Downriver : Some Sanba Memories

 As a child I loved going down river.

That was the term we used when we were young. "Down river" meant the lower part of the Rajang Valley starting from Sibu.

There were no long and motorised roads then, except rubber garden paths, some cement foot paths for bicycles (some were wide enough for trolleys or pull carts) and wooden plankwalks of course.

Every where our Foochow forebears walked and very often barefooted. They were very frugal folks and one of their common characteristics was their barefootedness or naked feet. My mother's siblings walked every where and they were more often than not, barefooted tooI was told that some folks had even thickened soles that they needed no shoes!!

(Another characteristic of the Frugal Foochow men was their shirtlessness. In the day they worked hard, chopping wood, catching fish, and others, all without shirt on their back. This was also to save washing and for the practical reason, their shirts would get wet by their sweat any way.)

They tapped rubber barefooted too in order to save money. Sandals and shoes would just be wasted in the mud and water logged rubber garden. But on the down side, they suffered from cuts and so many unspeakable sores.

Writing this made me think of another barefoot lady. My neighbour Ting Moo (she turned out to be my cousin's aunt) never wore shoes when she first moved to our grandfather's rental wooden house across the road. She was a very frugal lady. She and her son were well known barefoot neigbhours of ours. As a child I only remembered her wearing shoes and slippers much later.

Then my aunts and uncles from down river also put their shoes in their baskets. They put on their shoes only after they alighted from the motor launches.

But sanba would forever be in my mind and heart because that was where my mother came from, and where my Ngie Mah and my beloved relatives lived. It was also where I spent the best holidays of my younger days, where I was nurtured and was taught, and trained to memorize many Confucius sayings by my grandmother.

During the holidays, I would be sent down river where my ngie mah would look after me, and where I would represent my mother to be near grandma. We cousins would all sleep in a room, some on the wooden bed and some on the floor. In cold nights we would cover ourselves with the red Chinese woolen blanket which smelt of the sun.

And in the warm mornings, we would swim in the Rajang River if the tide was high and my Third Uncle was able to look after us. The river was good and it was our swimming pool.

In the evenings we would all crowd around the balcony area where my grandmother and third Uncle would tell stories, peppered by her Confucius sayings. They were our earliest TV programme presenters.

When the rubber price was good and we had good food on the table. Sanba life meant that we had chickens,ducks and even pigs to slaughter for food. There were a few times my uncles and aunts had pigs to slaughter and as they did not have a refrigerator, they sold some and ate some, as the saying goes.

The most memorable dish was my grandma salted meat in the urn and the sliced and steam ones in the food safe for every one to share.

Every evening my third uncle would make a huge bao, which he would slice. Some of us ate more than our share because the melted Golden Churn tasted so good. 

In those days Third Uncle did not use dried instant yeast and I remember my grandmother would get the wet yeast from Kim Guan Siang or King Nguong Chiong (Foochow pinyin) before she took the motor launch back to Nang Chong. Grandma walked every where in town. She would only have the luxury of using the trishaw when my mother sent me to wait for her at the wharf and to help her carry less stuff (basket of clothes, a duck or a chicken etc). His baos were the best in the world.

Usually after a sanba holiday, we would put on some weight.

When we got into the motor launch every one would say, "Wah your grandmother must have fed you very well."