Family Tales : Timber Rafts

Mee Ann Rice and Sawmill, Binatang was owned by my grandfather. It made quite a bundle of money before the war as my grandfather had a small licence to fell timber at Paloh and export sawn timber. Timber was in high demand as population was booming and the rubber tappers and pepper farmers were earning good money.

Once the trees had been logged and tied into rafts at Paloh, my grandfather after receiving news from his employees, would send his own motor launch, Ming Ang (one storey motor launch) to tow the rafts to Mee Ang, at the mouth of the Meradong River. When rafts arrived at the Mee Ann jetty the adults would be smiling. "These logs are all money." "Jia tu li jien."




Image : NASA Earth Observatory image by Mike Taylor, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey


But the children were even happier!

 The rafts were good places for kids to play. It was like a great playground for jumping especially which my aunts and uncles loved. They were merely fun loving children, not yet teenagers with busy parents. The must have imagined themselves a Ninja Warriors or the Chinese Immortals.

One day while one of my aunts was playing alone on one of the rafts she slipped and fell into the river. Luckily she did not hit her head on the logs. A man who was passing by, saw her falling into the river and jumped in to save her. The Rajang was a huge river at Binatang but fortunately according to her it was not the time of fast flowing flood. She was safely brought to the jetty. What a fright it was she said. For many weeks she did not play with the others on the rafts.

For years her siblings and relatives believed that she was saved by God for a special reason.

Eventually she overcame her fear and started playing on the rafts again. She has no fear of water or river to this day.