By Ling Sing Lin
My sister and I visited Kuching and Sibu in Sarawak (East Malaysia) recently, primarily to connect with extended family members, and to eat food we enjoyed from childhood days.
Family History
Both my parents hail from Sarawak. As education opportunities stopped at the equivalent of Secondary 2 in their time, they had travelled to Singapore in their youth to complete their education. They met and married in Singapore and had a family, and decided to make Singapore their home.
That is how we have many relatives in Sarawak. Some have migrated to Singapore, Australia, US, etc, but many still live in Sarawak. From our youth, we were brought by plane and once by cargo ship (no cruise liners then) to Sarawak for our holidays. Notable trips were for grandpa and great grandmother’s birthday celebrations.
Extended Family
We have a large extended family in different towns in Sarawak. For this trip, we focused on Kuching (capital city), Sibu (a small town where my mother was born) and Bintangor (where my father grew up).
My grandfather was the eldest son in his generation, coming from a family of 4 sons and 3 daughters. My father was also the eldest in his generation. As a result, we have uncles even younger than us, and second cousins who are similar in age to our children. Nevertheless, we had lots of fun identifying uncles and aunts, cousins, and nephews and nieces, because of generational names.
Sibu town
This is a small town, where most people speak the Foochow dialect, even the indigenous people and Chinese of other dialect groups. At the Sibu museum, I learned that seven dialect groups left China for Sibu, with the largest group from Foochow, explaining how they gained dominance.
Sibu Central Market
This is the largest and most interesting market in Sarawak. There are hundreds of stalls, each occupying only the size of a small table, hawking home grown produce, dry goods, cooked food, rattan bags, etc. My most unforgettable sight was cockerels for sale docilely sitting with their legs tied up and wrapped in newspaper.
Helping Hands Penan
I recall seeing traditional handicraft like mats, baskets, conical hats, etc, made by tribal folks. For many years, I felt that these products did not seem to improve with the times. However, more recently, Sarawak relatives had gifted beautiful tote bags when they came to Singapore. So this was one of my must dos on this trip.
However, I learned to my disappointment that because of forest destruction, natural resources like rattan, bamboo and native hardwood are difficult to source these days. Today the aboriginal semi-nomadic tribe of the Borneo rainforest, the Penans, whose women are skillful weavers, mainly use PVC material to make beautiful, durable and practical products, which I believe are good enough for the international market. The proceeds from the sale goes to help the tribe in educational, social and economic needs and development. Needless to say, my sister and I could not resist buying several bags each. Oh, it was for charity.
Interesting Trip
I would summarise this as a great trip, well looked after by my Sarawak relatives, wined and dined, chauffeured from doorstep to doorstep, and because of the exchange rate beneficial to the Sing dollar, a very economical trip for us.
We are already talking of another sojourn soon, to a different part of Sarawak.
lingsinglin
Dr Ling Sing Lin is a medical doctor by training. She worked in MOH HQ for many years, in policy making and administrative positions, until her retirement.
