Episode 4: Go West, Young Man!

It was obvious, after the conversation with Geoff Robinson at the beginning of the summer vacation of 1969, that I was hooked on an academic career.  For some time I had forgotten my obligation to prepare for the diplomatic service career that was waiting for me at home, perhaps by taking up a masters course in international relations, or something.  I was already trolling (not of the infamous Internet kind, but in the sense of “carefully and systematically searching an area for something”) for the next step up the intellectual ladder in carving out a future academic life, while going through the paces of completing the bachelor’s thesis.  Now, having obtained the result I wanted made more urgent finding out what I wanted to do next.  I needed some guidance.

Some time after the euphoria of getting the first class result had died down, I sat down with Geoff to explore this question.  Still infatuated with Geoff’s inspiration, especially as we were working on preparing a version of my Honours thesis for publication, I asked him if I could continue on, as the passport to an academic career, to do my Ph.D under his tutelage.  He said that quite frankly there was nothing more he could teach me, and that he felt neither could his colleagues in the department. Deep down I had to agree with him, that I needed a fresh and tougher challenge.  There was not that much mystery to the next step.  

I had been working the stacks in the Main Library in between the writing process during my final year, and came across almost by accident one day the book by Walter Isard, Location and Space Economy, published in1956.  It was a text covering the same subject matter of theory treated by Lindberg in his economic geography textbook and lectures, but more rigorously from the viewpoint of economics.  Hinting of a new discipline, it promised to break away from the orthodox treatment of the economy as a point in space, and to bring in geographic space considerations into economics a la Perroux.  I was intrigued.  Exploring further, I came upon the Journal of Regional Science.  Flipping through the most recent copy of the journal, and following up with earlier issues, and the annual Proceedings of the Regional Science Association, I became convinced that I had found the new frontier of economic geography, and an ideal integration of my interest in geography and economics. Regional science, a science of location and space!  There was now no doubt where I had to go next to pursue my career, and Geoff agreed with me.  Go West, young man!

With Geoff’s recommendation letter, and a reference by Basil Johnson, professor and chairman of the Geography Department, I sent an application for admission to the doctoral program and a fellowship at the Regional Science Department, University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, USA.  It was the only place to go to learn the new discipline.  Without so much of a delay I received a positive reply from Penn to both applications.  Delighted, the question was now what do I do before the September admission date for the fall term in the Ivy League school.  It was still only early January in Australia. Fortunately, Murray Wilson, associate professor in population geography, had an ongoing research project and needed an assistant, that could last the summer.  During that time Geoff and I quickly finished the manuscript based on my honours thesis and had it sent to a Pergamon Press journal, Regional Studies.  After that, I then worked on the hyperspace trend analysis methodology and successfully modified Albert Langer’s trend surface analysis program to cover the third (time) dimension, and began preparing with Geoff a paper on its application to follow-up on the earlier Regional Studies manuscript.  

It was about that time that I came across Isard’s second book, this time with some co-authors including Ben Stevens, Methods in Regional Analysis:  Introduction to Regional Science, which covered regional activity analysis, transportation and optimization methods, and regional input-output analysis.  The two books by Walter were to become part of a famous trilogy by Isard and his colleagues that established the field of regional science, with the third book, co-authored now with his students, entitled General Theory: social, political, economic and regional, in 1969 the year before I arrived in Penn.

But my stay in Melbourne was not done yet.  After the conclusion of the research assistance job with Wilson, I was offered a tutoring position by the department, to assist Basil Johnson with the first year introductory  geography course.  This covered me for the full first term which would be just the filler before I depart for Malaysia in August on route to the US for the fall term.  It would turn out for me to be not just a gap-filling time.  During my fourth year I had made friends with Lee Hobba and Allan Sieler, two Australian students completing their third year of geography.  Sieler would go on after graduation to become an accomplished cricketer, representing Victoria state in the Sheffield Shield competition, and was on the brink of Test selection for Australia until he had his jaw broken by a West Australian fast bowler;  Hobba would continue into his Honours year when I became a tutor in the geography department.  I helped Lee with his honours thesis, on the topic of evolution of river systems, and suggested he measured the total historical scouring effect of the river valley and comparing for patterns defined by rainfall, location and length/size of the river system as well as the geology of the underlying catchment area.  As at that very time in Vietnam General Giap was leading the Vietcongs in the Tet Offensive against the South, we decided that Lee could call his measure of the river valley scouring effect the Tet Index!, which involved measuring a shape homomorphous to a solid tetrahedron as approximation.   Lee and I would remain firm friends even after his graduation. Rose and I even visited Lee and his lovely wife Rosalie at the latter’s parents house in South Australia during my fourth year.

Just before the start of summer vacation in 1969 the three “sisters” Aminah, Miskiah and Rose decided to leave Florence Avenue, and together with Abdullah and me, we rented an apartment in Oakleigh. Rose liked this place because of the closeness to the girls’ favourite Chadstone shopping centre; the boys liked it because of its bowling alley.  The Monash campus would just be a bus ride away in Clayton. This house would continue to change hands among later Malaysian students even after we all had left Monash.  During the time I was commuting to the research assistant job with Wilson, the three girls and Abdullah found a summer job working in the central post-office sorting Christmas mail.  It was in this house that I got married to Rose.

