Pioneering Journalist R.B. Ooi

11 September 2024

R.B. Ooi, born Ooi Chor Hooi (1905–72), was one of the earliest local Malayan journalists writing in English and had worked for newspapers like the Straits Echo and the Malayan Times. During the Malayan Emergency (1948–60), he worked as a press officer to General Gerald Templer, the British High Commissioner for Malaya, who had been tasked to deal with the communist guerillas. His daughter, 96-year-old Irene Ooi, shares more about her father.