Encounter With A True Penangite

The University, where I am working part-time, is based in Penang. In fact, my recruitment interview was conducted over Skype between KL and Penang. So I've never actually met any of my Penang colleagues face-to-face until a few months after I have joined the KL Office.

Penang is not really a small town (its industrial parks count Dell and Samsung among those which have chosen to set up assembly plants there) but it has managed to maintain that quaint small-town charm. Just last year, the Georgetown area was officially designated a World Heritage Site.

But it is its people that I am most amazed with. Penangites are some of the most personable people I have ever met. My best friend while I was in high school in Singapore hailed from Penang, as did many of my wonderful colleagues in Singapore. And after all these years, Penangites continue to win me over with their warmth and sincerity.

At my present workplace, I have many opportunities to come into contact with Penangites again. My first course coordinator is a graduate from USM, one of the top two local universities. She is now working for her PhD. Her surname is "Teoh", a dead giveaway that she is a Penangite (in other places, the surname is translated to "Teo" without the letter h at the end).

The first time she visited the KL Office, she greeted me like a long-lost friend and brought a box of tau-seah-peah for me and my family from Penang. Tau-seah-peah? It was totally unexpected and I was touched. Note that until that first meeting, we only shared a professional relationship over the e-mail. In the corporate world where I came from, I would never have thought of bringing gifts for my business acquaintances. If I did, it would be one of those really boring type of office momentoes. Not something as personal as tau-seah-peah, that delicious bean-paste pastry from Penang.

I would add that this course coordinator of mine is NOT your typical local graduate. She truly knows her job, is fluent in English and has one of the best working attitude I have ever seen on both sides of the Causeway. How I wish we can see more of her kind in the working world.

At the end of that first visit, it suffices to say that I know more about her hubby and one-year-old daughter, than she knows about my family. Before she left, she issued me an open invitation, saying that any time, I am in Penang, drop by at her office and she promises to show me around. The way she said it, it did not sound like lip service at all.

I don't deserve this. I am born and bred in the city (as if that gives me an excuse) and in my working relationships, I have always been direct and professional. I have had no reason to examine any other mode of interaction. Where I came from, we always strived to behave professionally (read: in a task-oriented, objective-focussed manner, without being personal). That's how one gains respect in the workplace.

Later, when my course coordinator moved on to another assignment, she sent me a thank-you card, not the electronic type, but a paper-based, signed-with-ink, and inserted-into-an-envelope type. Now, why shouldn't I be surprised? That gesture is totally in keeping with her character.

It's not that she's not internet-savvy - after all, the university runs on-line university courses - but she took the trouble to be personable. We all could learn a lesson or two from her.