When we were in Kuching, Sarawak last month for the Chinese New Year break, we managed to take time off to visit a client of ours, Robert.
Robert had just moved to Kuching after 20+ years living in Penang. He had taught Creative Writing in USM for a decade before his contract ended. Almost as soon, he found himself a job in UNIMAS (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak) due to his credentials as a published author, editor, speaker and writing teacher.
Besides, he had intended to move to Sarawak as his wife’s family is from a place called Quop. (Robert’s an American by the way from Pennsylvania who has been living in Penang for the longest time and so considers himself a Penangite.)
We called on him at his office in the sprawling Jurassic-like campus of UNIMAS. We have not been to the new or old campus and this was a good time to sneak a peek at this institution. Plus we being USM alumni, we wanted to see how UNIMAS measured up! LOL.
The first thing which struck us was that the campus was huge, with even bigger buildings. Yet the campus seemed ghostly, even deserted although Robert said that the semester was still in session. Where were the undergrads? Probably holed up in their dorms or library as the campus, with its lack of trees and greenery, felt like a baking oven!
Unlike USM with its gorgeous old trees and fields of jade green, UNIMAS looked like it was all concrete. Spindly trees tried to grow along the rim of the lakes. But the lakes definitely did not look conducive for anything (in USM, one could jog along the lake, sit around and read under the trees, or just daydream while feeding the tilapia with stale bread… well, at least that’s what we used to do when we were undergrads in USM more than a decade ago.)
Robert gave us a walk-about of the campus nearest to his office as it was simply too hot to walk any further. We had visited his office and in contrast to the awful heat outside, his office was rather cold due to the airconditioning.
Soon it was time to visit his new double-storey home at Penrissen which was about 20 minutes away from the UNIMAS campus. In fact, Robert had kindly decided to cook for us! He apologised that he could not cook up a bigger feast other than spaghetti as it was difficult, not to mention far away, to get the ingredients he needed for his feast.
Ah, no problem. For us, it’s not so much the food as it is the company we were dining with. Plus we were there to advise him on his website as well as teach him how to blog and how to set up his first blog!
What we liked about Robert’s home is that he had no TV in his hall. He had moved the TV upstairs to the TV den (wise move!). In most Malaysian homes, the humongous plasma TV would be the first thing to greet you as you enter, but not in Robert’s home. It was warmly inviting, filled with antiques and knicks-knacks collected over his years of travel and living in Malaysia. Most of his furniture had endured the journey in a container from Penang to Kuching. Many of his pieces were memories of his life in Penang. (He even shipped both cars from Penang to Kuching! And they arrived unscathed… hurray for shipping)
We could see that he was very pleased with his new home, and new life in Sarawak with his wife and sons. He did see the differences of living in Penang and in Kuching - for one, he had a quality life where his sons could actually grow up near their cousins and extended family. Two, Robert’s wife, Jenny said she was surprised she could leave her office at 5pm! In Penang, she used to work till 8 or 9pm. And three, Robert has plans to discover more about Sarawak and its hidden charms - it is, after all, a big state to explore!
That is why he wanted to dedicate his first blog to his two-year-old Jason (isn’t he adorable?) who has the privilege of being of mixed parentage, American-Bidayuh. Robert was excited about blogging about his jaunts with Jason so much so he named his blog “Walking With Jason in Borneo“.
Go and peek into the blog. You will know why Robert’s a writer, teacher and speaker. His writing absolutely shines!