Malay Mail visited the address, a home in an established upper-middle class suburban neighbourhood in the state capital, near a Chinese private school and about 10 minutes drive to the city centre. The Taman Sinar Baru semi-detached unit appeared to be a family home, with several vehicles parked in front, but no doorbell. No one came out when Malay Mail attempted to contact the occupants today. However, during a previous visit by another publication, an elderly woman had emerged and provided Yong's number when the reporters said they had been unable to contact him. The publication shared this information with Malay Mail. When Malay Mail contacted the number, the person identifying himself as Yong sounded surprised that he was being contacted about the matter. Sounding as though he was chewing or eating when he answered, Yong asked how Malay Mail was able to obtain his number. After this was explained, he told Malay Mail that his company name as included in the letter was inaccurate and that it should not have carried his personal address as the firm operated in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.
© Provided by Malay Mail A general view of the residence purportedly belonging to one Yong Chee Kong in Kota Kinabalu May 20, 2021. — Picture by Julia Chan KOTA KINABALU, May 20 — A man claiming to be the Sabah businessman offering to donate two million Sinovac vaccine doses to Penang insisted his offer was genuine and not "bogus" as described by Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaludin yesterday. Identifying himself as Yong Chee Kong from Hong Kong-based investment company Xintai Enterprise Development Limited, he told Malay Mail when contacted that there was no link to the firm as he was acting in his personal capacity to donate the vaccines and never wanted the exposure. "This is now a political issue. It's not fair to me. We only wanted to donate the vaccines, not give cash, " said Yong. He also asserted that the offer was not initially meant for Penang but Sabah. According to the address that was included in the letter offering the vaccines to Penang, Yong is a resident of the state.
"I had reached out to the Sabah government via the chief minister but when they didn't respond, Penang approached me and said since Sabah has rejected the offer, why not offer it to the Opposition? " he said during a phone interview with Malay Mail. Yong also explained that the letter bearing his signature was written by the Penang DAP to be presented as a formal offer and that it unfortunately carried his private address and not that of a company. "I didn't write the letter, this is something my boss in HK wanted, it shouldn't be my address, " he said. Following the Penang government's allegation that Putrajaya was blocking this "donation", Khairy revealed yesterday that due diligence the government performed found no evidence that the donor had contacted either Sinovac in China or its local distributor here. Khairy further alleged that there was no record of Yong or the company following checks in Hong Kong, after which the minister described the purported offer to be "bogus". During the dispute between Putrajaya and Penang, the purported offer letter was also leaked online, which included Yong's address here.
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He said there were orders from other states and even from Singapore and he would send it over using Poslaju. However, this year orders have been few and far between with only one or two orders over a stretch of a few months. Kok is known to be the last traditional signboard maker in Penang who still hand carves Chinese and English words onto wooden boards for company and shop signboards. It is a tedious process that can take between two weeks to a month for one signboard and due to Kok's age, it might take even longer. Loh, who helps Kok paint and apply gold leaf on the carved words, said it is also time for Kok to ease into retirement. "The materials are now more expensive, even the gold leaf price has increased so costs are high and some customers are not willing to pay for hand carved signboards nowadays, " she said. As for continuity of the trade, Loh said their daughter learnt some of the skills from Kok and sometimes would come over to help him. "She has the wood-carving skills, so this skill will not die out, " she said.
"We only use half of the shophouse, not even the whole shophouse and the business has been there for over 80 years, " she said. Kok's father, Kok Ying Chow, came from Guangdong, China when he was 14 years old and set up the Kok Ying Chow Signboard Maker shop sometime in the early 1930s. Kok with some of the signboards he carved. "My father apprenticed with a master in China before he came over to start his own shop here, " Kok said. Kok learned the trade from his father at the age of 12 and has been in the trade since then. "I took over the business fully in the 1950s and have been doing this all my life, " he said, when met at his home. The signboards can cost anything from a few hundred ringgit to thousands of ringgit, depending on the size. Prior to the pandemic, Kok would receive between 10 to 14 orders per month but after the MCO, it went down to one to two per month. Kok relocated his equipment and materials back to his home in Batu Lanchang after closing the shop. "I am semi-retired now, I will still take orders as we still have regular customers who would call and place orders, " he said.
© Provided by Malay Mail At 83, Kok Ah Wah can still carve a traditional signboard. — Pix by Steven Ooi KE GEORGE TOWN, May 9 — Penang's last traditional signboard maker Kok Ah Wah may soon be calling it quits as business dwindled to almost zero since the first movement control order (MCO) in 2020. And as if that was not bad enough, Kok had to move out of the shop space where he (and his father before him) had been working from for over 80 years. The 83-year-old moved last August after the landlord refused to give him a discount and had even threatened to raise the rent, despite knowing his business was suffering due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Kok learned the trade from his father at the age of 12. "After the MCO in March, business dropped tremendously and we were not doing very well so we asked the landlord to give us some discount but instead, they told us that they were planning to increase the rent and that we should be glad that they didn't, " Kok's wife, Loh Eng Mooi, said. She said they were paying RM1, 000 for only the front portion of a shophouse on Queen Street in George Town.
Kok does not have his own website or Facebook page as he prefers to be contacted by phone. Ironically, Kok's business was one of the local shops in George Town that won gold status under the cultural continuity recognition category of the George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) Heritage Recognition and Awards 2020. The gold status is for traditional shops and traders that have been in operation for between 50 and 99 years. Kok Ying Chow Signboard Maker (formerly at 41, Queen Street, George Town) Tel: 04-2813661/016-4731241 Related Articles Only non-Muslim houses of worship exempted from jawi signage rule, says Pahang exco 'AK-47' eatery fined for improper signboard Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article. Make MSN my home page Click Save File in the pop-up window. Click the arrow button in the top upper corner of your browser. Click to run the downloaded file. If prompted, click Run. By clicking to run this downloaded file you agree to the Microsoft Service Agreement and Privacy Statement.