Book Review: Unsung Patriot: Wong Pow Nee

Unsung Patriot - Wong Pow Nee (8 January, 2015)
© Timothy Tye using this photo


Unsung Patriot: Wong Pow Nee is the biography of the first Chief Minister of Penang. It was written byb Peter Wong Tet Phin, the son of the late Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee, in partnership with Koay Su Lyn, and dedicated to Peter's mother.

Here's a little bit about our first Chief Minister's early life:

Unsung Patriot offers an insight into the life of Wong Pow Nee, beginning with the arrival of his father, John Wong Ee Chin, to start a new life in Balik Pulau. As with many Hakkas who fled China during that period (the aftermath of the Taiping Rebellion, which caused major displacement), Ee Chin had embraced the Roman Catholic faith. He and his fellow Hakkas began a new life around the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Balik Pulau.



Unsung Patriot book at the book launch (8 January, 2015)
© Timothy Tye using this photo


There is no mention of the whereabouts of Ee Chin's birth parents, as he was under the care of foster parents who were also Roman Catholics, and the faith continues down the generations. It is not known when Ee Chin decided to move out of Balik Pulau, but he made that fateful decision to relocate to Bukit Mertajam, where there is also a Roman Catholic Hakka community, and there he established himself as one of the pillars of the local society, prospering in the timber trade.

Wong Pow Nee was born in 1911, and during his young days, home was at 118 Straight Street (today. His parents died relatively young, by present-day standard, both at age 47, and by 1926, when he was just 15 years old, Pow Nee was already an orphan. Thereafter he was cared for by an aunt. He went to Jit Sin Primary School and Anglo-Chinese School, but by secondary level, he was within back within the ambit of Catholic education, at the St Xavier's Institution. As a young lad, Pow Nee was also actively helping with duties at the St Anne's Church in Bukit Mertajam.

The book was launched by the Right Honourable Mr Lim Guan Eng, the fourth Chief Minister of Penang. During the launch, Mr Lim remarked that although the late Tun Lim Chong Eu is often credited as the architect of modern Penang, the seed of the industrial development of the state was sown by Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee.



Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng launching Unsung Patriot (8 January, 2015)
© Timothy Tye using this photo

Details

Title: Unsung Patriot: Wong Pow Nee
Author: Peter Wong Tet Phin & Koay Su Lyn
ISBN: 978-967-13006-0-2
Publisher: Bumblogger Connexion Marketers
Year of First Publication: 2014



Here I am with the authors Peter Wong (left) and Koay Sun Lyn (middle right), and publisher Lee Beng San (8 January, 2015)
© Timothy Tye using this photo