My early years, the way I remember it...6

Sustenance 3

Tok's house was located right by the river bank but not real close as to be flooded over.  Our house was further inland.  Tok's pengkalan was on the deeper part of the river meander, what we termed as lubok.  It was real deep by any standard that there was a specially constructed jetty for the ladies to collect water, wash clothes and for the family to take their bath.  The more adventurous adults do dive into the lubok for their dip but children were strictly prohibited from doing so.  I used to join Tok's children on the jetty though it was no secret that there were frequent crocodile sightings in the vicinity.  We would use buckets made from nibong (Oncosperma sp.) sheaths as a dipper for our bath.  Tok Ya'kok used to weave these buckets for our use. 

The lubok was home to a lot of fish.  I cannot remember them all but I do remember lampan and tenggalan most.  Fried, cooked asam pedas style or grilled, they were real finger-licking good.  The could have been patin too but as Wan was (still is) no fan of fish without scales this fish seldom fared in our dish.  What I remember most about the fish from the river was the annual harvest that the community organized.  We had it tuba!  It was sort of illegal but looking back (not that I am trying to justify the community's conduct), it was done in the most sustainable way possible.  The preparation used was entirely organic, using crushed tuba plant (Derris sp.).  Through experience the community knew when best to tuba the fish while causing the 'least' damage to the fish population.  The tuba was initiated at Tok's pengkalan where the river was deepest thus the tuba was quick to be diluted.  There was strict self regulation and the tuba was done only once a year to allow the fish population to recover.

During the tuba 'party', male adults of the community would be in the deeper water to catch those big groggy fish.  Most were armed with fishing nets and scoops.  We kids and mothers would be in the shallow waters downstream to catch the smaller fish.  Armed with whatever gear at hand we were having fun scooping what ever fish that came by us.  We kids get to keep what we catch and it was plentiful for everybody.  One particular gear that came to mind was the three pronged spears that we made out of fig branches.  Fig trees were known to branch out in threes, thus sharpened they turned out to be useful indeed.

One thing I like most about this fish harvest was the sharing spirit in the community.  While the smaller fish were earners-keepers, the bigger and prized fishes were equally shared among those involved.  The way the elders went about it was most noble.  The fish caught were all laid out on a pandan mat (plastics were non-existence then!) and the most honoured among the group was asked to apportion the harvest equally and fairly among the family present.  A family was only allowed a share.  The fish were sorted out by type and size and were then divided out starting with the largest going down the pile.  The flow will be reversed in the next divide.  In this way every family will get on the average a fair share.  Then the head of each family was invited to make his pick.  Most gallant of all was that the man who made the division was the last to collect his share!  How more noble can one get.  Never was the case that everybody who got the share kept all to themselves.  At each own initiative the harvest went to others in the community who were unable to make it to the tuba party.

The smaller fish that the children and womenfolk caught goes to pekasam making.  I remember Wan constructing a shaded structure of sort to keep away the scorching sun for Ma to clean the fish by the river while we children continue frolicking in the waters.  No purchase was made for the structure materials.  The forest provided for all.

My early years, the way I remember it...5

Sustenance 2

The forest and rivers (Sungai Golok river and its many tributaries) were supplying us food in abundance.  During the dry season of the year, a particular stretch of the river provided us ample etok (Corbiculacea) supply.  This is a bi-valve mollusk best eaten smoked after marinating with salt mixed with garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, turmeric and lemon grass.  I remember us going to the river and 'harvesting' the etok just using our bare hands.  There were just so many of them that we were just scooping them into gunny bags.  Ma would wash and marinate them ready for the smoke the next day.  She will have them evenly spread out in a big rattan/bamboo badang (normally used to winnow rice grains) over glowing ember.  She prepared the fire by a big timber stump where one edge on the badang would rest.  The opposing edge was propped by a platform that father (he is known as Wan to us kids) constructed earlier.  The days that we were smoking etok, Wan would just be working the farm closest to the house.  He never fail to join us to feast on the etok when it was ready.  Wan would pry open the bivalve using a small knife or the shell of an already opened etok.  I would sit beside him to get my share.  Later I would use my front teeth to get to the flesh.  Star etok eaters would just popped a few etok in the mouth and spit out the empty shells!  We did at times have the neighbours over or us going to the neighbours to share the smoked etok.

