Wooden Motor Launches of Sarawak

Reverend James Hoover was the man who brought the first engine to Sibu and started to encourage the local Foochows to use motor launches.  At the beginning of the Foochow settlement in 1901 in Sibu every one walked on land and to travel across a river, everyone could paddle a boat.

By 1922 my paternal grandfather with Rev Yao Shiao King and Ling Ming Lok initiated the development of Bintangor under the guidance of Rev James Hoover. It was a very successful settlement and my grandfather built three motor launches to service the Sibu- Bintangor route and the rubber sales and marketing.

At about the same time, my own maternal grandfather started to exploit the west bank of the Rajang, he would paddle a small boat from Ensurai (where they originally lived) every morning to slash and burn the nang Chong rubber land. In 1926, the year my mother was born, they moved to Chieng Nang Chong where they stayed for a few years to wait for his rubber trees to be mature and start tapping. Ngie Gung then applied for a few men to be sent out from Bang Dung in Minqing. He built three coolie houses for them in preparation. Not long after that in 1938 when my mother was 12, they moved to their own new house in Nang Chong. It was a big double storeyed wooden house with 5 units (like a small longhouse with 5 bilik)

Hence by `1938 the Foochows and their rubber gardens were dotted all along the east and west banks of the Rajang River and motor launches were busy plying up and down the river.



By the 1930's more and more people had rubber gardens and soon it was necessary for more motor launches to be built and more engines to be imported from Singapore.


1960 - 1990


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1990-2010's Era:







There are many changes in the last 20 years when roads have been introduced by the ruling government. Roads were denied the settlers in the past because the ruling government did not want easy mobility for the population. But curtailing ease of movement, the government was able to hold a tight rein on the communists who were against Malaysia, and the British.