haahashtory

in celebration of HAA 30th Anniversary Run on 24th June 2006

Written by Lim Tian Han
Date:08 -03-2006

A brief hashtory of the HAA Malacca Sunday Hash

HAA Malacca Sunday Hash seems to be rather a unique chapter among the hash chapters in Malaysia. It is the only hash club in Peninsular Malaysia where the hash activities are carried out under the name and permit of an association. In retrospect, its activities could be categorized into four different periods with four different names. The initial period was the HAA, then the Camel Leong HAA, the third period the HAA Sunday Hash and now it is known as the HAA Malacca Sunday Hash.

The local hashers understand what HAA means, but to the outstation hashers they may be doubtful. HAA actually means Heng Ann Association. Here is a brief story of Heng Ann Association and the Malacca Sunday Hash.

HAA

Early Chinese immigrants came from various parts of China and spoke different dialects. Heng Ann is one of these clan associations in Malaysia. They were from the Fujian province in China. Most of these people in the early days were in the fishing industry but their descendants now embark on the trading of new and second-hand vehicles, tyres and batteries as well as providing services to the related field.

Interest in hashing began in the early 70’s in Malacca. Young marathoners who joined hash runs in other states found that there was a need to start their own club in their own town. Malacca Hash House Harriers (MH3) was the first hash house to be registered in Malacca in May 13th 1975. As their founders and members were mostly from the English-speaking group, some of the Chinese-speaking groups found that there was a language barrier to join them.

After some discussion, Mr. T T Tan and a few members from the youth session in Heng Ann Association strongly supported the idea to organize a hash run every Sunday under the auspices of Heng Ann Association. Thus they set their first run on January 25th 1976. The run started from their association premises to Bukit China Hill. The paper rounded the whole Bukit Cina foothill and ended at the top of the hill before making their way down to their association premises in Jalan Laksamana Cheng Ho. The second and third run sites were at Kg. Pengkalan Batu or somewhere near Taman Sentosa. As interest grew, they went as far as Genting Highland to set their fourth run.

Camel HAA

When they were at Genting Highlands, Uncle Lim Goh Tong might have upset them. Subsequently they were not willing to continue their weekly run. But Mr. Leong Teck Chong along with some other young runners volunteered to lead and be responsible for future runs. Mr. Leong was a salesman of Camel brand of cigarettes and each Sunday he would drive his Camel cigarette van to the run site and thus was given the hash name of Camel Leong. Months later, the run attracted many new members including professionals. At one time, its membership stood at 130.

Camel HAA celebrated its 151st run on 10th of December 1978 and more than 1000 hashers from the whole of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand participated in the run. The run site was at the Long Chan Estate, Sungai Petai, Alor Gajah. Camel HAA was also proud to be the first hash club in Malacca to launch the blood donation campaign in 1978.

One setback of the club was that it was not allowed to join the Malaysia Hash Council in the late seventies because Camel HAA was not a registered hash body. So members were not invited to participate in national runs. After some failures to get into the hash council, Camel Leong, registered a new hash club to run on Friday in order to participate in the national runs. Of course their members were mostly from Camel HAA. This was the birth of Kota Melaka Hash House Harriers in 1979.

HAA SUNDAY HASH

When posters were hung and T-shirts distributed bearing the name of Camel HAA, some elderly members from the association were not happy with the name as they argued that they were not a camel club. So in the early eighties Camel HAA decided to change its name to HAA SUNDAY HASH. In the early 1990’s, the Malaysian Hash council went all out to rally the support of all Malaysian hash chapters to vote Malaysia as the country to host the 1998 Interhash in Cyprus and consequently HAA Sunday Hash was accepted as a member. Thereafter Malaysian Hash Council succeeded in hosting the 1998 Interhash coinciding with the Diamond Jubilee Celebration in Kuala Lumpur.

HAA MALACCA SUNDAY HASH

In order to reflect its activities on Sunday and the state of Malacca, the new committee of 1997 decided to change its name to the present name. With this change, outstation hashers were better informed of the club. At present we have 120 members. We are one of the two mixed chapters in Malacca. Members comprise mostly small businessmen irrespective of races as these people find Sunday more convenient to run. Since Sunday is a free day, hares and co hares have ample time to set a good run and that is why we have the most members among the hash clubs in Malacca. Besides the regular weekly runs, over the years we have carried out several charity runs and several blood donation campaigns. Indeed we were proud to raise RM6, 000.00 at a single Sunday gathering on 27th of July 2003 for the Handicapped & Mentally Retarded Children Centre Bukit Baru, Melaka. Thirty years is not a short period, but we are proud to have four members who have 30 years of unbroken run to their record, they are Mr. Ng Ten Poh, Mr. Peter Looi, Mr. Goh Boon Kok and Mr. Loo Eng Kiong.