Editor: Received for publication on 26 August 2000. In accordance with the Spirit of Nantah, Dr Han Suyin should be invited to attend the 7th Global Nantah Alumni Reunion held in June 2000 in Vancouver. I have grave concern some people who preach the Spirit of Nantah may not practice it themselves. Also the Spirit of Nantah does not contravene the Spirit of Democracy. The sentiment of the silent majority of Nantah graduates should be respected and not hijacked.

Without doubt, an overwhelming majority of Nantah alumni, possibly as high as 90% or more would agree that it was wrong for the Organizing Committee not inviting Dr Han Suyin (who attended the First Nantah Alumni Reunion in Toronto and proposed the re-establishment of Nantah).

Why Dr Han Suyin was not invited? The 7th Global Nantah Alumni Reunion Organizing Committee owes Nantah alumni a clear explanation, and do it sooner than later for the sake of its own creditability.

Attention Mr. Yeo Sing Lim,
Chair 7th Global Nantah Alumni Reunion Organizing Committee:
RE: Dr. Cham Tao Soon & Han Suyin

I notice on the tentative program for the Nantah Night, Dr. Cham Tao Soon, Vice Chancellor of NTU, is scheduled to address the assembly. There may be good reasons for your committee to invite a representative of Nanyang Technological University to speak. If there are, I would like to know. In deciding to accord Dr. Cham the honour to address the alumni, you might have wanted to follow the precedent set by the Nantah Alumni Association of Singapore a few years ago for the home-coming reunion.

If this is so, I propose that alumni in North America need not be unduly influenced by decisions made under significantly different circumstances. Living in Canada, we are relatively immune from political or economic pressures some of our fellow alumni elsewhere may be subjected to. This awareness was instrumental in pushing the alumni in Ottawa to form the first Nantah alumni association abroad many years sgo, when "Hua-2 Jiao-4 (Chinese language education) was in an apparent crisis in parts of Southeast Asia.

For the Nantah global reunion, I understand that only graduates or former students of Nanyang University, and their relatives and friends are entitled to participate. With all due respect, Dr. Cham is not one of us. I do not know of what capacity he will come in. Even if he is entitled to come without an invitation from your committee, you may want to think thrice before inviting him to address the assembly. For those of us involved with Nantah prior to its metamorphosis, this is an emotional, as well as an intellectual issue. Bearing in mind the apparently subtle psychological orchestration to create an impression among Nantah alumni that although the Nantah we knew when we were on its campus for four years had ceased to exist, we still have a "Nan-Da", which was born rapidly out of the ashes of the old, into an existing framework of a technical college. However, there are Nantah alumni who do not think that the new Nan-Da is the same as the old Nantah. At best, the new Nan-Da, though occupying the same seat in Jurong, is but a step mother.

A few weeks ago, I emailed a member of your committee to ask whether you planned to invite old teachers of Nantah like Dr. Han Suyin to join us. The answer given was a "no". I think it would be a nice gesture to invite our old teachers who are still around, particularly a teacher like Han Suyin. Even if they may not be able to withstand the rigours of the trip to come to Vancouver, they will be please to know that we have not forgotten them. As some alumni will remember, Han Suyin has been a dedicated advocate of Chinese culture. Since the idea of establishing an overseas Chinese language university represented the blossoming of Chinese language and culture overseas, Dr. Han's enthusiasm for establishing a Chinese language university was evident right from the embryonic period of Nantah, when she canvassed people who mattered, such as the then British High Commissioner for Southeast Asia, Malcolm MacDonald, who, after Nanyang University came into being, donated a "Malcolm MacDonald oratorical contest cup", used annually to promote excellence in the students.

After Nanyang University was established, Han Suyin took time from her busy life of a writer of international renown to teach part time at Nantah, and continued to use her international stature as a writer to speak publicly on Nantah's behalf. Are not the cases of Han Suyin and Dr. Cham Tao Soon a stark contrast? I know that, for the time being at least, Han Suyin may not come, even an invitation is sent to her. Whether she can or will come is not as important as whether we have forgotten those who spent part of their lives to help us. The more it is that they may not be able to come, the more imperative that we send our former teachers the invitations to show that we have not forgotten them. By the way, lest you think that I am too critical: I think the job you guys are doing is so far so good, from what I can see.

Yap Tian Song
Third Batch, Dept of Modern Languages & Literature, Nantah

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