Of family bonds and right atmosphere
Satiman Jamin (story and pictures)
Sanip Lasman was a former secretary of the Johor Heritage Foundation. He is still active as a painter.
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| DOWN MEMORY LANE: Sanip Lasman and his friends after the second general meeting of the Young Malayan Club on Oct 4, 1952. |
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| SLOWER LIFESTYLE: A picture of Beach Road (adjacent to Lido Beach) when Sanip Lasman was a child. On the left was the Johor Baru resthouse (now the Johor Baru Post Office). The pavilion on the right was used to host bands during weekends. |
EVERY time an issue regarding education comes up, I become alarmed when little or no emphasis is given to the environment in which it is taking place.
Many people lament about the lack of well-roundedness in our younger generation.
I believe that the environment is the prime factor affecting the outcome of any education effort, be it primary, secondary or tertiary education.
During my formative years in Johor Baru, I enjoyed a “wealth of environment”. This led me to discover my inner self — the artist.
Being born in the city (still a town back in 1937), I experienced first-hand the duality of Johor Baru then compared with the pervasive “cramped” situation that it is now.
My father worked at the railway station, which has remained the same, but the quarters where I was born is no more as the new Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex now stands there.
I was first sent to a Malay school, Sekolah Tambatan Tinggi, before going to the Bukit Zaharah School (BZS), an English school for boys.
The BZS was atop a hill near the Istana Besar, where the sultan and the royal family resided.
The proximity to the palace was not a coincidence, as the BZS building was formerly a small palace itself, then known as Istana Zaharah.
The influence of the teachers and the great environment made me want to express myself. It made me the artist that I am now.
From the school, we could see the beautiful Lido beach, the calm and serene waters of the Tebrau Straits and the most important building in Johor, the government office building atop the majestic Bukit Timbalan.
I walked around town with my friends, discovering the beauty of the busy commerce centre of Johor Baru co-existing with the natural beauty of the surroundings, complementing instead of contradicting each other.
When I first tried to draw the magnificent view around the town and my school, the result was not so good but the school motto, “Steady boy, steady” gave me the courage to strive on despite the setbacks.
I went on to draw, first overcoming my weaknesses and then building on my strengths, encouraged by my teachers who were mostly Europeans.
After BZS, I went on to the English College, where I won many drawing competitions at school, district and state levels.
The highlight of my schooling days was when I won the Malayan Federation Health Week poster competition in 1954, at the age of 16.
The 25 dollars (Straits Settlement currency) prize money that I received then may seem paltry now but it was a princely sum back in pre-independence Malaya.
I never looked back, holding one exhibition after another, either here or abroad but I always remembered the great environment in which I was brought up that enabled me to be what I am now.
Another important thing that will influence the product of any education policy is the family bond.
People talked about foreign cultural influence when English education was introduced. But I not only maintained my Malay roots after mastering the English language, I still held on to the Javanese dialect despite living in the heart of cosmopolitan Johor Baru.
This is because of the strong family bond that existed even as the city grew, unlike today where the burgeoning city life is almost always used as an excuse to put the family last.
Maybe it is not too late to bring back old family values and a conducive environment for education, for the sake of our future generation.
That was what drove me when I was the Johor Heritage Foundation secretary — the prospect of salvaging a better future using the lessons and heritage from the past as a platform to move forward.
I had just come back from a stint in Sweden, where I was struck by how the European nations were able to become developed nations without sacrificing so much of their cultural heritage.
The fact that the Datuk Jaafar Building rejuvenation project, which I had fought for when I was with Johor Heritage Foundation, is still in the doldrums despite it being an important heritage and historical monument for Johor and Malaysia, shows our attitude towards what we inherited from our forefathers.
I shudder to think we might not have anything worthy for our future generation to inherit.
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