Is Kusu Island Auntie Ah Meng's 'Mum'?

Tay Shi'an, The New Paper 25 Feb 08;

FOR the last 60 years, she has been taking care of the famous Da Bo Gong (Merchant God or God of Prosperity) temple on Kusu Island.

And that may not be the only Singapore icon Madam Shim Choy Yeng, 78, is linked to.

She and her late husband, Mr Seet Hock Seng, may have been the original owners of Ah Meng, the much-loved orang utan who died of old age in the Singapore Zoo earlier this month.

According to the zoo, back in 1971, eight orang utans including Ah Meng, were confiscated from homes and given to the zoo after a crackdown on those who illegally kept wildlife as pets.

Ah Meng, who was 48 when it died, was 11 then.

Neither the zoo nor the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has written records of who and where Ah Meng was taken from.

But one of the officers involved in the crackdown is certain it had been confiscated from a family on Kusu Island.

Mr Madhavan Kannan, 60, head of the AVA's Centre for Animal Welfare and Control, was then an officer with the Primary Production Department – the AVA's predecessor.

He recalled going to Kusu Island in the early 70s with three fellow officers to confiscate an orang utan there – after they had received a tip-off from a member of the public.

"It was a pet kept on the temple premises. There was a male caretaker and a woman," Mr Madhavan told The New Paper on Sunday.

He said the man told him the orang utan's name was Ah Meng. "They agreed to surrender her, but they were sad to part with it," he said. "But as they knew it was going to the Singapore Zoo and that they could see it there, they felt comforted."

He remembered the orang utan clinging on to the officers like a baby and refusing to let go.

For decades, the Seets have been the only family living on Kusu Island. The temple has been passed down the family for generations.

When contacted by The New Paper on Sunday, Madam Shim confirmed her family had kept an orang utan as a pet back then.

But was the primate Ah Meng?

Madam Shim said while she could not be totally sure, she did not rule out the possibility.

She is uncertain as the family had named their orang utan Datuk (grandfather in Malay). The name came about because even though it was young, the orang utan had an "old person's face".

But neither Mr Madhavan or Madam Shim's family can shed light on how Datuk could have been eventually renamed Ah Meng.

Madam Shim's late husband bought the orang utan from a man on a passing ship some 40 years ago.

His daughter, Madam Cecelia Seet, 50, said: "My father was an animal lover. We had up to 12 dogs, parrots, and a goat. If you had given him an elephant, he would have kept it too."

The family claimed they did not know then that keeping an orang utan – an endangered species – was illegal.

Madam Shim's son, Mr Seet Nan Hua, 58, said: "Datuk was naturally smart. It would drink milk out of a cup instead of a plate, then make a face and make us laugh."

FRIENDLY

Madam Seet: "It was very friendly, and it knew how to comb its hair."

Pointing to a tree on the temple premises next to a turtle enclosure, Mr Seet said: "We would chain it to the tree in the day, for fear of scaring the devotees. At night, we let it free."

But after two years, some visitors complained about it and tipped off the authorities.

Madam Shim said: "The day Datuk was taken away, the children couldn't stop crying."

Even though the family was told that Datuk would be kept in the zoo, they still feared it might be put to sleep.

Mr Seet said: "We went down to the zoo to see if it was really there.

"But there were so many orang utans, and they all looked the same."

SAD MEMORIES

After two visits, the family didn't go back as it was too inconvenient to travel from the island. They didn't want to dig up sad memories, Madam Seet said.

Zoo curator Alagappasamy Chellaiyah, 57, had looked after Ah Meng from the day it arrived at the zoo until the day it died.

He said he remembered a middle-aged couple visiting the zoo with a teenage girl and feeding Ah Meng.

"But it was more than 35 years ago – I can't remember their faces," he said. He didn't ask them for personal details about their lives.

But he remembered the family telling him that the orang utan's name was Ah Meng.

The zoo had wanted to change the name to an Indonesian one to better suit her roots. Ah Meng was born in Sumatra, Indonesia.

But since it responded well to the name Ah Meng, they left it at that.

Madam Seet said that the family had lost all the photographs they had of their orang utan.

But Madam Shim said she did follow Ah Meng's death in the news. She said: "They did the funeral very nicely. She was happy and had a good life, that's what matters."

