Mohd Zain Bin Ahmad - the Man instrumental in setting up the first Malaysian container terminal

(From left to right) - Mohd Zain Ahmad, Yahya Ghani (first General Manager of Johor Port)

 and the writer

Note: This article was written in 2012 by my father, David Tan as a tribute to his good friend, En Mohd  Zain Bin Ahmad. Sadly, En. Zain passed away on 4th April 2017.

These days, we have many container ports in Malaysia such as Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas, North Port, Penang Port and West Port. However, very few people realised that Port Klang was the first container port in South East Asia. As a matter of fact, Port Klang was at one time even ahead of Singapore, though Singapore did subsequently become the No. 1 port in the world.

This was all due to one man by the name of Haji Mohd Zain Bin Ahmad or affectionately known as Che Zain. Che Zain was one of the early Malayan graduates from the London School of Economics and had created history as the first Malaysian General Manager of Port Klang Authority (Lembaga Pelabuhan Klang). I could still vividly recall many years ago, Che Zain who was then my neighbour came to my house and told me that Tun Abdul Razak (later became the Prime Minister of Malaysia) who was then the Chairman of the Infrastructure Committee asked him to set up the first container terminal in Malaysia (later to be known as Klang Container Terminal (KCT) and subsequently changed to Northport (Malaysia)). Sitting with Tun Abdul Razak in the Committee was the then Minister of Finance, Tun Tan Siew Sin who was known to be very careful and thrifty when it came to spending taxpayers' money. I was told that initially, Tun Tan Siew Sin refused to approve the project as there were no commitments from major container shipping lines to use the proposed terminal in Port Klang, therefore this posed to be huge risk to the country. Those of us who are familiar with the shipping industry in the 1960s would know that the major player at that time was a container line consortium known as “Trio Group” which consisted of Overseas Container Line, NYK and another. Che Zain being a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport (by the way FCIT was earned by him and not given as an honorary title!) played a major role to convince the Committee on the importance of the proposed container terminal. Needless to say the Committee was convinced and decided to take that risk by approving the project. I was told that the project cost a sum of RM45 Million which was a lot of money back in 1967-68. For an approval to be given for such an amount would mean great expectation from the Government. Che Zain literally told me that he was placing his “head on the chopping block”. He knew that any failure or mistake on his part in carrying out this project would mean a major dent to his reputation. Anybody who knows Che Zain would know him as a selfless man of great integrity, honesty and willing to shoulder the heavy responsibility in carrying out the task. His no nonsense approach and his excellent knowledge in managing ports served him well in carrying out the project.

The first person appointed to head the container terminal was Mr. Chung Kek Choo. Prior to that appointment, Kek Choo was the Traffic Manager of Klang Port Authority (LPK). Kek Choo was later sent to the United States of America to study the operations of container ports. Sadly after acquiring the knowledge in operating container ports, Kek Choo left Malaysia for Singapore in 1969.

Kek Choo was hired by Mr. Howe Yoon Chong who was then the Chairman of Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) (later became Head of Singapore’s Civil Service and subsequently Singapore’s Minister of Defence). In those days, Singapore’s PSA was not allowed to employ non-Singaporeans to work in the port. Therefore to avoid this direct ruling, Kek Choo was brought in under the guise of “Special Assistant”. Subsequently, Kek Choo went on to become a consultant with the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

As you can see, Malaysia was a pioneer in setting up a container terminal in this region and all of this largely owed to my old and very dear friend, Che Zain. I could write a lot of things about Che Zain as he is truly a man that is admired by many. Even though, Che Zain has served the country well but unfortunately being a quiet and private man, he was never given any due recognition by the country he loves so much. A lot of things stated in this article could be verified by one of LPK’s illustrious former employee, Dato’ Abdul Manan Othman (later became a Cabinet Minister under Tun Hussein Onn’s administration) during Che Zain’s tenure as the General Manager. There were many illustrious personalities that had served under Che Zain such as Datuk Harun Din, En. Hashir Abdullah and Datuk M. Rajasingam.

So, where is En Zain today? En Zain who is now in his 80s is living a quiet life in Subang Jaya.

"Thinking out of the box" and the technique of restricting choices

In the earlier post, we talked about gauging a person’s level of self confidence. Here is another story about self confidence, “thinking out of the box” and restricting choices.

When I was in primary school (Sekolah Rendah La Salle Klang), I remembered there was a substitute teacher who came to the class and asked a rather strange question. She would randomly point to a student and asked “Are you a clever student or a stupid student?” I must say that those were the days where people were not so vocal about being political correct or concerned about students having rights. Most of the students answered “Stupid” and those included some of the cleverer ones. I think the students answered “Stupid” because they didn’t want to be seen boastful or being made fun of by their classmates. However, we had a few cocky troublemakers who confidently answered “Clever” which made the whole class roared in laughter. Then, the substitute teacher pointed to a quiet student sitting at one corner. The student quietly stood up and replied, “I am neither stupid nor clever. I am just average” The class went silent for a moment. After that as you can imagined, everyone started answering “I am average” when called upon to give an answer by the teacher.

