By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
My old friend Chan Kang Yuen, 90 (seated, extreme left) was launching his book on his recollection of his sixty-year career as a journalist.
What an event.
I thought I was there to say hello to an old friend I’ve lost touch with.
What evolved was this photo opportunity with a broad collection of journalists in Kota Kinabalu.
I first met Chan in Sandakan when I answered an advertisement looking for a part time translator for the now-defunct Sandakan Jih Pao newspaper.
Chan was then the chief editor. And me, a bachelor trying to earn extra.
Thanks to that opportunity I went on to hone my language skills that helped me tremendously through the years.
The launching was performed by Datuk Mugutan Vanar, a longtime newspaper comrade and an advisor to the Sabah Journalists Association.
Also present was former Sabah Minister Datuk Yap Pak Leong who, like Chan, has the ‘distinction’ of being a detainee in the once infamous ‘Kepayan University’.
Kepayan is the location of the Sabah State prison.
It was at one time in the post-May 13 1969 years, used by the Sabah State government to detain, without trial, persons deemed undesirable.
There was this law (now obsolete) that preceded the dreaded Internal Security Act and then Chief Minister Tun Mustapha Harun wasn’t shy at all using it to lock up those he believed to be dissenters.
Datuk Yap told the gathering that he was detained for over two years.
Chan, which was the editor of the than Sandakan-based Borneo Times, a Chinese language paper, was locked up for just short of two years.
Chan, a Kota Kinabalu native, is a man of few words.
His career took him through Sandakan, Tawau and KK and other than Borneo Times, Sandakan Jih Pao, he also headed the Merdeka Daily News (Sandakan), the Morning Post (Tawau), Sabah Jit Poh (KK) and Asia Times (KK).
It’s safe to say that every journalist in this photo has known this man I come to know as ‘Lao chan’, a casual address in Mandarin of a buddy.
The book is published by Opus Publications that has outlets in Wisma Merdeka, KK and the airport at Sandakan.
A good read.