Learning from pioneer entrepreneurs in the history of M’sia

Datuk Tan Chin Nam passed away on Sunday at the age of 93. Together with his brother, Robert Kuok, Ang Toon Chew and some friends, they will always be remembered as the pioneer entrepreneurs in the history of Malaya and Malaysia. They were the risk takers with great vision and most of all decent human beings of upright integrity. A handshake and a promise was all that was needed then.

BACK in the good old days of carefree living as a student in University Malaya, I remembered that I hardly studied except for the last two months before the final exams. The only problem was that our final exams were always conducted in the months of February and March, which run smacked into our Chinese New Year celebrations.

So for three years, the outstation Chinese students would make a mad dash home for the New Year family reunion dinner and they would then crawl back into the libraries a few days later to prepare for the exams. There were not many choices of local universities at that time (probably five if you exclude ITM) and there were no private universities except for TAR College (not a university then).