SMS Kelantan as I Remember

This is a collection of stories and old photos of me, friends, teachers and events during my secondary school years (1975-79) at SMS Kelantan, which is now known as Sek Men Sains Tengku Muhammad Faris Putra. The school itself was started in 1973, and moved to the new campus in 1974 (you'll see grassless field in some pix!)

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Friday, February 29, 2008

Rumah Pam Kemubu (Kemubu Pump House)

My gang sat for the Lower Certificate of Education (LCE) examination in October 1977. Nowadays they have PMR instead. I wouldn't say that LCE and PMR are equivalent, even though both are/were taken at the end of the 3rd year in secondary school. This is because in those days if a student got 6As or 7As (out of a maximum 8 subjects), he or she will be one of the top students in the state, if not nationwide, whereas now you can get as high as 85% of the students in a particular school getting 8As!

Anyway, back to Oct 1977, like the present students, after the LCE examination, we had a couple of weeks to spare before the end-of-the-year holidays.

The school had arranged some educational trips for us but there was the MAGERAN emergency so our "outing" stint was cut short. Click here for a bit about the MAGERAN incident then.

We only managed to visit a couple of places, and one of them was the Rumah Pam Kemubu.
[from http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/ac799e/ac799e03.htm:
The Kemubu scheme: This low-lift pumping scheme, designed by French consultants, adopted downstream control for the main canal and the pumping station and upstream control for the secondary system equipped with long-crested weirs and modular distributors[17]. As in the Muda scheme, the operational problem is the difficulty of controlling flows in the minor system and meeting the requirements of increasingly diversified cropping. Different control structures were later adopted for an extension of the scheme, consisting of adjustable flow-dividing structures.]
We were taken into the pump house.

Inside the pumphouse, water being pumped above us!

Other poses:
3 Aplha Girls (Norita, Fauziah, Nury and me)


Latifah, Haliza@MekRock, me & Dr Rohana

Kelantan River in the background. Also Bukit Panau on the other side of the river




Finally, before we left, a group pic (courtesy of Sim Kay Loh):


The accompanying teachers were Miss Sathiawathy (extreme left) , Mr Hamdi (3rd from right) & Mt Lye Kim Yong(far right). I am not sure who the other guys at the back were.

Sim was my junior by 1-year. She was among the non-Muslim students who followed us. I think that day their classes were having exam for Agama Islam paper, so they were allowed to join us that day. Maybe if Sim is reading this, she can confirm it. My memory is fading....


Note: Recently I met Howard Yamaguchi in Acheh, and during our chat I found out that in the early 1970s, Howard was a Peace Corp member working for KADA (Kemubu Agricultural Development Authority)!

I strongly recommend that you read the comments below as they contain more info, thanks to Howard.

posted by busymum100 @ 5:11 PM  

10 Comments:

  • At March 01, 2008 1:09 PM, Blogger Howard said…

    Ah, the Kemubu Pump House! The source of much pride, of so many operational headaches, and the source of (most of) the water in our Kemubu Irrigation Area! (Other water sources in the Kemubu Scheme area included the Salor Pump House [situated across Sg. Kelantan from Pasir Mas] and some smaller headworks [river diversion works] in Jajahan Pasir Puteh. --- Sorry, can't help myself --- once an engineer, always an engineer :) )

    When I visited the site in November 2005, there was a new pump house next to the old one, a seven-pump unit instead of the five, like the old one has. The old one still had the "Rumah Pam Kemubu" sign, but the new one was labeled, "Rumah Pam Kemubu Utama."

    I also remember well the Mageran emergency! The Federal Reserve Force swarming the city in their red berets and red armoured vehicles, the perintah berkurong in KB, the amusing anecdotes I have of finding ways around the restrictions, Tunku Razaleigh delivering Kelantan to the Barisan, and the sudden and massive influx of development funds starting after the Barisan victory.

    Thank you, Sabariah, for the memories! And thanks especially of the picture where you and your friends are posing along the decorative trees along the entranceway to the pump house. Our chief engineer, the late Mr. Lim Thye Lian, was especially proud of the landscaping around the pump house.

     

  • At March 01, 2008 3:41 PM, Blogger busymum100 said…

    Howard,

    Thank you for the additional info. We were indeed very fascinated by the beautiful landscape! Imagine having that in the middle of kampung area, that'w why we couldn't resist taking the picture :-)

    I don't remember much about the Mageran. The only thing I remember was that soon after that trip, the school sent us back home!! I remember the bus (our school bus) trip home passed by Pasi Pekan, Kutan and Pasir Mas(PM) with half of the bus load was from PM. By the time it reached my destination (Tanah Merah), the was was almost empty :-(

     

  • At March 03, 2008 9:34 PM, Blogger Howard said…

    Check out what's probably my last blog on http://howard-aceh.blogspot.com .

    I show some batik pictures.

     

  • At March 04, 2008 2:19 PM, Blogger zuhdi said…

    Mr Howard

    It's a very interesting comment you wrote there. Being an engineer and builder myself, it is always nice to hear some historical engineering. Being there during the construction, perhaps you can confirm this information that I have.