Incidentally on the opposite side of the timber stump where Ma smoked the etok was a kelulut (Trigona sp, a type of stingless bee) hive.  The stump was really massive and I doubt that the bees were at all disturbed.  They do not sting but can ran havoc to the hair when they get them all tangled up with their wax!  The do supply honey but the hive that we had was way too small to offer us any.  Close to my retirement, there was a paper presented by an entomologist claiming the merits of this stingless bee as a pollinator and their honey as having special medicinal qualities.  Those in the audience were agape with the terminology, 'stingless bee'.  Memories of the past was overwhelming and I just asked aloud, "Are you talking about kelulut?".  "Yes, I am," was the answer.  Duh, 'stingless bee'. Just call it by the name that it is being known as and stop confusing us!  These kelulut do have another function though.  As they do not sting their hives served as good PR gimmick for visiting school children and dignitaries.  Using drinking straws, kelulut honey may be drawn straight from the hives and visitors invited to do so can get really excited.

Water flow was much slower in the tributaries and near to stagnant in the many ox-bow lakes.  By the shallows in these environments were siput sedut (Cerithidea obtusa) for the picking.  They were easily collected clinging to submerged fallen tree branches.  Cooked masak lemak cili api style with tapioca shoots thrown in, we had both protein and vegetable to go with the rice.

The river did offer us fish aplenty.  This deserves a write-up by itself.

My early years, the way I remember it...4

Sustenance 1

It was not that we were fully dependent on food supplies from town while at the settlement.  We were well endowed by the Malaysian (Malayan then) tropical rainforest.  Furthermore, Ma had this wonderful greenfinger about her.  As King Midas would turned all things to gold, anything she put to the soil would bear to the fullest.  As father prepared his rubber plantings in stages, we had areas that can be planted with cash crops.  Apart from the home need veges, Ma planted several kinds of beans, root crops, watermelon, pumpkin, corn and several others.  Father, together with other menfolks planted hill rice.  The planting and harvesting of the hill rice was done gotong-royong style on a community basis and thus we children were not spared the labour (best translated as fun time).  I can never describe the joy of hill rice harvesting under the moonlight! It was not just the sight of toil but the laughter and the togetherness that went with it that is beyond description that one has to experience to feel it all.  The bonfire and the smoke were way more enjoyable than the synthetic fireworks of today.  

Pucuk paku and paku kemiding (both are fern) were aplenty, free and for the picking.  We had maman (Cleome gynandra) too that we found growing wild and later cultivated.  Ma's fermented (jeruk) maman was just scrumptious especially taken with steaming hot rice and fried fish.  Of course there were long beans, kacang catok, kacang bebulu (later I recognise this to be soybean!), cili padi, lada solok, red chili and brinjal that Ma planted.  Petai (Parkia speciosa), jering (Archidendron pauciflorum) and kerdas (A. bubalium) were aplenty too growing wild in the forest.  Not to mention keladi kemoyang (Homalomena sagittifolia) growing under productive rubber trees.  The expense needed was the energy to harvest.

Ma planted several cultivars of tuberous root crops too.  I don't really know how she managed to come up with such a massive collection of cultivars.  I remember two of my favourite, ubi torok and ubi badak (Dioscorea alata).  Boiled, we normally had them for breakfast.  Ubi gadung can be found growing wild.  But this root crop needed a bit of preparation for safe consumption.  I remember Tok Semail used to have them in gunny sacks hung from trees by the river in the fast flowing water.  After over a week of soaking, the tubers were steamed to be eaten with grated coconut.  No word can describe the taste but one just have to eat it for the taste experience.  We had tapioca too.  However, it was not to be intercropped with the rubber plants.  Tapioca was known to be a notorious nutrient 'sucker' that may soon deplete the soil of fertility.

