Sungei Merah : Soy Bean Sauce Factory

There were two soy bean factories in Sungei Merah in the 50's and 60's.

Wong Cheng Ang was my father's buddy from young. He was born in Sungei Merah and his mother was a wealthy rubber planter. She was widowed early but her wealth enabled her to send all her sons for college and university education in Hong Kong and China.

Cheng Ang went to Beijing with my father and graduated with a degree in Chemistry from Yenching University.


He was a very interesting man. He became a Headmaster of Tung Hua Secondary school for a short while before the war and soon he married my mother's best friend, TongYien Chuo . They had two daughters.

Cheng Ang was interested in making soya sauce and he set up a factory along the present Kwong Ang Crescent. We visited the factory which was full of earthern jars in the 50's and early 60's. By that time he was married to another lady, another family friend. He had a few children from his second marriage.

Each time I see this kind of jars, I would think of my visits to Grandfather and Uncle Cheng Ang's family in Sungei Merah.

My aunts remember him well and were fond of him. My grandmother Siew was also very fond of him and often asked him to stay for a meal after he paid my grandfather a visit. From their recollections, we learned also that he loved good food. My grandmother Siew was a good cook.

One story was this: he had some pig stomach soup with my grandfather. He found it so good he sent his new wife to ask my grandmother for the recipe. Unfortunately, she did not do a good job and found the raw stomach too much to manage. So she told my grandmother, "Next time you cook pig stomach, call my husband to eat." I think she was a strong believer of "Love your neighbour."

In 1962 he left Sibu to go to the jungle and was tragically killed by the army in 1972. My father lost a childhood buddy and was extremely sad when he heard the news.

My father said quietly, "He had so much to offer to the world, an idealist, an educated man, yet he chose the unusual path, knowing that death would come sooner than later."