Sibu Tales : Peter Goulart

Peter Goulart arrived in Bukit Lan, and various parts of Sibu, Sarikei and Kanowit to help set up cooperatives in the 50's. The result of which is the book, "The River of White Lily", or Ba Hua Oh. 

He was Russian but he loved to travel in China where he worked as a tanner in South Western China,in li jiang, along the Tea Horse Trails area. He was a compassionate man who also taught the tribes there how to do small business, including tailoring and shoe making, leather making etc.

When the political changes which caused China to have a change of government in 1949 he went to live in Singapore and was soon employed by the British Colonial Government to help Sarawak develop cooperative societies. His skill in spoken Mandarin and a few other Chinese dialects like Cantonese was one of the reasons why he was chosen to be a consultant.

Soon he became familiar with places like Sarikei and Sibu, where he frequented the Three Friends Coffee shop or San Yew Kopitiam of Sibu.

He helped start many cooperative society in Sarawak, including the one in Nang Chong and another one in 24 Acres. He was a welcomed visitor in Tulai too where people remember him as a man who spoke beautiful Chinese. They called him Bee Teck. The Tulai Cooperative Store (in fact a shop house) is still standing but not in use.

He captured his memoirs of his life in Sarawak in his well known book entitled " The River  of the White Lily: Life in Sarawak". He wrote about his visits to Bukit Lan which he called Hills of the Cassia Orchid (p.87).

(Note: The Ibans however would say that "Lan" was their word for leprosy and perhaps there were some lepers who lived on Bukit Lan? But again there was no official record about this....")