Salina Christmas

There are gaps in my knowledge of my country’s history. So I write a fictional story to fill these gaps. Lt Wang Yilun is a character I created to address the burning questions I have about our past.

Lt Chan Ming Youn, 25, was the sole Chinese out of 69 soldiers to have made it into the latest batch of commandos in the Malaysian National Army, and he made headlines. Recruitment of non-Malays in the Malaysian military is not new, especially in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. But to be selected as a commando is a considered an impressive achievement.

Of brotherhood and heroism

In my second novel, A Request For Betrayal, one of the main characters is Lt Wang Yilun of the Engineering Corp, Malaysian National Army. An architect by training, he joins the army to defend the newly formed Malaysia against Indonesia during the Konfrontasi period of 1963 to 1966.

The horror angle to this story is that, until my protagonist Pt Raden meets Lt Wang on the frontline in Borneo, none of his family members expects outsiders to be able to see The Tiger-Man, the gruesome family servant that nobody wants to inherit. But Lt Wang is able to see the were-tiger… and other were-tigers as well. If only members of the clan can see the were-tiger, then who is Lt Wang? What is his relationship with the Radens? And why does the mysterious Indonesian soldier – also the keeper of a were-tiger – assure Pt Raden that Lt Wang can’t be hurt?

And what is a hero? Someone who decimates his enemies? Or someone who extends the olive branch, even at the cost of his life? (This is a spoiler alert for the second novel).

What is a hero? Someone who decimates his enemies? Or someone who extends the olive branch, even at the cost of his life?

There’s also a twist to Lt Wang’s name. It’s not the name he was born with. Afflicted by the same curse as the Radens’, his birth name was replaced with a new one to hide him away from a very scary constant companion, a demon that accompanies him from birth. So Lt Wang and Pt Raden have something in common.

You can find out more about Wang’s story in A Request For Betrayal, the sequel to The Keeper Of My Kin. Or, if you prefer to read it in Kindle, in two e-books:

• Part 4: The Brotherhood of the Tiger-Men (£2.99)
• Part 5: A Truce Made In Blood (£2.99)
• The novel: A Request For Betrayal, featuring Part 4 & 5 (£9.99)

A Wang in the family

I created the fictional character of Lt Wang Yilun after I read about non-Malay soldiers who served in the military during the Konfrontasi period. I came up with the name Wang (王) because that’s the surname linked to my family. We keep track of our genealogy in my family to keep track of our clan and sub-clans. Also in the past, when our clan occupied a different social stratum, succession disputes were common, hence the need to identify our lineage. Chinese and Indian names pop up in the family tree circa 1800s, always male. I did a DNA test to discover that the Indochinese segment makes up 46% of what I am. And that I have a Wang as a distant cousin.

I didn’t use this for my writing material until years later, after I read extensively about the kingdoms of Siam, Champa and the Dai Viet. I read as much as I could about the history of the Chinese in the Malay, Javanese and Siamese kingdoms, and how the various kingdoms of China relate to our kingdoms during our Hindu-Buddhist times. In 2023, I visited Ayutthaya in Thailand in search of a story. There are gaps in my knowledge, of course. So I write a fictional story to join the dots. It just happens to be a horror story about were-tigers during the times of war. And about the spirit of brotherhood that triumphs over the desire for war.

There are gaps in my knowledge, of course. So I write a fictional story to join the dots.

A calling

The Royal Ranger Regiment which Lt Chan’s battalion belongs to has its roots in the Sarawak Rangers. The unit mentored by the British SAS during the post-war Emergency period originally consisted of Iban scouts. By the time of the Konfrontasi, it became a fully-fledged regiment. Its motto is “Agi idup, agi ngelaban” (as long as I live, I fight). Its warrior persona is fashioned after Rentap, the Iban chief who led the resistance against Charles Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, in the 1840s.

The military is not a career one chooses for money. It’s a calling, and a difficult one to uphold, physically and mentally. The country comes first, and the life of a soldier isn’t the life of a civilian. So I take my hats off to Lt Chan for choosing this path, and for passing a gruelling 12-week course. It’s not to be underestimated. Congratulations for joining one of the most esteemed ranks of our warriors.

News and main image courtesy of BTDM.