July 24: An exciting reunion after three decades of Setapak High School Form Fivers 1981

I was one of 22 former Form Five Setapak High School students (1981) who gathered at Bangi Kopitiam, Wangsa Maju for a reunion after 30 years . The first to come and sat at the table was Martin Paul who looks young as ever. I then came second as the main coordinator of the reunion and saw Martin whom I have met once or twice prior to this. The numbers then became nine (Martin, Ganesan, Ahsan, Ruzaini, Annuar, Zafarul, Tarmizi, Felix and I) by about 9 pm and mostly made up of those who had confirmed their attendance via facebook. By this time we got to know that Zaid, Ruze, Gan Kim Beng, Tan Kim Ping and other who had been invited via facebook event will not be attending.

After a few more minutes, some of us started to ask impatiently "where are the others?", as the agreed time to start was at 8.30 pm, more than 30 minutes had passed. To reassure each other, everyone started to confess that they had done their part of inviting i.e. Zafarul said he had invited Azim and Megat, but two others Cikgu Jagdev and Kamalanathan might not come. Ganesan said he had invited Martin. The confession continued until everyone was placing their patience back in place.

The patience bore fruit as Azim and Megat showed up, then one by one surprises upon surprises as the attendance started to grow bigger and bigger. Hamid, Zainal, Ghulam and Man were the best surprises that night. Their names had not been mentioned, but somehow Azim were the connectors between the event and them

The event was a success and the attendees had a lot of fun and excitement. These are the comments from some of them:

I spoke to Mazlan who could not turned up, he promised to make it when we have it again next time. Eventually 22 people turned up, Yana being the last to show up while the rest waited patiently for him, except for Azim who had to go as the wife had called for him. In the meantime, we shared our memories and talked fondly of High School, other friends who were not present, teachers, incidences at the canteen (Azim with his "sudu"), Len Seng Bas Sekolah, Bas Semata, SJI and High School fighting and many other sweet, happy, fond memories.

Most of us are married with children, except for Oing (Kamarulzaman) who is now an actor in a local drama "Laila Asyikin", Tuesday to Thursday at 10.30 pm. Frankly speaking he was not an actor material, a few more centimeters (probably ten) of his height would be better. But he has a nice smile and can act as either a father, grandfather or uncle. In the drama, he acts as a shareholder. Another celebrity among our batch is the famous sportscaster, Shaukei Kahar who could not attend as he has a sportscasting assignment the same night.

We took a lot of photographs, especially Aziz with his band of handsome sons who sat at another table not far from us. At the end of the session, Zafarul and I paid for the drinks and foods, actually not much just a mere RM177, however what I was impressed with the rest of the guys were their willingness to put in their money and eventually we collected RM405. As the coordinator of the reunion, I then proposed that whatever has been paid by Zafarul and I will remain and the money collected that night will be brought forward to our next gathering.

The renunion adjourned at about 12 pm, as all of the patron of the Kopitiam had left, the staff had already cleared our table, the Kopitiam chefs and cooks had their parting meals, the lights were switched off and the shutter was about to be pulled down. Most of us left except for some who continued and extended the reunion at the new NZ Curry House just a walking distance from where we were before.

I'm excited for July 24

Yes I'm excited. I have already gathered in my pool of fb friends 10 of my ex-schoolmates who were from the same batch. We are planning for a simple reunion next Saturday and some are coming from outstation to attend. Those who are not connected via fb will be invited via sms. Thanks to our communication technology.

At the same time I'm planning for my reunion, my wife is also attending her college reunion at the end of the month. She had already attended her secondary school class reunion a couple of months ago. According to her, her batch is now planning to have a secondary school year reunion. Definitely she is much more advanced than me.

What makes me excited is some of us had not met each other for over thirty years… wow I need to say it again 30 YEARS!!!! Just imagine 30 years of progress, of development and of growth probably would bring people to new heights and levels.

