After he lost his Padang Kota state seat to DAP’s Lim Kit Siang in the October 1990 general election, Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu, Penang’s second chief minister and the man known as the father of Penang’s industrialisation, kept a very low profile.

Repeated requests from the media, both local and foreign, to interview him were turned down. Even attempts by his own Gerakan party members to produce a biography of him was flatly rejected.

Then, on Nov 23, 2005, I called the veteran politician for his comments when his picture was finally hung alongside that of other past presidents at the MCA party headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, after almost 50 years.

Dr Lim became the second MCA president after the March 1958 party elections when he successfully challenged then president Tun Tan Cheng Lock. He won the presidency with a majority of 22 votes.

However, in 1960, Dr Lim left the party to form the United Democratic Party in 1962, before becoming one of the founding members of Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (PGRM) just before the 1969 general election.

Despite having served as the MCA president for a brief period, his picture had never been displayed together with those of other past presidents until then MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting initiated the move during his tenure.

When I called Dr Lim’s house, he answered the phone himself. However, he declined to comment.

“Don’t ask me to comment on what other people say about me. If you want, we can have a chat at my office anytime, some other day but I have no comments on this.

“I don’t believe I should respond to this. Come and see me some other time and we will have a chat,” was his polite but sharp response.

A few weeks later, when I bumped into Dr Lim at a function, I introduced myself and again asked him for an interview.
He told me to call his office for an appointment which I did, only to be told that “Tun is unwell and you will be informed when Tun can fit you into his schedule”.

I was on holiday in the UK two months later when I finally got a call from his secretary in the wee hours of the morning that Dr Lim wanted to speak to me about our impending “chat”.

Since I was away, we arranged to meet up when I got back. So it was that I finally got to meet him several weeks later.

The interview was at the executive office of Berjaya Group along Burmah Road. Dr Lim was the Berjaya Group advisor.

The office on an upper floor of the building had a commanding view of parts of George Town, including Penang Hill, and this view dominated parts of our conversation that day.

Dressed in a short-sleeved checked shirt, Dr Lim looked fit as a fiddle and took my hand in a firm handshake.

Prior to the meeting I had heard horror stories of journalists who, when they interviewed him, would end up getting an earful if they did not get their facts correct.

During the interview, he was insistent that I did not take notes, or record what he had to say.

“I have stopped reading newspapers, so there’s no point in me giving any interviews. Newspapers print rubbish these days. There is nothing worth reading. I just want to chat with you,” said Dr Lim in his no-nonsense tone.

During the “chat” which lasted almost two hours, he kept checking a few times if I was taking notes or recording our conversation.

And instead of me asking the questions, he turned the tables on me, questioning me about work, my family and also about my take on the political situation in the country.

Some of his questions threw me off balance.

“What is the height of Penang Hill, do you know? What is that cloud called?” were two questions which, thankfully, I was able to answer.

One question I could not answer was when he asked me about the composer of the song Putera Puteri.

Dr Lim was talking about great Penangites, among them the late Jimmy Boyle who composed the song, but he himself could not recall Boyle’s name.

We moved on to other topics, but he was troubled that he could not remember Boyle’s name and kept trying to recall it.

I had gone to his office with a photographer, but Dr Lim had his own compact digital camera, and took pictures of us instead.

Saying that it was his latest hobby, he was at times pre-occupied with trying to figure out some of the camera’s features.

He even suggested that I interview certain people in Penang, his compatriots whom he said deserved more credit than him.

“Go and interview Chet [Datuk Seri Chet Singh, the first Penang Development Corporation general manager who is now the special advisor to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng], he is the father of Penang’s industrialisation, not me. I am a nobody.

“Why don’t you go and talk to Chong Keat [Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat] who is responsible for building Komtar. Talk to him about how the project was conceptualised and how we managed to pull it off,” Dr Lim said, refusing to take credit for Penang’s success during the 21 years that he helmed the state, from 1969 to 1990.

When I pointed out to him that Komtar had fallen into a state of disrepair at that time, he said nothing much was being done by the state government, then helmed by Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon.

“If I were Koh, I would have turned Komtar into a hotel or some other commercial venture instead of letting it go like that,” Dr Lim said, clearly disappointed.

He also commented on former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad but it was more on a personal rather than political note.

He even spoke to the photographer who was with me, asking him if he intended to work in the same line for the rest of his life.

Dr Lim went on to give him some pointers and suggestions, including business ventures which would create good returns.

“You can never go wrong in the food business or become a hair dresser. These are two things that people would need always, eating and getting a hair cut.

“You can work independently and not depend on a paid salary for the rest of your life,” was Dr Lim’s sound advice to us. For years, he had the same barber cut his hair.

After the chat, I came away in awe and respect of the man, who was in his late 80s then.

Once I got to the office, I quickly wrote down whatever he had said during our chat, as I knew my audience with him was one of the very rare ones he gave after he retreated from politics completely in 1990.

But despite the fact that he was out of the public eye for two decades, Dr Lim remained an icon. He kept a very low profile, but was  always held in high esteem. He has even been likened to Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew for his boldness and determination in bringing Penang out of its economic doldrums in the early 1970s.

The 65-storey Komtar, the highest building in the region when it was completed in the 1980s, the Penang Bridge completed in 1985 and Penang’s industrialisation in the 1970s will always be remembered as Dr Lim’s legacies. These three were instrumental in shaping Penang into what it is today.

His role in Malaysia’s industrialisation and how he shaped Penang’s political fortunes will forever be remembered and he will be sadly missed.

Regina William is chief correspondent for The Edge Financial Daily, based in Penang.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, November 29, 2010.