NST 11 September 2006

Ngah Ibrahim's kin wants to thank Mr Wee

Now that his great grandfather's exile is finally over and he rests at home, there is one more thing Datuk Wan Mohd Isa Wan Ahmad wants to do.

The 8th generation descendant of Larut chieftain Ngah Ibrahim Long Jaafar wants to thank the man he considers most instrumental in finding Ngah Ibrahim's grave in Singapore.

I want to travel to Bangkok, Thailand and meet Mr Wee Choon Siang and thank him in person for the great service he has done for my family, for Perak & for our country said the 61 year old Orang Besar Jajahan for Larut, Matang & Selama.

Mr Wee's thesis which he wrote as a 26 year old undergraduate of University Malaya Singapore 1952, gave Datuk Wan Mohd Isa Wan Ahmad the clues he needed to find Ngah Ibrahims grave. Entitled Ngah Ibrahim in Larut 1858-1874, Mr Wee's thesis mentioned that Ngah Ibrahim died in Singapore and was buried at the Makam Al-Junied. Mr Wee now 80 year old lives with his family in Bangkok, Thailand.

The truth is that if Mr Wee had not written his thesis, I would never have found my ancestor, thats why I want to go to bangkok and thank him in person, he said. If not for Mr Wee's pictorial evidence of Ngah Ibrahim's grave in Singapore, Datuk Wan Mohd Isa Wan Ahmad said there would have been lingering doubts whether there was indeed a marked grave of his ancestor in Singapore. Mr Wee's pictures of the grave and the headstone bearing my ancestors name proved once and for all that Ngah Ibrahim died in exile in Singapore and that there was a proper grave built for him, so it was a matter of locating the grave with the same description at the Makam Al-Junied.

Finally at rest, Ngah Ibrahim was buried in Taiping Perak on 9th September 2006 (Saturday)