Pokok Pokok & Apa Khabar
Pokok Pokok
A quarterly magazine written and produced by Malaysia PCVs from 1965 to 1983. The vignettes of everyday life, poems, reflective essays, reports on vacation travel, and photographs published in Pokok Pokok offer a window into what Peace Corps Volunteers were thinking and doing. The stories in Pokok Pokok are generally humorous, sometimes critical of the Peace Corps bureaucracy, and always interesting.
When the Peace Corps office in KL was closed in 1983, it seems that most local records were destroyed, including Pokok Pokok and we have not found a library that contains copies. Fortunately, PCVs Don Lovett (Malaysia 89) and Clayton Gill (Malaysia 90) published a selection collection of articles from past issues, appropriately titled "The Best of Pokok Pokok" (Kuala Lumpur, Peace Corps, 1981). You can read and download the entire volume by clicking HERE.
Thanks to RPCVs Dave Zane, Lars Neises, and Cary Kassebaum, we have scanned copies of some of the individual issues of Pokok Pokok. To access, just click on the specific issue:
Oct/Nov 1967, June/July 1968, October/November 1968, September 1975, February 1977, April 1977,
August 1977, November 1977, June 1978, October 1978, February 1979, June 1979, October 1979,
Apa Khabar
A quarterly newsletter published by Friends of Malaysia containing stories about Peace Corps in Malaysia, current Friends of Malaysia projects and programs, and remembrances of the lives of Malaysia RPCVs that have been lost. The following issues are available through clickable links.
(FoM Newsletter)
Winter 2024 (most recent issue)
Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Summer 2023, Fall 2023
Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Summer 2022, Fall 2022
Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Summer 2021, Fall 2021
Winter 2020, Spring 2020, Summer 2020, Fall 2020
Winter 2019, Spring 2019, Summer 2019, Fall 2019
Winter 2018, Spring 2018, Summer 2018, Fall 2018
Winter 2017, Spring 2017, Summer 2017, Fall 2017
Summer 2016 Spring 2016 , Spring 2015
Fall 2014 Summer 2014, Fall 2013 Summer 2013
Spring 2013, Summer 2012, Fall 2011, Winter 2007
Winter 2004 11(3) Fall 2001 8(3), pp. 1-6, Winter 2001
Winter 1998 5(3), pp. 1-6, June 1997 pp. 3-16,
Friends of Malaysia Newsletter 8, August 1991
Friends of Malaysia Newsletter 7, July 1991
There are many gaps in our collection of earlier issues of Pokok Pokok and Apa Khabar. If you have copies of these missing issues, please scan or mail the paper copies to Friends of Malaysia. Contact charleshirschman@friendsofmalaysia.net for details.