You see, the quiet student was “thinking out of the box”. He did not fall for the teacher’s restricted choices - ie: either “you are clever or stupid”. The student rose above that and gave his own answer. Neither his teacher or his classmates expected that. The teacher’s technique is a common technique by NLPers. Basically, it is like a manipulative tool that constructively influence a person’s decision making. The theory is that most people prefer to follow rather than to lead. Just imagine if you ask your spouse, “What do you feel like having for lunch?”. Your spouse would most likely answer, “I don’t know. Why don’t you decide” or “I will eat whatever you eat” or the universal answer “Anything will do”. You see, this is not really an answer isn’t it? What the NLPers will do in such circumstances is that they will restrict that answer into what they want by asking, “Do you want to go for Western cuisine or Japanese?” Now the choices have been restricted, it is either Western food or Japanese food. When given such choices, most likely the person will chose one of the two and you don’t need to split hair to make a decision just for lunch!

Using self assessment to gauge a person's level of confidence

I remembered when I was a student at the University of Southern California (USC), my Economics Professor by the name of Dr. De Prano had a strange way of assessing students. He would asked the students to assess themselves by giving themselves a mark ranging from 1 to 100 with 100 being the highest score. If the student gives himself/herself a low mark, say for example a 60 out of 100, the Professor will ask you a relatively easy question. If you answer the question to his satisfaction, he will give you the full 60 marks that you asked for. Sounds fair enough? However, if the student asked for a higher mark, say 90 out of 100, the Professor will ask you a difficult question. If you answer it to his satisfaction, he will give you the 90 marks but if you answer the question incorrectly, you will get a zero (0)! Most students tend to play safe and gave themselves 60 to 70 marks.

However, I remembered there was a student, a rather cocky fellow I might add, joined our class and gave himself a 98 marks rating. We were all stunned. The Professor looked at  the student and gave him a question which I thought was not that difficult. As a matter a fact, it was comparable to a question worthy of 60 to 70 marks. I was curious as to why the Professor acted the way he did. After completing the course at the end of the semester, I bumped into the Economics Professor and commented about being “unfair” and “taken for a ride” by him when he gave a rather easy question to that particular student. The Professor looked at me and smiled. He said when you enter the real world, it is not just how you answer the question but people want to see how confident you are when you deliver that answer or giving that presentation! That cocky student was confident enough to give himself a high mark and managed to project himself in a very confident manner. I thought to myself that was a good was of assessing a person’s self confidence.

More than twenty years later, I became an assessor for the Mediation Skills Training Course at the Bar Council. My duty was to assess the candidate and to determine whether the candidate is suited to be an accredited Mediator with the Malaysian Mediation Centre (Bar Council). Immediately after the assessment, the candidate will normally ask, “How did I do?” Some of my colleagues will be rather polite and inform the candidate, “let’s wait for the result” or “you will know soon enough”. As for me, I will reframe by asking them, “What do you think?” or “how do you feel you did?” I wanted to see whether the candidate is  confident or sincere enough to give himself or herself a fair assessment. When a person becomes a professional Mediator, you have to be confident or at least must be seen to be confident by the parties. Giving yourself a self assessment is a good way of improving yourself. We are not perfect. We do make mistakes but what it is important is that you learned from it and move on. A final note that I wish to add here is that the question I posed to the candidate after the assessment has no bearing on their grade, it was merely to see their reaction, that’s all. I think it is better that I made it clear here in case some of the previous candidates or future candidates are reading this post!

My Final Appearance at the Selangor Bar

I gave my final talk as a member of the Malaysian Bar at the Selangor Bar on 20th July 2012. The title of my talk was “Mediating Family and Relationship Disputes”. The attendance was relatively intimate about 30 people. In that talk, I spoke about the causes of breakdown in relationships, exploring different types of Mediation such as Divorce Mediation, Post Divorce Mediation, Unmarried Couples Mediation, etc. When I asked the participants to name some of the causes of breakdown in relationships, one of the participants shouted “Mother in law!” Wow! I must say I didn’t see that coming! Other participants gave the usual answers such as infidelity, misunderstanding, etc. Well, those are not causes. Those are actually consequences. The causes are basically lack of communication, trust and empathy. A skillful Mediator would explore those causes with the parties in order to generate options as to how and which direction the parties wish to take.

The talk lasted about 2 hours. At the end of the talk, the Selangor Bar Committee presented me with a souvenir made entirely of glass. The Committee was mindful that I will be moving to Australia soon and they were aware that any products made of wood may be prohibited from entering into Australia. In my previous talks at the Selangor Bar, I was presented with a wooden plaque. After being presented with that souvenir made of glass, I just stood there and smiled. There were some small laughter from the participants as they thought it was rather odd that I was staring at an object made of glass. I quickly realised that and informed them that the talk I gave a few moments ago was actually my last talk at the Selangor Bar. I thanked them for all the support they have been given me and was honoured to have been invited a number of times to the Selangor Bar. The participants were kind of sad that I will be leaving but I guess for every lawyer that leaves practice there will be a younger and better ones to replace him.

