Remembering Tee Ah Chong and the Memories of a Family

It came as a total shock to me when I read the posting by Fook Lu Siew Funeral Parlour on 19 September announcing that Tee Ah Chong had passed away on 16 September. That very afternoon, I went to the funeral parlour to pay my last respects to him before his funeral on Monday, 21 September.

At the funeral parlour, I met his wife and some of his children. They told me that his passing had come much more unexpectedly and quickly than they had anticipated. As he had a history of liver hardening, he began experiencing pain in early September. After undergoing tests and examinations at the hospital, he was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer. His condition deteriorated rapidly, and his liver eventually failed.

What struck me was the way he faced the final stage of his life. Shortly before his death, he told his family that he did not want to be intubated or placed on any other form of life-support system simply to prolong his life. His family respected and honoured his wishes. He passed away peacefully soon afterwards, surrounded by his loved ones.

05.06.1955 - 16.09.2026

Taken at the funeral parlour with one of the sons of
Tee Ah Chong on 19 September.

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It had been quite some time since I last met Tee Ah Chong. I recall last calling him for yamcha on 31 March this year. He was busy that day and promised to call me back so that we could meet another time. Unfortunately, that call never came.

I first came to know Tee Ah Chong through work, when he was involved in the concrete repair business. He later told me that he had left that line of work. One of the challenges he found increasingly difficult was managing workers. He often remarked about how many workers were so preoccupied with their handphones that one of their first tasks in the morning was to find a power source to charge them. During breaks, their attention would quickly return to their screens. To him, this inevitably affected their concentration and commitment to the work.

He subsequently became a property agent, a profession he readily acknowledged was not an easy one, particularly when it came to earning a steady and reliable income. Yet, in our conversations, he remained open, practical and down-to-earth.

Remembering Tee Ah Chong also brought back memories of his older brother, Tee Sua, who passed away about two years ago in October 2024.  In fact, I had known Tee Sua even before I met Tee Ah Chong. My friendship with Tee Sua stretches back almost as far as my engineering career. I first met Tee Sua soon after I graduated and started work in April 1978, when I joined JKR Sabah as an Executive Engineer and was seconded to the development of the new Kota Kinabalu International Airport (Read here). At that time, the construction contract had just commenced, with reclamation and site preparation works for the new terminal building and taxiway. The contractor was a joint venture between Goh Brothers and Syarikat Berjaya, of which Tee Sua was the founder and owner.

What began as a professional association at a major project site gradually developed into a lasting friendship. Even after I left the airport project and was recalled to JKR Headquarters in 1982 to serve in the Airport Unit, our connection continued. From time to time, I would receive a call from his office staff inviting me to join him for yamcha or a simple lunch.

Those casual meetings continued for many years, right up to around 2019, shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic. By then, his health had begun to decline with advancing age.

There was another interesting connection. When I decided to build my present home in 2002, Syarikat Berjaya was eventually selected from among several invited contractors as the successful bidder for the construction of the house. In a small but meaningful way, the professional relationship that had begun more than two decades earlier at the airport project had found its way into the building of my own home.

Looking back, what began as a working relationship with Tee Sua in the early days of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport project eventually became a friendship that quietly spanned more than four decades. Through that long association, I also came to know his younger brother, Tee Ah Chong.

The passing of Tee Ah Chong therefore brought back not only memories of him, but also a whole chapter of my own life - memories of people I met in the early years of my engineering career, projects that shaped my professional journey, and friendships that continued long after the work itself had ended.

People come into our lives in different seasons. Some remain only for a short while; others become part of our story for decades. The Tee brothers, in their own different ways, became part of mine.

Tee Ah Chong may have left rather suddenly, but the memories of the times shared with him - and the many years of friendship with his brother Tee Sua - will remain.

The Circle and Seasons of Life

Late Saturday morning, 12 September, a message was posted in the MU Fifians chat group. It was originally sent by Ester Tan, the daughter of Low Wai Yee, and conveyed to us through a fellow ex-Fifian. She informed us that her mother’s condition had deteriorated and that her carbon dioxide levels were rising.

The message further informed that Wai Yee was still alert and relatively free of symptoms, and she was able to talk with her family. She then made a courageous and deeply personal decision. She told her family that she did not want to be intubated. Her family understood and respected her wishes. They said their goodbyes and kept her comfortable with BiPAP support.

Just before 10pm on Monday, 14 September, another brief message came from her daughter: “My mom passed away at 1.15pm in the afternoon.” It was a message that brought home the finality of what we had anticipated.

