Engkilo : Bicycle as beast of burden

I have a neighbour who lived in Engkilo before she got married.

She experienced the 24 hour curfew for 72 days at the height of the Communist insurgency in Sarawak.

She was only 16 years old at that time. Her family had only a bicycle which was their beast of burden. She had already stopped going to school and so did her brother.

They used the bicycle to bring their rubber sheets, vegetables and chickens and eggs for sale to the jetty. After her grandfather sold whatever they had, he would bring back chicken feed.

The road to Engkilo from the jetty was very rough, full of big and small stones. So it was not possible for her grandfather to ride the bike and carry the goods. Besides, he and the grandchildren would normally just push the bicycle with all the goods tied to it.

My neigbhour, Sing Dieh has no photo of herself, so I got this photo from Google to show how a bicycle is used as a beast of burden

One day she and her younger brother were tasked to bring the chicken feed home from the jetty because her grandfather was not feeling well.

On the way they met soldiers who started to pull and check their goods. They even tried to take the bicycle. Her younger brother was brave and told her to walk faster ahead while he pushed the bicycle with the soldiers laughing and teasing him.

As she started running towards the village faster and faster, the soldiers stopped harrassing her brother and let him go. From that day onwards she had a great fear for anyone wearing uniform or speaking in Malay. She was so traumatised.

One day, their whole village was rounded up and they had to surrender their IC. She had just recently made her blue IC and she was pertrified because in those days without an IC no one could not go any where.

The soldiers had wanted to find out who had helped three Communists who were spotted near their village.

But none of them knew about the communists.

The whole group of villagers stood in the sun for about 3 hours. Finally, a top gun came along and told one of the soldiers to let the villagers go because they, the soldiers, had to win "their hearts and mind". Later on some police personnel came to distribute some goodies to the villagers but they were still afraid.

But according to my neighbour, who is now in her 60's those three "communists" (actually not from Engkilo) are now very rich people.