Sunday, August 19, 2012

Heah Joo Seang, death 14 May 1962, London

Mr. Heah not officially dead until he enters his home. TRADITIONAL WELCOME HOME --- NO TEARS OR SOBBING -- WHEN BODY LANDS AT PENANG AIRRPORT. PENANG, Fri. -- The Penang M.C.A. President, Mr. Heah Joo Seang, who died in a London hospital last Monday, will receive a traditional welcome home when his body lands at Bayan Lepas airport by chartered plane tomorrow night. The joint funeral committee, at a meeting in the Rubber Trade Association last night, considered the wishes expressed by Mr. Heah's family and decided that: OLD CUSTOM. (1) Mr. Heah should be welcomed at the airport in traditional Chinese custom as if he were still alive. (2) There will, therefore, be no mourning at th airport. Friends, relatives and representatives of public organisations will not wear black. (3) The coffin will be received by members of the Heah family. (4) Relatives will be asked not to cry, weep or sob at the airport. From the airport where the plane carrying the body is due to land at 8 p.m. the coffin will be driven to the Heah mansion, Goodwood, in MacAlister Road. Only when it has arrived there will a member of the family announce Mr. Heah's death. A scroll in sackcloth will then be hung to indicate a house in mourning. LIE IN STATE. Members of the Penang  tao and MCA youth sections will line th airport tarmac on the arrival of the hearse. The body will lie in state at Goodwood until the funeral, expected to be held late next week. Meanwhile, Penang MCA youths and ward members will keep daily vigil, rtogether with members of other organisations, at the Heah residence. According to Chinese custom, the body of a person who dies outside of his home cannot be taken into the house. That is why Mr. Heah will not be proclaimed dead until after his body has been brought into the house. [The Straits Times, 19 May 1962, Page 9]

50,000 pay respects. HEAH BURIED INPENANG AFTER FIVE-HOUR FUNERAL. PENANG, Sunday. Crowds swelling to well over 50,000 lined an eight-mile route today for the funeral of the late Mr. Heah Joo Seang, millionaire rubber magnate and Penang MCA President, whose body was flown home last week from London where he died on May 14. The two-mile procession in which 15 associations and 12 schools took part, was the longest seen in Penang for many years. 5,000 people. Three Cabinet Ministers together with the Governor of Penang, Raja Tun Uda Al-Haj, and the Chief Minister, Inche Aziz Ibrahim, were among the 5,000 people who followed the hearse on its last journey. Early arrivals were Tun Leong Yew Koh, Minister of Justice, Mr. Tan Siew Sin, Minister of Finance and National President of the MCA, Dato Ong Yoke Lin, Minister of Health and Social Welfare, and Mr. Cheah Theam Swee, assistant Minister of Commerce and Industry. The Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, the Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and the Governor, Raja Tun Uda Al-Haj, were among those who sent wreaths. Crowds started to gather from an early hour. Before the procession lined up, the coffin was taken out of the Heah mansion, Goodwood, in Macalister Road, and laid on the lawn where representatives of various schools and organisations paid their last respects to the late Mr. Heah. Mr. Yeo Hui Tung, a leader of the Teochew community, then read out an eulogy. Although timed to start at 11.30 a.m., the procession could not get moving until 12.15 p.m. Led by Senator Cheah Seng Khim and other members of the funeral committee, it proceeded along Macalister Road to the Church of Seven Sorrows where the first stage of the procession broke up. 'Last look.' It re-assembled later in front of the Teochew Association at Chulia Street and made its way to Beach Street to give the late Mr. Heah a "last look" at his office, Hock Lye Co., Ltd. The hearse, followed by 200 cars, then proceeded to Mount Erskine Cemetery where the burial took place at 5. p.m. after full Buddhist rites. Three school bands---St. Xavier's corps of drums and the Han Chiang and Jit Sin High School bands--marched with the procession. Among the 15 political parties, local guilds and associations which took part were UMNO and MCA youths, MCA women, UMNO and MIC members, the Teochew Hoay Kuan, the Kwangtung and Tengchow Associations, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Penang Rubber Trade Association. Flags of various clubs and associations with which the late Mr. Heah was actively connected flew their flags at half-mast today. * STRAITS TIMES picture shows members of the Heah family with Mr. Heah Hock Khoon (the eldest son, holding the Chinese lantern) in front, kneeling before the late Mr. Heah's coffin. [The Straits Times, 28 May 1962, Page 18]

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