Wai Yee had first personally shared the news with the Fifians group on 7 December 2024: “Sad to inform that I have early stage of pancreatic cancer. Going for treatment soon. Thanks for prayers. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance!”

Those words, written with such courage and hope, were still fresh in our memories.

Receiving the news of the passing of an old university friend is especially difficult when it comes immediately after celebrating the wedding of a young couple - a joyful occasion marking the beginning of a new chapter in life.

Yet, perhaps this is precisely the rhythm and mystery of life. Within a short span, we witnessed both a beginning and an ending: a young couple embarking on their journey together, and a friend completing hers.

As Ecclesiastes reminds us: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die.”

Life moves between these seasons - birth and death, beginnings and endings, joy and sorrow. And in between lies the gift of the journey: the people we meet, the friendships we make, the memories we leave behind, and the lives we touch.

May Wai Yee now rest peacefully in the presence of the Lord, and may God comfort her family, relatives and all of us who mourn her passing.

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Original 1973 old b/w photo.

AI-colourized 1973 old photo of some of the members of
the 5th Residential College Christian Group.

Front row from left: Wong Kim Kong (deceased), Yogeswaran (deceased). Second row from left: Me, Sun Nan Ping, Jenny Wee and Penny Lim. Back row from left: Low Wai Yee (Deceased), Quah Mooi Eng (Deceased), Joyce Ting, Ho Wai Suet and David Tow (Deceased).

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My wife and I first got to know Wai Yee when we enrolled as freshies at the University of Malaya in 1973 and were assigned to stay at the 5th Residential College.

A Christian Resident Fellow at the Residential College, David Tow who was a lecturer at the Faculty of Education opened his home on weekend evenings, providing a place where believers and pre-believers could come together for fellowship, conversation and friendship. It was in this setting that many of us came to know one another more closely.

After graduation, we went our separate ways to pursue our careers, build our families and establish our lives. As the years passed, however, some of those friends who had shared our formative university years gradually left us and went ahead of us into eternity.

Yageswaran was the first, passing away in December 2005 (Read here), followed by Quah Mooi Eng in August 2014 (Read here). David Tow, the former College Resident Fellow who returned to Australia after his retirement, passed away in October 2017. More recently, we lost KC Ho in February 2024 (Read here) and Wong Kim Kong in September 2024 (Read here).

With the passing of Wai Yee, six among our group have now gone ahead of us.

It is sobering to realise how quickly the years have passed. The young university students we once were are now in the later seasons of our lives. The friendships formed more than five decades ago remain precious, even as the circle of those who shared those early years becomes smaller.

Perhaps this is another reminder that life is indeed a journey - and that, one day, each of us will come to the end of our earthly journey. For those of us who believe in Christ, however, death is not the end, but a passage into eternal life with our Lord.

original 1973 old b/w photo.

AI-colourized old 1973 group photo of
5th Residential College Christian Group.

Front row from left: Quah Mooi Eng (deceased), Low Wai Yee (deceased), Teoh Guek Yean, Wong Kim Kong (deceased), Yogeswaran (deceased) and me. David Tow is at right of second row.

A Pleasant Surprise at a Wedding Banquet - Meeting Kenny and Beatrice

Since our last attendance at a wedding banquet on 8 August, just over a month ago, we were once again invited to another wedding celebration on 13 September - the wedding of Wallace and Jessica. They were among the couples who attended the pre-marriage course organised by the Church in May this year.

It was a grand affair, with more than sixty tables of guests filling the banquet hall. The atmosphere was lively and joyful, with laughter and conversation all around as family members, relatives and friends gathered to celebrate the young couple as they began a new chapter in their lives. It was a fun-filled and memorable evening.

But, for us, what made the evening especially meaningful was an unexpected encounter with Kenny and Beatrice. Kenny and Beatrice were among the very first batches of couples who signed up for the pre-marriage course when the Church introduced the programme in the early 2000s. That was more than twenty years ago. At that time, they were still a young couple preparing themselves for marriage, just as Wallace and Jessica are doing today.

We had not seen them for quite some time, so it was a pleasant surprise to meet them again at the banquet. As we chatted and caught up with one another, they shared that their two children are now 20 and 14 years old. We could hardly believe it! Their eldest has already entered university as a first-year student.

Twenty years - where did all those years go? It seems like only yesterday that Kenny and Beatrice were attending the pre-marriage course as a young couple, listening, learning and preparing for married life. Yet, without us quite realising it, the years had passed, their family had grown. Their eldest is already taking the first steps into university life.

