Another unfound Malaysian mystery!

http://www.cameronhighlandsinfo.com/jim_thompson/


History Of Jim Thompson

"Absolute mysteries only improve with age" writes William Warren, author of Jim Thompson: The Unsolved Mystery, "and there can have been few as absolute as Thompson's has proved to be."
His skills as a designer and textile colourist were soon noted by fashion editors and, when the cast of the musical, The King and I, wore Thompson's creations, his silk empire was off and spinning.

Most visitors to the Cameron Highlands head off for a walk along one of the many forest trails to enjoy the scenery and the refreshingly cool mountain air. Most return to relax in front of a log fire in one of several resorts located in the former colonial hill station made popular by heat-fatigued colonialists who headed up to the cooler Malaysian highlands for some cool relief from the heat and humidity of the lowlands.
Very few walkers don't return. The most celebrated trekker who didn't was American entrepreneur H.W. (Jim) Thompson who had single-handedly rekindled the Thai silk weaving industry before his disappearance.
Jim Thompsons disappearance saw renewed interest in the case. While there are many theories about his disappearance, the fact remains that they are mostly all speculative and no one really knows exactly what happened on that fateful March day. Noted Thai-based journalist and friend of Thompson, William Warren has written the definite analysis of the incident in his book, Jim Thompson - The Unsolved Mystery (Archipelago Press, 1970).
Before his disappearance, Thompson was already well known and this no doubt fuelled much of the speculation and kept the rumour mill ticking over.
Thompson had practised as an architect in New York City from 1931 to 1940. He then quit and enlisted in the army as a private in the Delaware National Guard Regiment. A year after the outbreak of World War 11, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which specialised in intelligence gathering, subversive propaganda and undercover activities behind energy lines. While the group went on to form the CIA after the war, its activities were a little different to those of the CIA. The organisation adopted the reverse Ten Commandments and was described by one operative as one where they were taught to lie and steal, kill, maim, spy, deceive, terrify and destro" Thompson volunteered to serve in the Pacific and he was originally assigned to the China-India-Burma area.
However, in 1945, he received orders to proceed to Thailand, then technically an enemy of the Allied forces as it was occupied by Japanese troops. In preparation for the assignment, Thompson received jungle training in Sri Lanka, so the jungles of the Cameron Highlands would not be completely unknown territory for him. As it turned out, he arrived in Bangkok just days after the Japanese officially surrendered but he was said to continue spying activities well after the war had finished.

Eaten by Wild Animal?

After his disappearance, it was suggested that he disappeared at the hands of terrorists seeking ransom money despite the fact that no ransom demand was ever received. Unsubstantiated suggestions were also made that Thompson was involved in drugs and that his disappearance was somehow related to this.
Another suggestion was that the Thai silk entrepreneur staged his disappearance despite not being depressed or financially strapped for cash at the time. Was he taken by a tiger, wild boar or leopard? If so, the 325 police, soldiers, friends, Orang Asli and volunteers failed to find any trace of Thompson.
No remains were ever found of the man. Perhaps he fell into a ravine and his remains were enveloped by the jungle? The slippery moss-covered rocks, prickly creepers and dark forest interiors pose problems for jungle trekkers even to this day. The search officially lasted 10 days, covering a territory of up to 70 miles from the scene (teams were dispatched to places where speculative sightings were reported).
Seven years after the disappearance, Jim Thompson was legally declared dead in 1974. As noted in William Warren's book: The myth of Jim Thompson is as vigorous as ever.

In Thompson's Memory
While time has diluted the mystery somewhat, there are those who still reflect on what happened that day. Others staying at the recently-opened Cameron Highlands Resort may raise an eyebrow with their evening late fireside nightcap and think twice about heading for one of the mountain trails without an experienced guide. These days, the only confirmed sighting of Jim Thompson is that of the label on many exclusive Thai silk products sold in the boutique bearing his name in the Cameron Highlands Resort.
Next time you're there, buy a copy of William Warren's Jim Thompson - The Unsolved Mystery from the boutique. Then snuggle up in one of the comfortable resort lounges in front of the log fire and postulate a few theories of your own.

The book starts by talking of the actual disappearance, in effect setting out its stall and the enticing readers with the nature of the mystery. Basically Jim disappeared with seemingly no trace, no clues and this started the mystery. The book obviously gives more detail and more potential plot threads.
Once the nature of the mystery is established the book details the first legend of Jim. Without the first legend the mystery would not be so important. That is to say if an ordinary person disappeared the story would not endure thirty years. Jim worked for the predecessor of the CIA in the war and then aged 40 basically single handedly rebuilt the Thai cottage silk industry into a multi-million pound (dollar) industry. The book talks of personal struggles, strife, conflict, interests and other things which add to the first legend.

A classic Korean horror!

