Yi Chang and Mena in PerthWhen I visited Perth, I met up with many Ibans who live there through my good friend May Dan (from Miri).
One beautiful friend is Menai (or Mena) Westley. She was from Aup and what a coincidence.
This is her story. She was just 14 when she started working for a Foochow family which provided jobs to young girls and boys interested in drying mud bricks in the yard after stamping the company's logo on the bricks.
In 1964 she married Ted Westley who was with the Technical Division at the Sibu Airport, and they moved to Hong Kong, England and finally Perth, WA.
50 years later this lady met a grand daughter of the Foochow family in Perth.
Amazing coincidence?
Amazing coincidence?
From her I learned so much about my grandfather's kindness, my father and uncles' management and how a Foochow enterprise helped the local community look outward and aspire to send their children for better education.
She remembers the electricity that my grandfather brought to the factory and how nice it was. Later when her family could afford it, they bought their own generators.
My grandfather also saw to it that electricity was supplied to the Aup jetty (Sg. Igan) to enable boats to load bricks at night if the boatmen ran out of time.
It was also a good thing that my grandfather used electricity to help pump water to the factory and the workers' quarters for their utilities. Besides, my grandfather also ordered zinc tanks to be filled up with rain water.
The brickyard was a kind of catalyst for economic and social development. CSR is very important. Praise God.
No comments:
Post a Comment