Moments like this always make us pause and reflect on how quickly time passes - especially at our present age. Weddings are often celebrations of beginnings, but this particular wedding banquet also reminded us of the many journeys that have unfolded since the Church first started the pre-marriage ministry.

Over the years, we have seen young couples come through the course with dreams and hopes for their future together. Some we meet occasionally; others have moved on with their lives. Some we may not have seen for many years. But every now and then, we meet one of them again, and suddenly a whole chapter of the past comes alive. Meeting Kenny and Beatrice was one of those special moments. Their presence at the banquet was almost like a bridge between the past and the present - between the young couples we met in the early days of the ministry and the new generation of couples like Wallace and Jessica who are now beginning their own journey.

As we watched Wallace and Jessica celebrate their wedding surrounded by family and friends, we could not help but think of Kenny and Beatrice and the many years of marriage and family life that have followed their own wedding day.

Perhaps this is one of the quiet blessings of serving in the Church. We may not always see the fruits of what we do immediately. But years later, sometimes quite unexpectedly, we catch a glimpse of how lives have unfolded. A couple we once knew as newlyweds may now be the parents of university students. And the young couple standing before us today will, before we know it, have their own story to tell.

The evening therefore became more than just another wedding banquet for us. It was a joyful celebration of Wallace and Jessica’s new beginning, but also a nostalgic reminder of the passage of time, the preciousness of family, and the many lives that God has allowed us to touch along the way.

As we left the banquet that night, I found myself thinking: perhaps this is what makes the journey worthwhile - not only remembering the couples we once helped prepare for marriage, but occasionally meeting them again and discovering, with a mixture of surprise and gratitude, just how far they have come.

With Wallace and Jessica.

With Kenny and Beatrice.

Chapter 42: Tarap and an Untold Story

Early this week, our neighbour gave us two not-yet-fully-ripened tarap fruits. The moment I saw them, I instantly recalled our last “hunt” for this fruit in March 2024, when Sam’s family was in Kota Kinabalu for a holiday. Rachel, my daughter-in-law, was particularly keen to taste tarap again after having eaten it a couple of years earlier. Unfortunately, we didn't find any tarap on sale because it was not the season (Read here). Their first taste of tarap was in September 2019, when they had their first trial of this unusual fruit. My granddaughter, Livvie in particular, really loved it (Read here).

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For me, eating tarap always evokes memories of childhood. Perhaps that is because tarap trees grew in my grandmother’s farm in Kampong Pulutan, as well as in the vicinity of my childhood home near what is now Jalan Istana.

But there is another memory connected to tarap trees - one that has remained with me for more than sixty years and is still difficult for me to talk about. It was an incident that could have changed the course of our family and my life had it turned out differently.

The Tarap Trees and the Fall

In the 1950s and 1960s, village houses had neither electricity nor a piped water supply. Our very first form of “entertainment” came when my father finally bought a battery-powered radio. I believe this was around 1963.

To obtain better reception, a long copper wire was strung high above the ground and connected to the radio set as an aerial. In our case, my father chose two huge, tall tarap trees to support the wire.

On one fateful weekend morning, my father, with the help of his two young sons - my second brother, Elvis and I - set about putting up the aerial. To climb the first tarap tree, my dad used a long bamboo pole, leaning it against the tarap tree at an angle and then climbing up.

He had climbed more than three-quarters of the way up the sloping pole when, suddenly, the pole dislodged from the tree. My father fell together with the bamboo pole. Because the tree stood on a hillside, the actual height of the fall was about fifteen feet. He landed on the ground and lay motionless.

We immediately cried out for help. My mother came rushing out of the house below and ran up the slope. Seeing my father lying motionless, she gently tapped him and then instructed me to go back to the house and get a cup. At that moment, I was completely bewildered. In the middle of such a frightening accident, why on earth did she need a cup? 

I ran back and brought one. By then, my father was slowly regaining consciousness. My mother's next instruction was for my second brother to urinate into the cup. Once the cup was almost full, she placed it against my father's mouth and helped him drink it. Slowly, he seemed to improve, and with our help, we managed to get him back into the house.

By God's grace, my father recovered remarkably well. There appeared to be no lasting injury from what had been a potentially devastating fall.

At the time, my brother and I had absolutely no idea why my mother had done what she did. It was only much later that she explained to us the traditional belief behind her actions - particularly the supposed “benefit” of drinking the urine of a young boy.

