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Final Part 5: The Hearts of One – On Location

This is a work of fiction, but many of the events along the storyline are drawn from real places and happenings, described in ways that are logical and realistic.

Together, my wife and I explored places that shaped the story, from a gentle forest stream where Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing Butterfly appeared and settled by the banks, to walking along the quiet lanes of an Orang Asli village.

Even the possibility of a bicycle ride up a sloping road was carefully calculated, so the distance described in the book reflected what was realistically possible.

Some settings were inspired by places that no longer exist. SayangKu Kopitiam and SuanNamSai Restaurant were modelled after restaurants we dined in Bangkok, while The Little Hut Restaurant took cues from The Little House Cafe in Tapah. Though these locations are gone today, they live on in the story.

The art exhibition in Bangkok was based on an actual event held in a hotel in the late 1980s. The eerie encounters were drawn from my time working at a fish farm next to a cemetery somewhere in Malacca.

All these memories and experiences, though shaped into fiction, form the backbone of The Hearts of One. The story blends imagination with the reality I witnessed, honours the places, people, and moments that shaped it, and keeps them alive on the page.

Part 4: Writing The Hearts of One – The Art Story  - 8 Sep 2025

This novel is also a story of art. I began painting seriously in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown, and naturally I tried to push my work into the art market. That was when I learned many things. Here in Malaysia, the art scene is small and often feels caught between true appreciation and the chase for profit.

As a pond ecologist, I could not help but see art through the lens of an ecosystem. Artists are like the primary producers, they create and produce art. Galleries act as the first consumers, often reluctant to take on new artists who lack credibility. Then come the secondary consumers, the critics, the auction houses, the media, who inflate art value through reputation rather than the art itself. At the top sit the tertiary consumers, the grand collectors, who trade works at staggering prices, sometimes based on provenance, which is simply who once owned them.

And just like in a pond, there are also decomposers. In art, these are the forgotten works, dressed up as rediscovered, restored, and reborn. Take Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, 'lost and found,' then 'repainted' and 'rebranded,' only to fetch USD 450.3 million. Some may call such rediscoveries remarkable, but are these really just clever manoeuvres of the art market?

In The Hearts of One, the protagonist’s journey into art is not smooth, nor is it the dream that many hold of becoming an artist. It is a struggle, much like the reality many face when they pick up painting later in life, as I did. This story, though fiction, is drawn from such truths.

Part 3: Writing The Hearts of One – The Ghost Story

This month, the Chinese are observing the Hungry Ghost Festival.

In my novel, The Hearts of One, there is a ghost story. It was never too difficult for me to write, though I had to choose carefully which ghost story to tell.

During my early days working at fish farms, I experienced strange happenings on those farms unexpectedly located beside a cemetery. Far from the main road, the silence of the night could be eerie and unsettling. When visitors came, whether in the day or at night, I would guide them with directions like, “Once you spot the first tombstone ahead, turn left, and that will take you to the farm gate.”

A few years later, after that first graveyard farm, I moved to another. This time it was worse, as the road cut straight through a large Chinese cemetery before reaching the farmhouse.

It was on these farms that I faced the kind of spiritual encounters I had never imagined at the beginning. Slowly but surely, they came, month after month, enough to raise the hair on my skin even now when I recall them.

But in this book, I chose to tell only the stories that bring more laughter than fear. The Hearts of One is not a ghost story book, but a work of historical fiction shaped by memories and lived experiences.

Part 2: Writing The Hearts of One – Tin Mining and the Japanese in Perak

I visited the Tin Mining Museum in Kampar several times, not just to trace the history of dulang washing to the great tin dredges that once powered the state’s economy, but to imagine how the miners who became wealthy and shaped society would have faced the harsh policies of the Japanese, especially against the Chinese communities.

As a child, I heard countless tales of fear from elders who lived under Japanese soldiers and their oppressive rule. Those memories, later reinforced by books on the invasion and atrocities across Asia during the Second World War, shaped the backdrop of my story.

The novel begins with a couple fleeing from Japanese soldiers after an unforeseen incident sets events into motion. Japanese dialogue is woven into the scenes, carefully checked for accuracy, alongside research into the ways of administration during the Occupation of Malaya.

In the end, the story found its form, layered with childhood tales, memories, and the fragments of history that revealed themselves as I wrote.

Part 1: Writing The Hearts of One – The Orang Asli Story (Indigenous People of Malaysia) 2 Sep 2025

In my early years, I worked at a fish farm on the edge of the forest along the road to Cameron Highlands. The farm stood beside an Orang Asli settlement, a small cluster of huts they called a Pos. I befriended them, joined their festive gatherings, and followed their hunting trails. I even engaged one of them, a man of few words, as the farm’s security guard. He was a tough fellow who once saved our living quarters by putting out a fast spreading bushfire on his own, without even a drop of water.

The ‘jungle warrior’ in my book The Hearts of One was drawn from his character, a man who lived and hunted in the wild.

Writing this story was no easy task. I spent long hours with my Orang Asli friends to share the plot from my side, to shape the dialogue in their language, and to make sure every detail was right. My wife and I also searched for and observed the Rajah Brooke’s birdwing butterfly, one of the largest in the world, which also found its place in the novel. To strengthen the story, I drew from my own encounter with the elusive goat antelope, the serow, and from joining a feast after it was hunted in the silent forest night.

This book is not just about fictional history. It is about supporting the culture of nature, valuing the precious knowledge of the Orang Asli, and remembering the wisdom that once lived in the forest but now survives mostly in words. Today, the bamboo huts and atap roofs have since been replaced with concrete houses topped with zinc. The days at the forest and farm remain only as memories, and turning those memories into words has been a treasure to me.

Bali - The Island of Gods

17 May 2025. I’ve been travelling to Bali for many years—it felt like a second home in my younger days. I was always fascinated by its well-preserved culture and way of life, making the island feel like a living museum. Across more than a hundred trips, one occasion I particularly looked forward to was Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu New Year, also known as the “Day of Silence.” It’s a remarkable 24-hour period of complete stillness. Even electricity to hotels is cut, no one is allowed to leave their homes or accommodations, and all activities come to a halt. The silence is profound—an entire island pausing in reflection.

What fascinated me most was the eve of Nyepi, known as Pengrupukan, when the streets of Legian-Seminyak come alive with Ngrupuk parades of monstrous effigies called Ogoh-ogoh—the Balinese Yao Guai, or evil spirits. Dances depicting the eternal battle between good and evil, with figures like Barong and Rangda, fill the night with myth, meaning along with loud rhythmic cries and packed performances.. There’s also the Melasti ceremony, a ritual of purification performed by the sea or at sacred springs as in Ubud a day after Nyepi.

I can't help as to keep such memorable experienced, and inspired by their beauty and symbolism, I decided to paint these striking characters and spiritual moments as part of my Bali collection.