Rose wearing my robe and mortar board
on my graduation day in Monash

That involved a bit of personal drama.  Rose had to continue studying for her third and final year, and it was known to her and her friends that I would be leaving for the States to continue my studies in August.  I was not focused much on what I was going to do about my relationship with Rose.  But lurking surreptitiously in the back of my mind was Wok back home; at some point I would have to get formally engaged to her as expected by both families before I left again for overseas.  My sister Rafidah who had been communicating with me, was waiting for my final word to make the arrangements.  Meanwhile, in my first year geography practical class, which I took as part of my duty as tutor for the introductory course, I had a group of Australian students among whom was a Michelle Mason, a pretty but shy girl from the countryside.  She with three other girlfriends would often come to see me for extra help with their assignments, to the extent that Geoff, whose office was just across from my little room, would tease me in the staff common room that I always had a long queue of girl students outside my office; I had felt a mutual liking for Michelle, and would fantasize quite guiltily that if I were to have decided to stay on for my graduate studies at Monash I, like many Malaysian student friends before me, might have ended up marrying her.  At least that was what was in my mind, Michelle of course had no inkling of this.  So, with all this, when Rose came into my room one day after her class, crying and pressing me to know what was going to happen to her, now that Aminah had told her that she was getting married to Abdullah, I was caught in a supreme dilemma. As I was not in personal relationships wont to make precipitous decisions, usually leaving things to the natural flow of events, I surprised myself in this case and made the decision to marry Rose.

After that fateful decision, things moved rather rapidly.  Preparations were made by the three “sisters” for the wedding, somehow they found a kadi in Melbourne.  Date fixed, invitations were sent out to close friends among the Malaysian community.  I wrote to my sister to say that the planned engagement to Wok was off; she wrote back asking why, and thinking the worst, thought that I should not make such a precipitous decision.  I had to ignore her letter, fully knowing how disappointed the families would be, especially the innocent Wok.   Rose’s parents sent over both our wedding attire.  On the eve of the wedding, while walking with Lee across the Forum to have coffee in the Student Union, we ran across Michelle and her friends walking to the Menzies Building. I stopped while Michelle pulled away from her friends, and matter of factly told her that I was getting married the next day.  I didn’t know why I had to tell her that, but she took it quite naturally.  I on my part could dare not linger on to see her reaction.   We passed on our individual ways.   And in mid-April, just before the formal convocation to receive my degree from Monash, I married Rose.

After that, the remainder of my days in Melbourne proceeded uneventfully.  I duly completed my tutorial duties in the department, but I didn’t quite finish the hyperspace trend analysis paper, but promised Geoff that I would continue on it when in America.  In the staff common room on the day I said my farewells, I was introduced for the first time to Mal Logan, who was taking up a professorship in the department, after a long stint in Wisconsin and Nigeria. It was  almost a perfunctory meeting, but Mal Logan would reappear again later in my career at USM in the late 70s.  By that time Mal had been appointed Pro Vice Chancellor of Monash University.  Then, towards the middle of August, after saying goodbye to Rose, who would be joining me later in the States after she completed her degree at the end of the year, and making a promise to visit her family in KL, I flew home to Malaysia.  

It was to be a brief stopover in Malaysia, on the way to London, and on to the States later in August. During that layover, I went straight to the Federal Establishment Office building in Jalan Raja to report for duty, but actually to plead for my case to continue my studies overseas using the fact that I had got a place and fellowship as leverage.  Ahmad Sarji was a young officer in charge of staffing for the civil service, who later was to become the Chief Secretary to the Government and awarded the title Tun.  I owed it to him to see the logic of my proposal, and, after making a phone call to the director of INTAN, I suspect later to be Elyas Omar, I was given the green-light to continue my studies at Penn.  But I had to sign a new contract of service with the government upon completion of my doctoral studies, and assigned to serve at the newly-established University of Science Malaysia, the second university after the University of Malaya.

I immediately flew to Penang and met with Noel Ogle the USM Registrar, who explained the nature of the bond I have with the university.  I was part of the university’s Academic Staff Training Scheme (ASTS), which would provide me with funding for tuition and living allowance for me and family, under a grant scheme provided by the Asia Foundation, for the period to completion of my studies.  My first year tuition was of course to be paid by the Penn graduate fellowship, so I saved USM that part at least for the first year.  I couldn’t wait to start.

I had already decided that for the week before my departure for overseas again, I would divide the time I had between staying with Rahmah and family in KL, and some time with my elder sister Zawiyah’s family in Kg. Panchor.  That was great because I got reunited with my younger brother, Munar, whom I had not seen for four years, except for the brief home visit in  the summer of ‘67.   I was troubled by what he related to me, confirmed by Rafidah, of the lost year after our father died, how he drifted between relatives who he got close to during the time my late father took him around during the years I was away, and how all this affected his schooling.  No one could be blamed for this as my father compensated for the loss of our mother while Munar was growing up, and I was away. 

With a heavy heart but high expectation, and without seeing Wok (for I could not face her) again, I flew to London the day after the thirteenth anniversary of Independence in 1970.