The Traditional Belief

During the 1950s and earlier, Chinese immigrants to North Borneo (now Sabah), many of whom originated from Guangdong, brought with them deeply rooted folk customs, traditional remedies and beliefs influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In rural communities, these practices often became intertwined with local beliefs, superstition and practical remedies developed out of necessity. One such traditional belief concerned the use of human urine, particularly the urine of young boys, known in Chinese as 童子尿. In traditional Chinese folklore and historical medical practice, urine was sometimes believed to possess therapeutic properties. In certain circumstances, including after a serious fall or injury, it might have been regarded as a desperate remedy for someone who appeared weak, semi-conscious or seriously affected by trauma.

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Yet, more than sixty years later, I still remember that morning vividly. For a young boy, it was a frightening experience. For our family, it was a moment that could have changed everything.

Looking back, I can fully understand why my mother took that course of action. There was no instant communication or easy way to seek emergency medical assistance in those days. Faced with my father lying unconscious after a serious fall, she had to act immediately, using whatever knowledge and remedies were available to her. The only “instant remedy” she knew was one that had been passed down to her since childhood - and, in that moment of desperation, she naturally turned to what she had been taught to believe might help. My father’s quick recovery, together with the absence of any obvious physical injury, was more than sufficient to convince my mother that the remedy she instantly chose had worked.

And today, whenever I eat a tarap, I am reminded not only of its distinctive taste and the happy memories of childhood, but also of those two enormous tarap trees, the bamboo pole, my father's fall, my mother's desperate response, and, above all, God's grace in preserving my father's life.

Some memories are attached to places. Others are attached to people. And some, unexpectedly, are attached to a fruit.

A Chance Encounter with an Old University Friend - Darshan

After the opening of the multi-storey car park and market in Foh Sang at the beginning of 2025, we have occasionally visited the market to buy vegetables and other foodstuffs. Our visits were usually in the late morning. So, our visit to the market at 7am on Saturday, 5 September, was a first for us.

The market was already vibrant and bustling at that early hour. We met quite a number of familiar faces, as well as one gentleman who recognised me even though, embarrassingly, I could not recall his name.

But the most remarkable and unexpected encounter came after breakfast, when we bumped into Darshan Singh at one of the eateries.

Darshan and I were both former students of the University of Malaya. I remember meeting him occasionally in the UM campus in the 1970s, particularly when the Sabah Students' Group organised social activities and gatherings. To see him again after more than half a century was truly amazing and brought back a flood of memories from our university days.

One noticeable change was that Darshan did not wear a turban during our university days, whereas he does today.

Although I had not seen him in person since our university days, I had not completely lost touch with his name. He has appeared in the local newspapers over the years, most notably for his courageous stand in publicly opposing the handing over of Labuan to the Federal Government to become a Federal Territory in 1984. According to reports, he was subsequently detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for two years. He later spoke publicly about his detention during a 2013 debate involving two former Sabah Chief Ministers (Read here).

Darshan's legacy will perhaps be his willingness to stand up for what he believed was right, despite knowing the risks and personal consequences he might face.

Our conversation also gave me an opportunity to catch up on what he has been doing in recent years. Darshan told me that he is currently serving as the Secretary General of the Sabah Boxing Association (Read here). He also shared proudly that one of his sons, Sachev Singh, is a cruiserweight boxer representing Sabah and has won a silver medal in the Malaysia Cup (Read here).

The encounter with an old university friend after breakfast was certainly not something we expected when we set out for the market that morning. But that unexpected reunion with Darshan, after more than fifty years, made it a particularly memorable Saturday morning.

An old 1973 group photo of MU Sabah Sudents' Group.
Taken at an open field in MU Campus.

Colourized photo.
Sitting from left: Wilfred Bumburing, Awang Bakar,
Late Helen Richard (Later became Mrs. Mark Koding).
Standing from left: Late Mark Koding, Me,
Felix Madan, Suhaile, Late Vincent Gadalon,
Darshan Singh and Sangau Gunting. 

Another old 1973 photo of the larger group of the
MU Sabah Students' Group.

Colourized photo.
Darshan is at front row sitting at right.
Me at third row standing at right.

Front row from left: Wilfred Bumburing, Awang Bakar, Late Helen Richard, Askalani Durahin, Darshan Singh.

Second row from left: Noni Said, Jainisah Nurajim, Lee Lai Yun, Mary Teresa Kinajil, Teo Eng Leng, Late Vincent Gadalon, Siti Aisha, Suhaile.

Third row standing from left: Late Mark Koding, (?), (?), Frederick Subal, Late Flora Chong, Soon Thien Sing, Teo Tu Huah, (?), Johnny Lee (Johnny Bouniu), Sangau Gunting, Me.

Back row from left: Rayner Barnabas Longinus Molikun, Felix Madan, Ansari Abdullah, (?).