The last time we had a reunion was in 2006, it was more like an impromptu reunion after celebrating our High School Silver Jubilee. Then, most of whom who attended it were not from my class, now hopefully there will be a lot more coming from my class. This also makes me more excited.

Reunion such as this provides an opportunity for everyone to reconnect and probably create new professional and business networks. In this era of stiff competition and acute circle of influence, networks may be able to smoothen a professional endeavour or a business venture. The reconnection and network may even be beneficial to the school which had provided us education and guidance more than 30 years ago. This is something worth pondering.

So to all High School 1981 Form Fivers, hope to see you, especially those from my class. Click here for more details http://www.facebook.com/hjmalek?v=app_2344061033#!/event.php?eid=141770409167695&index=1.

World Cup 2010

World Cup 2010 has been so devastating. Spain, Holland and Germany persevered and are in the Semi-Final while Argentina and Brazil were defeated when the odds were stacked for either one of them to be the first World Cup champion hosted in Africa. Italy was the surprise early exit, while France and England were expected not to progress and had rightly showed their true form when they exactly did that. South Korea and Japan revived their reputation as the power house of Asia when both qualified into the Second Round. However, the referee miscalled of England second goal against Germany and deliberate handball by Suarez of Uruguay's against Ghana were two of the most horrible things that could have happened during this most prestigious event. Definitely this World Cup is full of colour.

I grew up loving soccer with passion. I played soccer socially (not competitively he he) until I was form three. I love the game and it helped me socialise with the boys at school and in my neighbourhood. I played soccer before school, during Physical Education classes, after school, at home on Saturdays and Sundays. We played on the school field, in a rubber plantation near my house (sometimes dribbling the ball in between rubber trees he he) and on dirt roads in front of the housing estate.

Malaysia was one of the soccer power house of Asia in the 70's and 80's. I could still remember in the 70's, Malaysia soccer team qualified for the Munich Olympic 1972 and won third place in the Asia Games 1974. Then in 1980, Malaysia qualified to the Moscow Olympic. I witnessed them all with my own eyes via black and white live telecast. South Korea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia were then equal to Malaysia in form and power. We used to beat them all.

In mid 1970's, I will make an effort to watch as many of soccer matches at Merdeka Stadium either during the Malaysia Cup, Burnley (Razak under 17) Cup and Merdeka Cup. I will be accompanied by my elder brothers, both of whom had passed away (may Allah bless their soul). They were footballers when they were at school as well. This continued until mid 1990's when Malaysian soccer started to decline due to a massive corruption scandal. Since then I had not stepped into the soccer stadium ever.

So where is Malaysia now? Though we won the SEA Games gold medal recently, we are still nowhere near South Korea and Japan. Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Myanmar can still beat us anytime. On certain days we can even draw with Laos or Cambodia, and other days may even loss to them.

So what happened? It is about vision, determination, action and fulfillment.

Malaysia has lost its vision in becoming the top team of Asia. The vision is lost not only by the FAM, it is also lost by the players. We have not produced players who can even be selected to play in Europe 2nd or 3rd league. FAM and the players are not determined to build a soccer generation among the Malaysian youngsters. They are quite contented to organize the domestic Premier League, M-League, Malaysia and FA Cup every year. The action that they have taken to progress the game in Malaysia has been haphazard and disoriented. Within the span of thirty years, soccer has not brought us any notable glory beyond this region. There is no fulfillment felt by the people and the soccer fan, more so by the FAM and the players in the Malaysian soccer arena.

What can we learnt by all these? Achieving fulfillment requires a clear vision, strong determination and consistent action. Maradona, the Argentinian coach and a World Cup player said "Latin American soccer will never ever overcome the European soccer, what we can do is to develop our youngsters for them to be skilled in soccer. Let them ply their professional soccer career in European leagues where there are abundant of big monies. When the World Cup turns up, we bring them back and let them play for their country with love and pride". A statement full of vision, determination, action and fulfillment. So what's next Malaysia?