Ah Meng and the genial Singapore zoo curator Sam

It seems that Michael Jackson gave a hug years ago to the celebrity orangutan Ah Meng at the Singapore zoo. I heard that when I talked to the curator Sam -- or Alagappasamy Chellalyah -- at the zoo today.

Michael Jackson spent 45 minutes at the zoo and when he gave Ah Meng a hug, the orangutan looked quizzical and glanced at the curator as if asking, "What should I think about this perfumed human being who hugs orangutans he does not know?" Jackson said, "This is my life," commenting about the experience with the apes.

Michael Jackson later got his own chimpanzee, of course. I told Sam that Michael Jackson would have been better off with a peaceful orangutan than a volatile chimpanzee and Sam flashed a knowing smile.

Sam is a fascinating guy. It's obvious from his genial manner why he gets along so well with both human beings and orangutans. Several times he reached out and touched me on the arm like he would an orangutan.

Sam was born in Singapore of parents from India and took the job years ago in this zoo against the wishes of his parents, who, like others, didn't think working in a zoo was a real job. But over the years Sam has made much of this chance job, and the orangutans have benefitted.

Sam told me that he and Ah Meng spent 37 years together at the zoo, until she died in 2008. Sam was the human being she knew the best and trusted the most.

Sam told me that even when he went away for a holiday for a few days the orangutan let him know when he came back that she felt hurt at being abandoned. That had already happpened to her several times when she was young and, for all their apparent aloofness, orangutans get attached to others.

Ah Meng did well, considering her difficult start to life. She raised five children of her own and looked after one that Sam persuaded her to adopt after its mother died. That is a testament to both Ah Meng and Sam. Sounds like a partnership of sorts. Ah Meng was choosy and over the years Sam was her only consistent human friend.

Sam and Ah Meng go back together to the time the zoo was created in 1971. Sam had just been hired as a fledgling keeper and Ah Meng had been confiscated from a family in a traditional village in Singapore who loved her and yet kept her in chains so that she wouldn't hastle the neighbours.

Field studies of orangutans were only getting started from 1968 to 1971, so Sam was dealing with orangutans at a time of little practical knowledge of them.

After all the years together and all the conversations that Ah Meng and Sam shared, Sam told me how he knew her moods and how they were able to understand each other and communicate. If something was making Ah Meng nervous, like the elephants at the zoo, she would come and sit beside Sam and put her arm on his shoulder. When an orangutan likes you, she likes you.