Her mentioning of Ern Moh Long at once caught my interest and I wanted to know more about her family and her village.
Her mother Madam Hew, Guangdong born, first started to farm with her father Yong at Tj Genting. It must have been very tough for her to start life in almost a wild jungle, with snakes and monitor lizards visiting the newly prepared land. Ms. Yong said she remembers how the settlers there praised her mother Madam Hew and said that she was really a good worker. "No one worked harder than her, even when she was pregnant with a baby."
She would walk 3 hours to a pepper farm in the early morning and then back at about 6 pm to reach home at 9 p.m. She would do this every day, rain or shine.
Eventually, she single handedly planted 300 vines of pepper to help the family and the in laws on a piece of land rented from a friendly farmer who could not use the land. She paid the farmer with one bag of pepper per year. It was awesome for some one plucked from mainland China to do that kind of agricultural work.
Year in and year out she also planted rice for the family to consume, together with her in laws on the family land. the family never had to buy rice.
In this way, she managed to look after a husband (who was not very hardworking) and 6 children, the last and youngest one being born in 1963, the year Malaysia was formed.
She also cultivated the green tangerines which she carefully grew on raised round beds. When the tide rose or when the rain came water would surround the raised beds while the tangerine trees remain above water. The water logged area would be teeming with edible frogs and their babies on rainy nights especially. These frogs were a source of protein for the whole family.
As the youngest daughter, Fang, remembers how her mother used to wake her up at 4 am in the morning to catch frogs in the tangerine (Binatang Limes) fields. Using a torch light Fang was good at catching both mother frog and baby frog at the same time (Mother frog would carry baby frog on the back). This was the techniqiue of catching frogs in the wet fields, early in the morning before the sun rose. The torch light shining on the eyes of the frogs would stun them and they would not move. The mother and daughter who was only 5 at that time would be able to catch about a dozen frogs for their meals.
Another good memory Fang has was the pickling of pork trotters in a jar which they would eat for many months after Chinese New Year. Every year the family would slaughter one pig for Chinese New Year Eve, and one for their mother's birthday on the fifth day of the first Lunar Month.
The Chinese New Year Eve pig would be cut up into many portions for their own consumption and some would be given to relatives as gifts and some would be given to people who had given them scraps for pig feed throughout the year. Fang remembers they did not have much left after that. But on her mother's birthday, they had more meat, and some cuts were sold so that they had enough money to go to school.
She remembers a special delicacy made by her mother with the pork trotters and vinegar. This was a Cantonese culinary way of preserving pork during the difficult days when they had no protein. Fang's mother would buy the best of vinegar for this pickling process.
Looking back at what they ate in those days Fang said, she just could not explain how she and her siblings could eat all those food. Today she found frogs and vinegared pork trotters (no cooking at all) quite scary. She is more a vegetarian now.
She also remembered how one day her father was in need of money. He took one bag of unmilled rice and put it into their small paddle boat. He took Fang's oldest brother together with him. This was necessary because the rowing of the boat would be a few hours along the Binatang river, and water which seeped into the boat had to bailed out. Her brother had to do the bailing and her father the rowing. After selling the rice for just a few dollars in Binatang, father and son returned.
Fang's mother was really cross when she found out that her husband had sold a guni of rice behind her back.
Not long after that Mr. Yong disappeared. However many years later Fang's eldest daughter, was able to locate him and look after him. By then he was 75 years old. And he also passed away quite soon after that. Their mother however lived a very long life, as she continued to farm and work hard.
These little snap shots reveal how hard it was when farmers had to walk, work and depend on their own two hands to eek out a living for their family.
Fang and her siblings were able to go to school and they all managed to reach Form Five in Kai Chung School, Bintangor, thanks to their hard working, Guangdong born mother.
Once in a while Fang and her siblings would go back to Bintangor and Sarikei to visit their married sisters.
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