From a journalist to CM

First day in the office: Chow answering questions during a press conference at his office in Komtar, Penang.

Small-sized, bespectacled and quite unassuming, this sub-editor always wore a careful smile in The National Echo newsroom in Penang more than 30 years ago. In fact, some of us had even nicknamed him “Mr Nice Guy”.

Chow Kon Yeow, the new Chief Minister of Penang, was such a perfect gentleman that none of us would have thought that he would survive the roughness of national politics, let alone helm a state which is among the frontline in the nation.