides led to stalemate. The US resisted British entreaties to unseat Mossadegh until elections brought to power Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers, as Secretary of State and Director of CIA. Easily persuaded that Iran could fall under Russian influence, the CIA staged its first coup and reinstated the weak but compliant Shah, who later became the repressive tyrant unseated by 1979’s Islamic Revolution. Whilst well researched, this is no dry historical treatise. At times the book reads like a thriller, a true-life ‘Bond’ story, and Kinzer structures his story to emphasize the cloak-and-dagger spy work. This makes for an engaging, enjoyable read, but left some members wanting more depth to understand the historical and cultural back-story, and a stronger less convoluted narrative of the unfolding events. The coversheet carries a quote from President Truman: “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." For us, the history was shockingly new and yet the parallels with Iraq today are unmistakable and left us fearful of the history that today’s politicians do not know. Hugh Lailey
Title: Three Cups of Tea Over a cup of tea, 9 of us (including parents of Hilary), discussed Greg Mortenson and his heroic accomplishments in building schools in Pakistan’s far flung places, described in the book Three Cups of Tea. We all agreed on two things - Mortenson deserves praise for his unflinching devotion to his goal, and that the book is not exactly a literary masterpiece and could easily have been scaled down by 100 pages. Anyway that's what we thought. Three cups of Tea is about the struggles and the success of American Greg Mortenson, nurse, mountain climber, planner, whose many avatars are fascinating. It is a very inspiring story about an exhausted young man who fails to ascend K2 and gets lost. After he is nursed back to health by kind villagers of a remote Pakistani village, Mortenson promises to one day come back and build a school for them. The book is about how he keeps that promise and starts a humanitarian campaign to build schools in remote areas of Pakistan which are overlooked by the Government and District Councils. It is a story about his determination to get funds to implement his dreams. Did luck play a part in making him reach his goals. Many of us felt it sure did. But even if he had luck, he did not stop with one school. He took it on himself to provide as many schools his Institute could. In pursuing his goal, Mortenson survives a kidnap attempt, fatwas by Mullahs, separation from his beloved wife and children for long periods of time and also death threats and hate mails. We all agreed that Mortenson was not a very organized person and may have been difficult to work with. But then, committed people like him are surely entitled to their fair share of negative traits. Mortenson is to be awarded a top Civilian award by the Pakistani government. Jaishree Balasubramanian
NEWSLETTER REPORT Newsletter This is the November issue of the newsletter. The next issue will be in February 2009. The deadline for sending in your articles/photos is January 8. Please email your write ups to The write-ups should not be more than 350 words. They should be in Times New Roman font size 11. Jaishree Balasubramanian
BOOKING POLICY FOR EVENTS Reservations Wait List Payments Cancellations Refunds Eligibility Event Participation Eligibility Your co-operation with the Booking Policy would be much appreciated by the Events Planning Team.
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