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24 May 2005

It is Tuesday, 10.13 pm. My daughter is lying down sucking her milk bottle behind me. My husband has left home to study Al-Qur'an from a retired Ustaz in Kampung Pulau Hilir (I think that is the place as I always get this name mixed up with Kampung Laut and Kampung Pulau Melaka). He should be back by midnight. My two daughters are watching TV in the family living room while my two sons are upstairs in their room main komputer agaknya. Since I have nothing else to tend to, I will continue to write. I don't watch much TV but I am counting on my kids to get me the latest Star Wars VCD. I hope they will get it for me before I start teaching again in July when the university academic session begins Malaysia-wide.

The 40th search is to follow up on a surprise e-mail which I had received on 17 May 2005 from a person labeled Daijabu oishi or named simply Pak Man. I had read the e-mail then but only have time to digest it tonight. Pak Man mentioned a few names and emphasized that I will need to verify all the names of the early Malay doctors which I have gathered thus far. Here is an additional list fromPak Man:

• Dato' Dr. Ezanee Marican, a royal physician, Kota Bharu, Kelantan. A contemporary of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah bt. Mohd. Ali; they frequented him in Kota Bharu.
• Dr. Aziz, originated from Penang. He ran a clinic, either Aziz Dispensary or Klinik Aziz, in Kota Bharu for a long time and returned to Penang in early 1980s. He died in Penang. I think I know this clinic as I had brought my two sons to this clinic for their circumcision stint.
• Tun Dr. Ismail, a dentist and former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Pak Man ended his short e-mail with "happy researching" which I feel is most appropriate.

I had replied to Pak Man's e-mail just before I left office in the afternoon today. I had asked Pak Man to at least reveal his identity somewhat so I could communicate in a more down-to-earth manner. It beats me when I don't know who Pak Man is because I cannot store his name in isolation; it must have some attributes and associations before I can retain Pak Man in my deep memory, just like I stored the name En. Fadli Ghani in the gigabyte of my deep memory.

Well, 3 more new names mean more researching but this should be good. May be I should just go downtown and check out all the clinics, new and old. Hopefully, I will meet enough people who can help me put the pieces of my jig-saw puzzle together. I can recall two clinics off hand, the Bates Clinic and Klinik Aziz. May be I should just check both the white and yellow pages if I can only locate where the kids hid the phone directory. Now I recall, I had a friend named Christine Anna Bates whose father ran the Bates Dispensary in Kota Bharu when I lived in Maktab Perguruan, Pengkalan Chepa between 1969-1971. We both went to Zainab Primary School 2 (Standard 5 & 6) and then Zainab Secondary School 2 (Form 1). I may need to search Google for Christine.

My late mother knew quite a bit about Aziz Dispensary and the doctors there and she spoke highly of the two clinics. Well, if I train my deep memory for total recall, I may be able to pull out a few more names but I am not counting on it too much. The last time I trained my brain at total recall was to read every line from an economics book from memory, cover to cover, while a friend held the book! It worked but I was probably very young that time, 19 or 20. Lama dah tak try total recall. But total recall can only work if things are thought of both logically and sequentially during the learning stage. Comprehension is also a necessity at the learning stage. Some say total recall is sheer regurgitation but I don't see it that way. I have not tried total recall for reading or memorizing the Al-Qur'an. Well, if there is nothing else better to do, I will set my mind to hafal Al-Qur'an, as the ultimate total recall. I will need to learn from my husband how he memorizes the Al-Qur'an. It is easy for him because he had learnt it by ear as a teenager while I learnt the script version only and now have to depend on VCD!

It is 11.33 pm.

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Acknowledgement

Daijabu oishi or Pak Man

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Telehealth Research Group
http://www.medic.usm.my/rnd/telehealth
School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia