Distant Archipelagos: Memories of Malaya

by Peter Moss

He dropped money bags from low-flying biplanes on remote rubber plantations and tin mines, spent nights in deep jungle longhouses, aboard fishing kelongs manned by aboriginals far out at sea, in mosquito-infested swamps collecting malarial parasites and on beaches where giant leatherback turtles came to lay their eggs. He accompanied commonwealth troops hunting for terrorists on the Thai-Malaysian border, flew reconnaissance patrols seeking guerilla camps and escorted Field Marshal Templer on his return visit to the country he had liberated from communist insurrection.He met Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the architect of India's independence, interviewed actors Orson Welles and Sir Donald Wolfit, and was conversing with the French Ambassador when a ghost walked into the room. He worked with William Holden, Susannah York and Capucine on a film in which nearly everyone ended up miscast. He helped conceal an escaped prisoner in a hilarious fake jail-break, trailed the Sultan of Pahang on a regal progress through Malaysia's largest state and befriended one of President Soekarno's infamous red beret parachutists, sent on a sabotage mission during the height of Indonesian confrontation.Mostly he loved the land and its people, so much that he shunned the cocktail circuit and the city life for the simple pleasures of the kampong and the open road, learning the language and feeling his way towards what French author Henry Fauconnier had called "the Soul of Malaya". With Distant Archipelagos, Peter Moss follows up his account of an Anglo-Indian childhood, in Bye-Bye Blackbird, by painting a vivid portrait of another vanished world.

312 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2004

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Moss's autobiography is among the best of that category I have read. For anyone who is living or has lived in Southeast Asia and/or Malaysia, Distant Archipelagos is probably what you fantasized expat life would be like. Leaving school at age 15 and then working as an apprentice journalist in Britain until he was 22, Moss then worked his way to India and then on to Malaya, just as the country was gaining its formal independence from the British Empire. Moss continued to work in Malaysia for the Malaya Mail for eight years until moving on to Hong Kong where he worked again as a journalist for four decades. Malaya/Malaysia, however, was always where his real home would be.

I do not exaggerate when I write that I found something to fascinate or interest me on every single page. Moss is a wonderful stylist and a master of the essay format, which is why his chapters are subdivided into essay length sub-groupings. Often, this means he produces vignettes of life in Malaya among his newspaper colleagues, British administrators, and everyday Malayans. The closest thing I can think of to it is W. Somerset Maugham's short work, On a Chinese Screen. Moss's stories contain humor, adventure, history, and reflective thought. It's one of the byproducts of the work that it probably gives one of the best and concise overall pictures available of postwar Malaya's history and the Emergency on to independence. One of Moss's better attributes is that he pins down the dates of historical events precisely and affixes his own experiences directly to them. Even for those familiar with Malaysia and Southeast Asia, he does so in an informative and witty manner.

When Peter Moss died in February 2019, he took a library of memorable, living history with him. Fortunately, he gave us his three volume autobiography, of which Distant Archipelagos is the second installment. But his Youtube channel is also still available and provides some very interesting comments on his life, including one segment concerning his work on the William Holden, Susannah York, Capucine film about the Malayan Emergency, The 7th Dawn. I also note from some of the commentaries on his death that in retirement he spent six months of the year in Malaysia and six months in the Philippines (where he died). Apparently, he didn't have the funds to participate in Malaysia's Second Home program ($85,000 in a bank account and $2500 in foreign income per month). So, at age 83, when he died, he was still doing what amounted to visa runs. Perhaps he should have tried for a retirement extension in Thailand, where not so much is needed and he could have located himself in some place such as Hat Yai near the Thai-Malaysia border. At any rate, an amazing life full of adventure, discovery, and it seems much personal satisfaction.