Peace Corps Malaysia

Victoria Institution air letter to parents, July 25, 1967

Dear parents, and Boogie, 

Greetings from the end of the earth, and thanks for the lovely card. It does me good to see some good looking western art now and then.

I don’t know why I’m writing this note, but I have an hour free, and you just wrote me, so why not? Not too much to report, I’m afraid. First, let’s clear up my job next year: I am still in the Peace Corps – i.e., I extended my Peace Corps service for another year. That means all sorts of conditions are established:

1. I can’t be sent to Vietnam for another year – and since I’ll be 26 next year, it looks like I may escape

2. I get a free, round-trip plane, ride home in December, and if they won’t give me the money equivalent (which looks like the case now), you may be seeing my smiling face and wilted body for two weeks or so.

3. I may get a free Masters degree from the University of Malaya, in appreciation for my future work there – if Peace Corps agrees, of course.

4. I will certainly get a few math articles published, and lots of mathematics relearned. No sense to not being prepared for my reentry into Stanford life.

Next, about December. Don’t come. Len and I will be at the end of nowhere for about a month, and he has only a month free anyway. I have another two weeks, but, as mentioned above, I may hop over to California then. So stay home and fatten me up. Incidentally, our December trip will be the culminating adventure of 2000 years of western adventure and daring, but details most necessarily remain secret. If you ever see us again, we will have permanently tourist topped you: sorry.

Homesy items. My painting arrived from Penang (a batek by Tang, the best and only original painter in the country), and it’s the cutest thing you ever saw: Miro and Klee and coconuts and houses on stilts. Wow, there goes the rest of my funds. Saw Suddenly Last Summer (Liz Taylor and Company) last night, and loved it. Coming up: A Man and A Woman. It is supposed to be pretty good, so it should last only a day or two in the theater. 

Thanks for the article on Andreas. if Ramparts is only 10% accurate, I’ve lost a lot more faith in the state department. 

Teaching is getting to be an interesting profession. The Minister of Education is planning to raise the teaching loads to 35 periods per week (out of 40), and we definitely will have hot times in the old town next month. Massive strikes, protest, demonstrations, vituperations, and calumny - the usual. I can hardly wait. The anti-American riots are getting to be regular as clockwork; I ran into, some tear gas not so long ago, but otherwise I’ve escaped involvement in any way. Hong Kong is a mess. Laos is a mess. Cambodia doesn’t like us. Indonesia doesn’t like us. The Huks are messing around again. Sabah and Sarawak are ticked off at the central government, and important elections are coming up in the latter states. Thailand is beginning to bitch about the G.I.’s presence. Australia is having VD checks administered to the R&R boys. Malaysia has limited the number of GIs visiting Penang in KL to 400 a week. Southeast Asia, in short, hasn’t changed a bit.

I’m going to Ipoh on Friday to stay with Raja's family for a week. I’m taking the cook's son with me by plane, just to watch his eyes pop out. He was so good to Raja the last few weeks of his illness, it’s the least I can do. Three weeks from now I give a series of lectures at the University’s seminar on computers and human development. After that, I may find time to watch the giant turtles come up on the east coast of Malaya, and lay their eggs (one of the few places on earth this fantastic ritual can be observed.) School begins again late in August, but the student spend most of the term studying, so I should have a lot of free time for thinking and reading. 

Love, Sam.

P.S. pants and shorts are great! But why airmail?

At article I wrote for the VI school newspaper on our hike up Mr. Kinabalu

Letter from Victoria Institution to parents, August 23, 1967

Dear parents and Buddy brother #2,

The August school holidays have come and gone with greater than usual speed, and I find myself in my final term of teaching at Victoria institution. This term promises to be a short one, for several reasons. First, Malaysia's 10th anniversary of his separation from Great Britain is coming up on August 31, so my fourth form students have all been conscripted by the federal government to practice waving flags, chanting freedom slogans, and performing gymnastic maneuvers for the big day. Of course, school will be let out for the festivities, which should last at least one week. Second, my fifth form students must sit for the sixth form entrance. Examination is this week, which decide who will have places in the six form next year. I have nothing to do with these examinations, since they are set a marked by officials of the ministry of education. Third, we have a Weeks holiday around November 1 (Divali). Finally, my fifth and sixth form students will all go home for a month's study leave around October 15, to ready themselves for the very important School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations, which are administered through the Commonwealth from November 15 through December 1. Though the school term is 14 weeks long, all of these interruptions account for two full months, so I really only teach school for about six weeks. Curious system, indeed.

My extension of service has been approved by the Peace Corps, and now awaits ministry approval (which, hopefully, will only be a formality). If all goes well, I will be lecturing on computers at the University of Malaya, beginning next January. I am looking forward to this job with great excitement. Although it means my homecoming will be moved back to early 1969, it also means my mathematics will undergo a healthy revision before I return to Stanford. Anyway, I love this country – two years is just too short of time to get under his skin; three years, maybe just long enough.

Now a word about my vacation, which I began with a flourish: I took a Form One Chinese boy (age 13) with me by plane to Ipoh.  He had never even seen a plane close up before, and I didn’t tell him how we were traveling until we got to the airport. I can still see his expression as we walk towards the plane: amazement, joy, and a little fear, all took turns on his face. We stayed in Ipoh for three days with Raja's family, doing a little more than sleeping and eating durian and mangoes. The plane ride had proved so successful, I decided to taxi with Ah Khian to Penang for a day: on the way he saw his first rice padi (a real city boy, that Ah Khian), and rode his first boat. In Penang, he had his first meal in a restaurant. We returned to Kuala Lumpur by night train.  You guessed it, his first train ride. The kid still hasn’t recovered from all the excitement.

I stayed in Kuala Lumpur for a week, attending a seminar on computers and their uses. I met many of the people with whom I’ll be working next year, saw a lot of the equipment now in use in  Malaysia, and even gave two lectures of my own (on machine learning and logical circuitry). A very profitable week.

P.S. Chances of getting home in December are way, way down. Sorry I got your hopes (fears?) prematurely aroused. Tell John to schedule his South American trip at any old time. My weight is down to 150 (versus 165 two years ago); vigorous training now in progress. Expect a Charles Atlas build on a 145 pound body early in 1969.