    When Mr Lim Goh Tong, the Malaysian casino tycoon died recently, in one of his memoirs published in the newspapers, it was written that Mr Goh Tong was the contractor who build the Kemubu Pump House.

    Being a builder, not a gambler, I am captivated by this part of Mr Goh Tong's life achievement. While I knew Mr Goh Tong was a contractor when he first migrated from China to Malaysia, I never knew he was the one who build the Kemubu Pump House. Can you confirm this piece of info Mr Howard?

    In fact I don't think many people also knew that Mr Goh Tong is the contractor who build the Sultan Yahya Petra bridge over Sungai Kelantan, the pride of Kelantan.

     

  • At March 04, 2008 7:58 PM, Blogger Howard said…

    Hello, Zudhi!

    Yes, Mr. Lim Thye Lian, my late boss, once told me that the contractor did so well building the Kemubu Scheme that he was able to develop Genting Highlands (I think that was the casino). If I'm not mistaken, the construction company was called Kian Huat or something like that. The Kemubu Scheme was designed by the French hydraulic engineering firm of SOGREAH, and funding for the construction was from a World Bank loan (or maybe a grant, I don't remember). Interestingly, Sogreah is active now in Banda Aceh, designing parts of the Banda Aceh urban drainage system.

    I didn't know that Goh also built the Sultan Yahya Petra bridge! Although it's not doing too well now, that bridge certainly was THE bridge as far as we were concerned (along with the Guillemard bridge in Kuala Krai, which holds a special place in the hearts of those of us who served in JPT during the monsoon floods).

    Another coincidence: I returned to the northern California in the US in early 1979 after serving with JPT in Kelantan since mid-1975. One of the offices of the company I worked for used to be a small independent engineering design company before it was bought by my company. I found out that they had designed the Sultan Yahya Petra bridge! They were overjoyed when I showed them a postcard I brought back from KB that showed the bridge! They circulated it in their office and had some interesting discussions, they said.

    We are all related/connected in some way...

     

  • At March 05, 2008 1:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Howard, you wrote "We are all related/connected in some way..."

    Sure, no surprise there, everything has been pre-destined, for some divine reason, I suppose. Like for me to bump into you at malsingmaps.com. :)

     

  • At March 06, 2008 11:35 PM, Blogger Howard said…

    [naim said...

    "... Sure, no surprise there, everything has been pre-destined, for some divine reason, I suppose. Like for me to bump into you at malsingmaps.com. :) " ]

    Yeah, and having a common interest/background in Kelantan, too! Scary, huh? :)

     

  • At March 07, 2008 5:31 PM, Blogger Howard said…

    abariah,

    Speaking of being sent back to Tanah Merah during the Mageran emergency curfews...

    Do you or your friends from Tanah Merah that went to the SM there remember the Peace Corps girl that was a minor legend among us? Her name was Kathy (don't remember her surname) --- we called her Kathy Tanah Merah, and we'd see her once in a while when she roared into KB in her motorcycle to re-charge (her) batteries before going back! I think she was there until 1976 or 1977. Really cool girl...

    I remember visiting her in Los Angeles in mid-1977 when I went back for home leave (we got one month for extending for a third year). She had just returned home and had gotten a job teaching at Hollywood High School (where all the rich, spoiled kids of Hollywood celebrities go to school), and was seriously freaked out, trying to deal with the reality of moving to such an extreme environment after SM in Tanah Merah! (grin)

    (Also, I remember eating some really good mee --- the yellow egg noodles --- in Tanah Merah, for some reason!)

     

  • At March 07, 2008 11:16 PM, Blogger busymum100 said…

    I asked a few friends who studied in SM in Tanah Merah (SM Dato Mahmud Paduka Raja), but so far none remembers her. Maybe we were too young then ;-) because in 75 & 76 we were only in Secondary 1 and 2. As for me, I was in Pengkalan Chepa all the way (75-79). Only spent 70-74 in primary school in TM, having spent my 1st primary school yr in Gulliemard English School in Singapore. Can you imagine how proud I was as a little girl then, to know that my former school name was the same as the famous bridge's crossing Kelantan river at Kusial (classic one ya? the sharing of the bridge between the normal traffic and the train?)

    Egg noodles? Can't remember any :-(
    What I remember was that TM was a black area then, so very rare did we have any public functions/concerts/wayang kulit show, etc.. at the Padang Merdeka.

    BTW, I know Mr Lee Sek Hong who was attached at the Veterinary Office there (TM). His wife was my teacher and his son my classmate. I still have Mrs Lee contact number. I hope you don't know him, otherwise the coincidences are scary! LOL!

     

  • At March 07, 2008 11:39 PM, Blogger Howard said…

    Don't worry, I don't know Mr. Lee the veterinary officer!

    Ah, yes, the Guillemard Bridge was at Kusial! It was the Tangga Bradley that was at Kuala Krai. We used the Bradley Steps river stage (elevation of water surface) for flood forecasting for KB. And we used Guillemard Bridge to do river gauging (measurement of river flow) --- an exercise that took us all day at the Guillemard Bridge!

    Thanks for reminding me! :)

     

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