Thank you for all the good times, Selangor Bar! I will miss you all.

Happy 47th birthday, Singapore!

The formal toasting

With Mike Kuek

With Capt David Padman, Dato' Thava and Datuk Sundra Rajoo

Jennifer and Serene Padman

Jennifer and Puan Hendon

Last night (9^th August 2012), Jennifer and I attended the Republic of Singapore’s National Day reception at Shangri La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. We were there rather early and were greeted by His Excellency, The High Commissioner of Singapore Ong Keng Yong. Incidentally, the High Commissioner of Singapore bought a copy of “Mediation Skills and Techniques” and wrote me a very nice personal letter.

The ballroom was beautifully decorated and there were many diplomats and corporate figures mingling with each other. Jennifer and I helped ourselves to endless supply of the famous cocktail known as “Singapore Sling”. They had two versions of “Singapore Sling” – one with alcohol while the other is a “mocktail” (without alcohol). There were also a variety of canapés to choose ranging from spring roll, prawn cocktail to samosa. As we were walking around and checking out the various food stalls, suddenly we heard someone calling my name. It was none other than our very dear friend, Mike Kuek who is a Counsellor from the Singapore High Commission. Mike chatted with us for a while and then excused himself as he was in the greeting committee and needed to be at the front line to greet the guests.

Jennifer and I were moving about to see if we recognized anyone but so far, we did not spot anyone we know. As we were going to the front part of the ballroom, suddenly I heard someone calling me and tapping my shoulder, “Hey bro, what’s happening?” It was my old friend, Dato’ Thavalingam Thavarajah (commonly known as Thava). Thava is a leading Employment lawyer in Malaysia and was also the former secretary of the Malaysian Employers' Federation (MEF). While we were chatting, another familiar person came up and greeted us. It was another old friend, Datuk Sundra Rajoo who is the Director of the Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration. I commented that Datuk Sundra Rajoo didn’t seem to age and jokingly asked if he was using botox! I know, I know, I am a mischievous guy! As we were catching up on old times, suddenly who did I see but an old family friend standing behind us – Captain David Padman. Capt David is the current General Manager of Port Klang Authority. I asked Capt David whether his wife Serene is here. Sure enough, Serene showed up with a plate of the famous Singapore chicken rice! Serene and Jennifer had a wonderful time checking and trying out all the different food at the Reception. Jennifer had a great time with Serene chatting and catching up.

They served very good food at the Reception. It is common in this of kind of function for the host to proudly serve the food from their country. We had a lot of similarities here in food such as Char Kway Teow (with prawns and cockles), lamb kurma (which was excellent, I must say), naans, satay, chicken rice (both steam and roasted) amongst others. They even had a stall with a variety of local fruits. As I was ordering a plate of custom fried Char Kway Teow, suddenly I heard another familiar voice behind me saying, “Seumas, are you enjoying the Kway Teow?” Lo and behold, another old friend, Andrew Khoo who was in his batik shirt. Andrew is the Chairman of the Bar Council’s Human Rights Committee and has done fantastic work in defending and preserving human rights.

Suddenly there was a call for silent when the High Commissioner of Singapore and the Malaysian Government’s representative, Dato’ Sri Dr Ng Yen Yen who is also the Minister of Tourism went up to the stage to perform the customary toasting. After that, the national anthems of both countries were played. Serene who is a Singaporean proudly sang “Majulah SIngapura!” when the anthem was played while her husband, Capt David who is an accomplished singer sang “Negaraku” with the rest of the Malaysian guests who attended the reception.

While heading towards the fruit stall, I bumped into the High Commissioner of Australia. Had a chat with him and then went to grab some nice sweet “jambu air”. While enjoying the “jambu air”, suddenly my mobile phone rang. It was Puan Hendon Mohamed (the first woman President of the Malaysian Bar and the first female Malay lawyer). She asked me whether I am at the reception and I informed her in the affirmative. She was outside the ballroom. I went out to accompany her into the ballroom and we went to check out the “ice kacang” stall. I decided to go and look for Jennifer when I saw Lim Chee Wee (the current President of the Malaysian Bar). We spoke for a while and promised to catch up for lunch soon.

All in all, it was a lovely evening and what makes it even more enjoyable was the wonderful food and excellent company. Thank you to the Singapore High Commission for hosting such a great event and finally, happy 47^th birthday, Singapore!

Thank you to all supporting bookstores!

MPH's Faizal giving the "thumbs up"

"Mediation Skills and Techniques" proudly displayed in one of the bookstores

I would like to take this opportunity to thank MPH, Kinokuniya and all supporting bookstores for carrying “Mediation Skills and Techniques”. I am currently visiting as many bookstores as possible to distribute “Mediation Skills and Techniques” commemorative bookmarks. Thank you everyone for making it happen for me!

Due to the positive response from the sale of the books, I am seriously thinking of writing a sequel or a follow up. What do you think?