Hanyo (Housemaid, Korean; 1960)

Back in RRF, my sister and I used to enjoy Hong Kong drama black and white films of the 1960s with modern story-line of suspense, crime and murder.

Well, this one reminded me of one of those, with its characters donning 1960s Western attire and hairstyles, loud background music infused with electric guitar and percussion and a whiff of melodramatic overacting.
This 1960s Korean classic was recently rediscovered, and a remake was made in 2010, although the storyline is somehow altered.

Here, the suspense component is kept very much alive throughout the movie without overtly being gory. The characters kept their attire intact but still allured their appeal!

Kim is a happily married family man who is conducting a singing class for factory girls. He is quite a hit with the girls despite his serious external appearance. A young girl, Kwak, actually went into depression and subsequently died when she was humiliated for writing a love letter to him.
In his home front, Kim has two children - an older girl with polio and a younger boy. His wife is a hardworking housewife who does a lot of sewing to supplement their income.

As they move into their bigger extended house, Kim, despite his cash-strapped condition, decides to take in a maid to ease his wife's burden. She was pregnant.

Through his student, Ms Cho, who also eventually confessed to liking him, he got a maid. The maid became infatuated with her boss and tried to seduce him. At his moment of weakness, he caved in.

That started an avalanche. She became over-possessive. She tried to take over the household. The conundrum of whether she is going to poison the family members forms a central plot in the story. Along the way, the maid gets pregnant. Kim confesses to his wife, and they both try to induce an abortion. 

The cat-and-mouse game goes on to the point of insanity. A good suspense-filled flick.
Of course, you should not be asking questions like why the rat poison is in the same kitchen cabinet as the spice. And we are talking about a time when children are allowed to heckle their handicapped sibling with derogatory terms. It was politically okay then.

N.B. A remake was made in 1971 with the same theme with the title 'Woman on Fire'. Remade again in 1982 under the name 'Woman on Fire 82'.

Then what?

Anand Kumar and his students

My brother from a different father and mother sent me a mail recently about a certain Mathematics tutor from Patna, Bihar, who would tutor students pro bono for them to pass the coveted Indian Institute of Technology entrance examinations. He hand picks a group of 30, motivates them, arranges hostel facilities, cooks healthy meals and literally drills them day and night to achieve 100% pass rate.
The students swarms in from remote and impoverished regions of the land to slog it out for about 7 months with the sole intention of passing the test. A pass, to them, is the panacea of their woes. A rewarding career and perhaps a post in a multinational company or even an overseas posting is a sure way to uplift their living conditions and their immediate loved ones. 

The spill over effect can be seen even to the relatives whose background and caste is irrelevant anymore. I can relate to the hopeful eyes of the illiterate parents who put all their hope, putting aside their difficulties and poverty, to educate their offspring. In the year that the documentary was shot, 29 of the 30 students passed their exams.

Audience with President Kallam

A little melodrama occurs after that. You can watch it below if you have the time.

So what happens afterwards? The teenagers go on to IIT, get a comfortable job, parents continue their  tortuous job albeit at a less strenuous pace. Then what? They get married, perhaps stay in a big mansion or migrate to a developed country and enjoy the fruit of their labour. They themselves would have offsprings who after growing up guarded against poverty and shielded from harsh reality of needing to acquire street-smartness and survival skills, would think that it is their birthright to demand for luxuries that their parents tried to offer to the kids. Whatever they missed, they did not want their children not to have.

On the part of the children, hard work and motivation would be alien vocabularies. They would talk about enjoying life. having a complete life, not to miss out on finer things of life and the now well renowned phrase of that it is their life and they can live any which way that they please!

In the immortal words of Confucius, wealth in a family would only last 3 generations. And the cycle of life would go back to square one!

Spicy flick from the land of kimchi!

The Housemaid (Korean; 1990)

Just like in the many fields that they have leapt in bounds, the automobile, telecommunication, sport fields, the Koreans have managed to strike a recognition in show business. Their all boy and all girl bands rule the music scene. (Not to forget Psy and the tele novellas).
This film is a remake of a 1960 one with the same name. If you want to watch a melodrama where everyone (except a child) is cast in a negative light with devious thoughts in their mind, this is it. In some way, it reminds you of any of the tele-serials that is very popular in TV now.
Whatever it is, it managed to grip the viewers' attention ala Hitchcockian style, make viewers wonder what is up next. How it ends totally put you off guard!
A 20 something girl, Eun-yi, who works as a restaurant helper takes an offer to work as housemaid in an obnoxiously rich household to take care of a young child in anticipation of the arrival of a pair of twins in the family. The lady of the house is a young soft spoken lady who is taken care for her every need who is in the advanced stage of pregnancy.
Eun-yi is fond of the child of the family and the feeling is mutual. Eun-yi works with another maid who had probably been there for a mighty long time. The problem is the head of the family is also too fond of Eun-yi. On Eun-yi's part, she is taken off her feet by his piano recital, his looks, wealth and power, I suppose.
A cat and mouse love affair happens between the housemaid and the boss occurs under the same roof. In comes the young mother law. The affair soon comes to light and devious plans come fore.
Eun-yi become pregnant. The uncertainty of keeping the pregnancy and the push for termination by the Madame of the house all proved too much for Eun-yi to handle. Eun-yi eventually has a spontaneous miscarriage, no thanks to the tainted herbal health drinks provided to Eun-yi by the madame.
The scorned housemaid returns with a vengeance to haunt the whole household!
It is interesting to watch the high quality production and its ability to hold our attention and curiosity. Just like their counterpart across the Sea of Japan, they seem to reaching greater heights in whatever task they seem to put. Testimony to this statement is the FIFA ranking of their national teams. Just over 30 years, their national teams were minnows compared to ours. Now, they are in the World Cup Semi-Finals and we are losing to teams who play ball with coconuts!

Do we know, really?

In a silly internet poll recently, it showed that my personality is that of an influential person! Influential?

Even with the sinuses clogged with phlegm of influenza and my thinking faculty clouded, I still describe myself of anything but influential. Firstly, I am quite lethargic of influencing anybody of anything which makes me a poor salesman, a visionary dictator or industrialist who would transform the world we live in. I am also not influential enough to move mountains or 'arrange things' with my contacts like a chess master moving his pawns. On the contrary, I visualise myself as one easily influenced (fall prey to/suckered) to others' sob stories.
I like to think that I can be such a good role model that I can influence others to path of glory! Maybe that is wishful thinking. And you think you know everything and about anything.
Just the local leaders and foreign think tanks who basically hoodwinked the world into thinking they were in grasp to all the information laid before them and finding MH370 was just a matter of time.
And the paternalistic political leaders who think they know what is best for their subjects. What about the religious leaders who think they know all the purpose of our existence on Earth. As if they had an audience with God, they choreographed our every gesture insisting that God like to be worshipped like this and like that.
Why not just put all the cards on table for mankind to judge? But then the element of mystery and mysticism would be lost. Their importance would amount to nothing if the element of unknown is lost.

A nation in tatters?

Deep inside us, all of us know that this piece of cloth is the one that binds us together to maintain peace and harmony so that all of us can do our own things without any fear. We also know that this cloth, in spite of being just a piece of cloth, is no ordinary piece of fabric. It is the testimony of our sovereign nation. It is the same piece of material when hoisted upon being raised after winning a medal brings a tear or two to the eye of every true blue Malaysian.

Scenes like these, the national flag in various states of neglect and disrespect are common sights these days. What was hoisted in Merdeka month last year is left to weather the elements of nature all through the monsoon months, and this is what you get... A faded Jalur Gemilang flying majestically as its threads tatter away in shreds.
So, what are you going to do about as a loyal citizen? Are you going to make a citizen's arrest or just look the other way?
Watching the number of mad people working around amongst us, do you think it is a good idea to handle the perpetrator head on? Make a police report which would be lost among the pile of junk which would eventually make it to the recycle man's compound? Or blog about it?

One failure leads to another!

To Joy (Till glädje, Swedish; 1950)
Director: Ingrid Bergman

One of Bergman's early offerings, good nevertheless. Here it is not about the silence of Creator but rather of the complicated dynamics of family life, specifically man and wife and its complexities.
The film starts with a violinist being interrupted from performing when an important phone call comes in. The call is for Stig. He receives a rather bad news about the death of his wife in a kitchen accident. The story goes back to 7 years previously...
A rather timid man, Stig, is a violinist in a philharmonic orchestra. He soon develops feelings for the only female violinist, Martha, in the group. Even though there were other suitors, Martha decides to settle down with Stig for his simplicity and straightforwardness.
Stig has big plans for his career, being a soloist and playing in Stockholm. Unfortunately, his skills do not match his ambitions. One by one, things happen and the young man is more disheartened. Martha gets pregnant and he is drawn into a hasty marriage. Even though Martha is doting wife, Stig is still listless. Inadvertently, he outpours his resentments of his failure on his wife.
The seemingly loving couple can be seen slowly growing apart.
Along comes an acquaintance and his flirtatious young wife. In the heat of the moment, he caves in and an affair ensues.
Martha, upon discovering the liaison, leaves with kids (2 by then).
The separation and the discovery of the mess that the affair had brought him, he repents. Letters after letters, Martha and Stig get back together, with the kids too. And later, the accident...
The movie ends with his orchestra's rendition of Beethoven's classics.

Quotable quote: We second-raters also necessary. Without worker bees, no beehive!