FEATURE
How Can I Make Things Better? Tunku Halim Abdullah (H, 1982) ‘I’d like you all to tell me what I can do to improve College.’ The middle-aged man stared at us from across his desk, eyes glimmering, waiting for an answer. I was in the Fourth Form and sitting three rows back from our new English teacher, the recently appointed Headmaster, Richard Morgan. I felt surprised and honoured that the Headmaster would ask us, we lowly Fourth Formers, of what he could do to improve our school. Hands immediately shot up and, not waiting to be asked, a couple of voices said ‘The food!’ Everyone nodded. Yes, it was the food. Richard Morgan frowned. ‘Is it really that bad?’ ‘Yes!’ everyone said. But Richard Morgan didn’t want our opinions just for the sake of asking it because, a few weeks
later, it seemed that a switch had been flicked and suddenly there was a big improvement on what was served in the Dining Hall. The dishes were a lot tastier and there was a greater variety to choose from. I was impressed. It felt as though we, his English Fourth Form pupils, had made a positive difference. He asked our opinion and then acted on it. Of course, he had probably asked many others this same question and received the same response. That was not important. What was vital was that we were asked, listened to and positive action was taken. This memory from 1979 is significant and sticks in the brain 41 years later because it takes a certain humility and open-mindedness to ask that question.
How can I make things better? Our ego tells us that we know best, that we have all the answers. Which, of course, is simply not true. I cannot recall any political leader asking their citizens: ‘How can I make our country a better one?’ Or perhaps of greater importance, the question: ‘How can I make your lives better?’ To pose this very question exhibits a certain level of humility because the Headmaster, Prime Minister or whoever it is that is in a leadership position is implicitly saying: I don’t have the answers. I value your opinion. I need your help. Most of us believe we know the answers or, even if we don’t, will pretend that we do. Ten years later, as a young lawyer in Kuala Lumpur, I was not worldly enough to know that such pretence is perhaps de rigeur in the working world. Perhaps such a lack of worldliness is the reason I resigned from Oracle, the US $40 billion company, and then left bustling Sydney, where I had worked as the company’s Legal Counsel. Our young family then moved to Tasmania, settling in a house beside the Derwent River where I spent many an hour looking out for dolphins. I have spent most of my life now as a writer. Whenever I finish writing a short story, a novel or a non-fiction book, I ask the question of no one in particular. ‘What can I do to make this better?’ I’m not lucky enough to see the hands of Fourth Formers shooting up but the memory tells me that I don’t have all the answers.
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Tunku Halim at College
Tunku Halim in U6, outside his Hazelwell study bedroom
Tunku Halim now
Tunku Halim’s latest book
THE CHELTONIAN & FLOREAT 2019-2020
The author writes under the name Tunku Halim. His latest work includes the collection of short stories Scream to the Shadows, the novel A Malaysian Restaurant in London and a biography A Prince Called ‘Charlie’.
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