...OR ARE YOU THE ORIGINAL OWNER?

THE long passage of time, coupled with the lack of formal records, has made Ah Meng's past before it became a celebrity at the zoo a mystery.

Madam Shim Choy Yeng and her family are not the only ones who could possibly be AhMeng's former owners. Ah Meng was among eight orang utans confiscated from homes and given to the zoo in 1971.

Zoo curator and long-time employee Alagappasamy Chellaiyah, better known as Sam, 57, recalls that about 17 orang utans came to the zoo under similar circumstances during that period.

Over the years, he said, several other families have come forward to claim the zoo's former grand dame as theirs.

All of them, like Madam Shim and her family, had seen their pet orang utans confiscated during that period and taken to the zoo.

Just yesterday, it was reported that Australian oil rig worker Paul Carter had claimed in his new book, Don't Tell Mum I Work On The Rigs, that Ah Meng spent 15 years serving cocktails on an oil barge that plied South-east Asia's waters.

He wrote that the crew was forced to give her up to the zoo when the ship was sold to new owners in the 1970s.

Do you think you or your family could be Ah Meng's former owner? Do you have pictures of the orang utan from all those years ago?


RETIREE CLAIMS HE'S ORIGINAL OWNER
Ah Meng? That's my 'Frankie'
Tay Shi'an, The New Paper 12 Mar 08;

SINGAPORE's most famous orang utan has been gone for a month.

But even after her death, Ah Meng is still causing waves.

Who is her original owner?

Three weeks ago, The New Paper ran a report on whether Madam Shim Choy Yeng, 78, and her late husband, who live on Kusu Island, may have been Ah Meng's original owners.

Now, another person thinks he used to own the Singapore icon.

Retiree Yeo Cheng Siah, 71, said he kept an orang utan and a bear as pets for about 10 years – from the 1960s to the early 1970s – before they were both taken away by the authorities.

The former pig farmer's relatives contacted The New Paper after our earlier report.

Ah Meng died of old age in the Singapore Zoo on 8 Feb.

She was 11 when she and seven other orang utans were confiscated from homes and then given to the zoo in 1971.

Neither the zoo nor the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has written records of who and where Ah Meng was taken from.

So for years, families who had their pets taken away have been wondering if the zoo's former star was their long-lost pet.

Mr Yeo is one of them.

He said he bought his orang utan in the early 1960s when he was living in a kampung in Kallang with his parents and eight siblings.

He recalled: 'My friend's uncle was a merchant who sailed the seas, and he bought (the orang utan) for me. I paid him $100 for it.

'It came to me in a basket. That time, it was very, very small, and had very little hair on its belly.'

His family named the orang utan Frankie, but realised later it was female after it grew breasts.

But they continued calling it Frankie anyway, as the name had stuck.

Two to three years after he bought Frankie, Mr Yeo, an animal lover, also bought a baby bear, which he kept in a cage, for $100.

MOVING HOUSE

When the family moved to a farm in Jalan Lembah Bedok, near Bedok Reservoir, they brought the animals with them.

Mr Yeo's wife, Madam Ngo Kee Ngan, 60, said Frankie, which they kept chained to a tree, was adorable and obedient.

Mr Yeo added: 'It was friendly to everyone, even strangers.

'If you held out your hand, it would take it and follow you to the well to take its bath.'

Frankie was also very strong, and broke its lock several times. But it never ran away or disturbed the neighbours, said Mr Yeo.

'Once, it ran to my sister's room and slept on her bed with her.'

Mr Yeo would also walk around town with Frankie on his shoulders, making him an instant hit with the children.

Madam Ngo said: 'At my father's provision shop, many children would surround it and play with it.'

Mr Yeo's nephew, Mr Tan Yeow Lang, 45, a taxi driver, said: 'I was about 8 then and I remember shaking hands with it.'

Mr Yeo said he went to the authorities to get Frankie back after it was taken away but to no avail.

A few months later, he and a friend went to the zoo to visit the orang utan.

But he stopped going after that.

'We had already given it up, no point going again,' he said.

'I also didn't think it could recognise us anymore.

'If I knew it would became famous, I would have gone to the zoo every month to take a picture with it. Then people would know it's mine.'