Jungle bashing into the pages of a book
HONG KONG, May 15 — Searching for author Tom Schmidt’s office in Sheung Wan is like taking in a mini comedy. Located on the seventh floor of Willy Commercial Building, it counts amongst its neighbours the Golden Wheel Massage Center, imitation-jewellery shops, cheap clothing stores and a curiously noisy office next door selling feathers.
Schmidt is the author of Bumbling in Borneo, a journal of sorts about a mysterious and unplanned backpacking journey in Sarawak published last year.
I made the trek to his office in March to discuss his next book, Bumbling through Sumatra, which came out this month.
Schmidt, an architect by trade, is a man of many talents and one of the hats he wears is that of a stand-up comedian.
The thing about funny people, though, is that they are fundamentally serious. I sense this about Schmidt, who — although warm, chatty and self-effacing — admits to being a perfectionist.
He was putting the finishing touches to Sumatra and pointed out an ink sketch of an indigenous male dancer that needed to be redone because one hand appeared too long. I wouldn’t have noticed this imbalance had he not pointed it out.
Perhaps it is because of this need to get things right that he is able to speak Bahasa Indonesia well enough to impress a local.
I asked him what phrases he considered useful for a traveller in Indonesia. He apologised first, saying he was a little rusty. His mind is tuned-in to Mandarin these days.
Schmidt though
“The numbers you gotta know,” he said, counting from one to 10 in the Mentawai (he provides a list in Sumatra) dialect, then rattling off the days of the week and “Satu lagi.” The last comes in handy for ordering more beer.
The above proved useful when Schmidt attempted to book a bus ticket. “It always amazes me that everything in Indonesia, including plane tickets, was negotiable. The whole haggling culture is alive and well.”
We were seated at a space-saving Ikea dining set in his office, poring over sketchbooks and a manuscript of Sumatra, which was at that time one week away from going to print.
He clucked five times throughout our 90-minute chat about the state his office was in. To my untrained, clutter-loving eye, his architecture practice was neat
It is from these books that the seeds for a travel book were sown. Schimdt’s first backpacking journey through Borneo was in 1991. He sketched what he saw in situ, making notes about his observations as he made his way from Johor Baru to Kuching, and then on to the Niah Caves.
In Borneo, which is semi-autobiographical, Schmidt and his fellow backpackers make the trip in 30 days. In reality, the book was conceived over four trips stretching from 1991 until 2009.
Similarly, Sumatra is what Schmidt describes as a “hodge-podge of experiences.”
He showed me three thin B4-sized booklets that he wrote in the early 1990s of three separate trips he made covering West Malaysia and Sumatra. These books were originally written as a travel
Sumatra picks up from Borneo where the protagonist, Tom, an out-of-job architect, is in search of a mysterious reward promised in a note.
In this second instalment of the Bumbling series, Tom receives a set of co-ordinates which leads him to Ipoh, Lumut, Penang, Medan, Bukit Lawang, Lake Toba, Bukit Tinggi, Padang and the Mentawai Islands.
Like the first book, Sumatra is interspersed with detailed sketches and textbook-ish boxes of factual tidbits.
While Schmidt was quick to point out that his books are not meant to act as travel guides owing to the fact that most of the travelling took place over a decade ago, he has tried to update information where possible.
The environmental theme is central to the story because of the deforestation he saw during his travels in Borneo.
“The issue (of deforestation) is very personal to me because I was there. I rode around on timber trucks but I did not think about large-scale deforestation at the time.
“I will never forget how we would be pushing through the dense rainforest and then come to a clearing as far as the eye can see. These were huge swathes of land with no trees, just dirt,” he said, shaking his head.
Schmidt earned his Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification last year, and in light of the books’ focus on the environment, it may seem at odds with his desire to publish more books. He looks apologetic but concedes that he utilises Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper sourced from sustainable forests.
I asked whether he had plans to turn the Bumbling series into a blog. He shook his head.
“There is something tangible and old world about a book. There is more authenticity than a blog that could feature digital photos that someone else took. I am trying to get back to the old days with black and white illustrations which add a timeless quality.”
In both books, Tom the character and his travel buddies do not once employ the Internet for research and Schmidt intends to keep it that way, preferring the old-fashioned way of communicating with locals and other travellers for information.
Borneo picked up a bronze medal in the Comic/Graphic Novel Category of the 2009 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards and came in second place in the Graphic Novel/Drawn (Humour) Category of the 2009 Independent Publishers Book Awards.
Today, Schmidt, who turns 44 in September, is a long way from the bearded, hippie-looking self-portrait inked in his sketchbooks. His close-cropped curly brown hair is dusted with grey and his 180cm frame is clothed in a pressed cream-coloured long-sleeved shirt, brown trousers and shined black leather shoes.
But beneath the exterior of this ambitious go-getter is a child whose fantasy has come true.
Schmidt admitted with a bit of wonder in his eyes, as if a realisation has dawned on him, that “Star Trek” had a heavy influence on him.
“‘Star Trek’ was about a group of people who would explore wild and alien planets — which is not so different from what I did”. He laughed at this thought. I wondered if the immigration officers and indigenous people he met in the interiors thought him wild and alien.
And if you look closely at page 8 in Sumatra, there is a tiny starship “Enterprise” in the far left corner circling planet Earth.
