Sungei Merah : Kompia and Pong Biang

The Sungei Merah Bazaar that I knew could be divided into three periods of my life.

Childhood
When I was still in the primary school my father was manager of the family brickyard, the Kiong Ann and he had the benefit of driving the company jeep. In the evenings we would take a drive to the airport, via sungei Merah, at that time the longest road in Sibu.
We would stop by the buy some biscuits from the shops, and my father would buy daily necessities like brooms, etc. It was a cheaper place my father used to say.
On Sundays we would visit our grandfather who lived on top of a hill, behind the Kwong Ann School.
It was quite ritualistic actually as my grandfather was a stern man of habit. For example, he must have his tea and biscuits at 4 p.m.

Youth
I had friends from Sg. Merah and I would watch guys play basketball and I would visit the pastor's family, as the girls were in my school and I would also visit my grandparents. Cycling made life easy so we thought of nothing riding the 3 miles from Sibu town to Sg. Merah. I visited Lau Leh Shin quite often as she and her parents lived in Sg. Antu when invited to visit and eat their green oranges.

Married Life
In 1983 we bought a house at Airport Lane 7. And Sungei Merah became my shopping centre. Everything evolved around it. Every one knew everyone. I did not even have to shop in Sibu. That was the kind of semi suburban life we led and it was good.

By then my grandparents and many grand uncles had passed on and I made new friends. I even learned to speak some Hin Hua.

The most remarkable part of life then was the easy access to good hot bread and buns in the evenings. Some special Foochow biscuits would come out of the oven in the evenings too like pong biang.

Kompia was bought early in the morning. There were several kompia shops in Sg. Merah but I have forgotten all their names except Nam Mee. Today kompia business is found in Sibu, and the nearby suburbs.

I got to know one lady kompia so well that she would just give me some raw dough to bake at home!! I just made bread out of the dough to the delight of my family and I did not have to wait for the right time to buy. That was quite a nice period of my life in Sg. Merah. Later quick mee and biscuits took over as I had more and more duties in life.

Kompia is truly a Foochow iconic bread, loved by now 5 generations of Foochows in Sibu and many more in Fujian...

 Other races have learned to love the simple bun, an innovation of a general who loved his army so much that he thought of a good way of carrying food supplies without detriment to their mobility. So kompia was invented with a hole in the middle, and strung on a string. On the GO!!

For the Foochow general Qi 
戚繼光was probably the first man in history to invent the term "On the Go" or take away using a string......