That was how he arranged to buy a piece of land in Pulau Kerta with his Wong relatives, the two wealthy relatives, Wong Heng Kwong and Wong Hung Kwong. The Hua Hong Ice Mill operated from 1927 to 1957.
When the Foochows were allowed to settle down in the swampy lands of the lower Rajang, most were not able to accept their fate - how could any agriculturalist make a living ot a land flooded half of the year?
Wong Nai Siong must have some consultants to help him and with all the hardworking men from Minqing and Kutien (fujian), the group of 1000 odd Foochow immigrants decided to do the imposible in 1901.
Each migrant given the land had to dig deep drenches around their land, not only to demarcate their land, but to raise enough earth to make foot paths and to drain the soil So out of their hardwork, they were able to plant rice and later, rubber. It was like created huge bunds. But the dream of making Lower Rajang into a huge rice bowl did not actually realise because of the introduction of a better and more successful cash crop : Rubber.
In the same way when my great grandfather acquired land at Pulau Kerto together with his in laws, he too did the same thing. He dug drenches and when he wanted to plant green tangerines, he created raised mounts for his fruit trees.
The raised mounts were surrounded by marshy soil, which during the dry season would be dry. But during the rainy season from November to February and from May to July in those days, grass would grow very fast and he would get all his grandchildren to go and cut it.
He made sure that he had a lot of citrus fruits. He had planted about 20 to 30 tangerine trees. When he felt that the grass was tall enough, he would call the kids to cut it but he also told them not to throw away the cut grass. Just keep them on top of t he marshy soil. Because he had a good reason for that.
After a week, especially in August, the tangerine trees would stand tall from the muddy swamps, with no weeds. And the children would look at the brown grass, all trampled and lying very limply on the wet soil.
Soon, with bucket in hand, the children would be working as a team. The boys would pull up the grass and out crawled the PANGi or tiny red crabs. All the children enjoyed catching them with their bare hands. Soon their buckets would be full.
Once the tiny crabs had filled up one or two buckets the children would run home with their booty.
And the adults would then start cleaning the crabs, throwing out the dirty parts. The cleaned crabs would then be salted for about two days, and then ground by the stone mill.
Foochow wine lees would be added to the mesh to make a red sauce which would then be stored in the huge glass formic acid bottle. To ensure that fermentation took place well, Grandmother would let the bottle stand on the open verandah of the house to let the sun shine on the bottle.
One glass bottle of that sized was reckoned by the Foochows as Suoh Tarng.
this bottle of crab sauce could last a whole year for the family. The word Tarng loosely refers to a "vase,or a bottle" of liquid.
In old Foochow cultural ways, it was polite to present One Tarng of good yellow wine on a person's birthday. It may come in any size. (More research is needed for this word Tarng.)
the delicious crab sauce is a real delicacy for the Foochows. Today this sauce costs about 40 ringgit per 75 ml (beer) bottle.
After the small crabs were captured and made into crab sauce, my great grandfather would order the children to burn the dried grass which would in turn be used as fertilizers for the fruit trees.
The burning of soil and grass to make fertilizers has been long an agricultural practice of the Fujian people and has been brought over to Sarawak. Burnt soil is so clean and fertile.
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