I remember Ma's watermelon patch well.  It was located at the confluence of a stream that met the Sungai Golok river.  We called the place Tanjung (reminded me of the place years later when told that Georgetown, Penang was first known as Tanjung before the British takeover).  I remember chasing after and killing the api-api insect that would eat through the melon's leaves if uncontrolled.  We were told to save the ladybugs for they were the friendly insect.  How's that for an ecology lesson on the run (literarily).  Incidentally all these crops that Ma planted were organically grown.  No pesticides were used and all fertilizers were organically based.  That was way before SOM (Standard Organic Malaysia) was introduced! 

I'll have words on our protein source next. 

My early years, the way I remember it...3

Life may not be a bed of roses, toiling the earth in deep jungle.  As for me, I am not the one to complain.  I have Ma all to myself and as for friends, there were children of other settlers that we met occasionally especially when adults had to meet over work or social matters.

I remember a real nice neighbour whom we addressed as Tok though they were only of my father's age then.  Two of the children were slightly older than me and the youngest younger (than me).  The father was Tok Semail, the wife Tok Sepiah and the grandpa Tok Yak'kok.   According to my elder brother, Tok Sepiah is still around.  The eldest boy was Abe Lah to me while the sisters were Yoh and Yah.  Time that I look them up the next time I balik kampung.  Seemed that Abe Lah (now known as Pok Lah in the neighbourhood) is a successful farm entrepreneur.

Though a neighbour, the family's house was more than a calling distance away.  Ma would be busy with housework or helping father in the farm.  It was not always that she be available to accompany me to meet my friends at the neighbour's.  So visiting my friends would mean having to make the journey all by myself.  When frightened you tend to 'see' things and living in this jungle settlement was no exception.  It was not that I imagined things, but when a millipede can be a foot long and an inch across that can be very frightening to a small child.  In need of companionship your ingenuity got the better of you.  I closed my eyes and ran all the way (to the neighbour's)!!!  The path must be well trodden that I did not knock into trees or get entangled in the bushes.

My early years, the way I remember it...2

I was not exactly of schooling age when I was moved to stay with my stepmom.  She was a wonderful lady who had aspired to be a school teacher after completing her year six education.  In a world where girls were seldom schooled, what more completing the primary education, a year six school certificate was a good enough pre-requisite for her to continue to be trained as a school teacher.  But fate was not on her side as she was forced into marriage soon after completing her year six education.  She had a son from her first husband that ended in a divorce.  Circumstance had it that the son was cared for by her grandmother when she married my father.  My father was then a planter venturing into deep pre-logged jungle to farm rubber trees.  That was not a place for a new born.  However, I was of age to join my father and Ma.  My life long lesson as a biologist, ecologist and agriculturist begins here.

I remember then that the settlement was quite a distance from Rantau Panjang town and was only accessible with a 4-wheel drive, the hardy Land Rover, during the dry season.  A few were used as 'taxies' ferrying passengers into the new landholdings.  Normally these were laden with passengers and their provisions for their extended stay in the settlement.  It used to take us about 4 - 5 hrs to reach our destination using this mode of transport.

During the wet monsoon season, we used the passenger boats.  These boats plied the settlements along the Sungai Golok river.  I remember the frothy swollen river and the ride upstream, against the current.  We boarded the boat at about noon at the Rantau Panjang jetty and with the frequent stops along the way for passengers to disembark at their respective destinations, we would only reached ours at about 9 pm.  Then there was another 30 minutes - 1 hr walk to our house.  Imagine a small sleepy child walking in the dark with the parents at that hour in deep jungle!  I can't hope for a ride on my father's shoulder or Ma to carry me.  They we both laden with our needs for the few weeks stay until our next trip to town.

Things have indeed change.  I don't know about the boats, whether they are still in use or not.  But one thing for sure, with the road that we now have, a car ride to the holding now takes us less than 25 minutes!  The decision to acquire the land to farm was indeed a brilliant foresight on my father.