Today is the funeral for the Genting founder, Lim Goh Tong. It has been seven days since he died. The funeral promises to be a grand affair befitting a man of his stature. A simple man, yet a very successful man. He really carved a name out for himself after arriving from China to seek his fortune in pre-war Malaya. It’s a typical rags-to-riches story which everyone should aspire to emulate.
Tributes began pouring in from all over the world after his death was announced locally on 23 Oct 2007. The story was carried worldwide by the international press such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Telegraph among others.
The most enduring image of him in the local newspapers must be this one that appeared in The Star yesterday. Lim was very much a hands-on person and in the early days after he envisioned building his casino up at Genting, he had no qualms about putting his own shoulders to the task. I’m impressed with this photo which showed him driving a tractor to clear the jungle for a road. This must have been in the 1960s.
I’ve only met the man once and this was in 1978. At that time, the Malaysian Chess Federation was embarking on a goodwill tour of China. We had been invited by the Chinese Chess Association and were given the full treatment when we were on Chinese soil.
The goodwill tour was arranged to reciprocate the Malaysian Chess Federation’s sponsorship of China into the World Chess Federation in 1974. A grateful Chinese Chess Association had invited a contingent of Malaysian chess players to tour their land and play a series of goodwill chess matches.
But at that time, though diplomatic relations had already been established for a few years already, visits to China were still restricted. A person would need to be at least 55 or 60 years old before the Malaysian government gave permission for him to visit China. And here we were, a bunch of chess players and officials from Malaysia who were not more than 55 years old, not even the Federation president, Tan Chin Nam, who led the contingent on the 10-day tour.
We were to be accompanied by two persons from the government ministries. I believe one was from the Foreign ministry – he was designated as the official contingent head – but I suspect the other one was from the Special Branch. His exact role was unknown to me and the others but we could more or less guess that he was there to keep an eye on things.
The day prior to our leaving for China, we were invited to the Foreign Ministry for a meeting with the ministry folks where we were advised on what to do and what not to do. It was that strict. We sat around the table and one of the people there was an elderly man who kept quiet the whole meeting.
We often wondered who he was. He only spoke once when he was casually asked by a ministry person why he could not follow the contingent to China. “Tidak senang, lah” was his only reply, followed by a big inscrutable smile that lingered on his face.
I still had no idea who he was. It was not until long afterwards that I learnt that the man was Lim Goh Tong, the person who owned the Genting Casino and the Genting Highland Hotel.
Lim was one of the sponsors for the Malaysian chess team going on this goodwill tour of China and he was supposed to have come along with us. Word had it that he had to turn down the trip because he wanted his wife to come along but she could not get a permit to join the contingent. The ministry had allowed only a group of 10 persons to visit China and with the group already consisting of the official delegation head, a sponsor, two chess officials and six players, there was no place left for the sponsor’s wife. So reluctantly, the sponsor himself withdrew and was replaced by the other ministry person.