By Martin Vengadesan
Published : 2 January 2024
Malaysiakini.com
Malaysia’s links to the colonial past of British rule are well known, and even the distant Portuguese era has left its imprint, but the connections between another European power and our country are not as well known.
Trained in both history and geography, Serge Jardin is a Frenchman who makes it his business to document ties between his native France and his adopted country, which he moved to in 1986.
His latest book ‘French Memories of Malaysia’ is a painstaking collection of stories linking the two nations.
In an interview with Malaysiakini, Jardin shared that his latest oeuvre is not a formal history, but rather an impressionistic work.
“If there are 88 main stories, altogether there are more than 200 fortuitous encounters (208 exactly) with French characters having visited all the states of Malaysia, including, for the first time East Malaysia.
“I worked with a small team of writers, six of them, all French and Malaysian ladies, and all museum volunteers. Thanks to their collaboration, the writing was completed by the end of the Covid-19 epidemic.
“It is not a history, but about memories, that is the reason why preference was given to the French people who wrote, who shared their impression about Malaysia, he said.
The subtitle emphasises literary excursions and Jardin used written sources, however, to keep the book light and easy to read, 45 pages of references were not included in the publication, he added.
The span of 450 years
According to Jardin, the period covered by his book is about 450 years.
“The first French traveller arrived possibly in Malacca in 1575, the first trader safely in 1595. Besides the academics and the fiction writers, few French people living today in Malaysia are mentioned.
“The book is not about today’s French expatriate community, but about memories and testimonies of yesterday’s travellers and settlers who left a mark on the country now called Malaysia, or perhaps, it was Malaysia that left a mark on them,” he said.
Notably, many of the figures he alluded to made their way to the region around 1900.
Jardin cited the story of explorer Adolphe Combanaire who arrived in Kuching, Sarawak in 1899 to look for gutta-percha (source of latex).
“He met the Rajah Charles Brooke who asked him who was accompanying him. He answered nobody. He ended up crossing Borneo from North to South in six months.
“An extraordinary missionary was Rene Cardon. Sent to Malacca in 1900, he became an accidental ethnologist, a passionate entomologist, an eminent historian, a genuine curator, a solicited journalist, and a freedom fighter, besides being a parish priest,” he said.
“An accidental planter was Henri Fauconnier, who landed in Klang, Selangor in 1905, on his way to Sandakan, Sabah. He obtained a job as a planter because he managed to start a recalcitrant French car.
“In 1917, he opened the first palm oil plantation in Malaya. He wrote the best French novel ever on Malaya, and was awarded the famous Goncourt Prize in 1930,” he said.
The book carries the tale of a young French woman as well who offers a unique perspective of life in a Malaysian prison after spending 10 years in it.
Jardin also highlighted that the founders of the Catholic Church of Malaysia were two French priests who arrived as political refugees while two French Jesuits spent seven months in jail, arrested in Malacca under Dutch rule.
A personal journey
Jardin’s tale is no less intriguing. Born in 1954 in a small village in France, he obtained his first degree in geography from the University of Orleans and his master’s degree from the University of Paris in 1977.
After two years as a teacher, he began travelling extensively around the world for the next five years and arrived in Malaysia in 1986.
“I arrived in Malaysia with a 10-month contract for Club Med, as a tour leader in 1986. It was a recession time and Malaysia chose among other sectors, to promote tourism. I became a tourist guide in 1986, started a travel agency in 1988, and the rest is history,” he recalled.
Jardin pointed out that some things never changed but others are unrecognisable.
“I arrived in January 1986 in Cherating, Pahang to one week of rain and flood in this land of eternal summer, with its evergreen landscape and the most charming people.
“Kuala Lumpur traffic was a breeze with a 30-minute drive from Ampang to Port Klang to eat seafood. It was still possible to count and know by name all and each of the few high-rise buildings then. I remember that cartoonist Lat was a regular at the Coliseum in town.
“Malacca river was welcoming sailing prahu (boats) and the old city centre was a real town with children playing in the streets, meat market and school, porridge and Hainanese satay, dentist and funeral parlour,” said Jardin who moved to the city in 2004.
He said that Malaysians know little about the French people in Malaysia and are curious to know more, especially about their contribution to many different sectors like agriculture (first palm oil plantation), architecture (KL Central Market), craft (Terengganu’s schooners), education (more than 100 Mission schools) and humanitarian causes (Ile de lumiere in Pulau Duyong).
“Also in the field of knowledge, like archaeology (Bujang Valley), cartography (Jean-Baptiste d’Apres de Mannevillette and Jacques-Nicolas Bellin), ethnology (magic dances and shadow theatre of Kelantan), geography (from Jules Dumont d’Urville to Nathalie Fau), geology (Father Henri Fontaine) and philology - Paris is the first place in Europe to teach the Malay language.
“I just came back from a week spent with the International French School students in Singapore to share ‘French Memories of Malaysia’, especially with the youngest ones (13-14 years old).
“They were excited to know about the adventurers. But more importantly, they were curious about the fortuitous encounters. Like most of the French people who arrived by chance in Malaysia, following their parents, the students did not choose to come and they were rather pleased with the outcome of their experience,” he added.
Literary pursuits
Jardin’s previous works include two in French - ‘Rêver Malacca’ (2010) and ‘Malaisie, un certain regard’ (2013).
“That was written with Sylvie Gradeler, the wife of a diplomat who wanted to write the book she did not find upon arrival. The companion book of a guidebook, Malaysia seen through architecture, art, craft, history, and literature.
He has also worked on ‘Malacca Style’ (2014) with photographer Tham Ze Hoe, ‘Langkawi Style’ (2015) written by Jerome Bouchaud and photographed by Howard Tan and ‘Diary of a French Missionary, Penang during the Japanese Occupation’ (2021).
“The last is the translation, introduction and annotation of the diary of Marcel Rouhan, superior of the College General in Penang and probably Malaysia’s greatest contribution to Asia’s networks of knowledge,” said Jardin.
Aside from his latest book, he plans to publish ‘Voyage to the Great Indies’ (1644-1651), Melaka: A New Dawn’, a translation of Jean Guidon de Chambelle’s diary, a young French nobleman who spent five years as a mercenary musketeer in Batavia (old Jakarta) and Malacca.
Somewhat ironically, Jardin said that he is now an armchair traveller.
“It’s a privilege of age, I can fully concentrate on my hobbies: reading and writing, especially about Malaysian history and Malacca,” he said, going on to lament that he never had a gift for languages.
“I am useless with language. Losing slowly but surely my French. Never being able to speak proper English, I must thank the proofreaders who took the trouble to transform my poor English into a readable one.
“I have never been able to master the languages spoken around me like Malay and Hokkien, or Mandarin and Tamil,” he added.
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22 January 2024 > 11 Rejab 1445H: 9.09 pm