My maternal grandfather was a very stern man who was not as educated as his older brother, Lau Kah Tii.
He was physically a very strong man and by training, he was a good master craftsman, a builder and a carpenter. His wooden windows and doors were superb according to a grand uncle whose house he built. Many of the wooden houses in Nang Chong were built by him before 1940.
Because he was a Christian (baptised in China) he provided good and caring services when he undertook the building of a house in the Rajang and he was very strict with his workers. Besides being a carpenter he also had quite a large rubber estate, the land which he cleared since his arrival in Sibu with Wong Nai Siong. He worked very hard and cleared more than 100 acres of land.
Interestingly , at that time and age, with strong patriarchial and chauvinistic views, he willingly gave 30 acres of this property to my maternal grandmother so that she could go back to China to build a large house there just before the Japanese war. He himself knew very well that he would never see China again.
Her dream of having a large house in China of course was bombed. And another tragedy - she never saw my grandfather alive again, as she came back only in 1946, 2 years after he passed away.
He built big and small houses and had a good team under him. Besides because he was a very strong man, many wanted to work with him.
He was always in the shadows of his older brother but he continued to build and help people. He was the lesser known brother. The two of them were always known as Mo Mo Jui. Mo Mo was the older brother or Lau Kah Tii. However many people thought that it was only one person. My grandfather was the Jui part. People affectionally called him Jui Jui.
By the 1920's he had built many houses for others and in 1926 the year my mother was born, he constructed his own house. He and his family had been living in huts wherever he and his brother were developing and clearing. The house was not as grand as his brother's of course, and it was on the opposite bank of his brother's mansion, opposite Ensurai.
He chose the best of wood i.e. belian for most of the house. The house was good until 1988 when it collapsed after a good decade of river erosion brought about by the Express boats. By then my Third Uncle (the inheritor) had moved to Sibu to live in his own semi Detached house). And I had moved to Miri, unable to see the last of the collapsed wooden house.
In Miri I meet up with my cousins, the sons of his eldest and second sons who have now called Miri home.
We also meet up with the descendants of his former indentured rubber tappers. In those days, labourers were engaged from Fujian and a Sibu Foochow towkay had to sign their certificates of arrival and to vouch for their ability to work with a place to stay. That was the immigration regulation of the day.
My grandfather had built five coolie houses for these arrivals to help them like a kind benefactor. Most of them stayed three years (although there was no hard rules) but they wanted to save money. All of them would get a cut from the sale of the rubber sheets. My grandparents also owned a rubber smoke house.
My grandfather just before the Japanese arrived was fairly proud of himself. Because he had become a land owner, a rubber businessman and he had people to call him TOWKAY, which actually means, Head of the Family. He enjoyed his new status and was quite pleased with himself, whenever he put his water pipe into his mouth.
He drank Ngu Ka pi when he sold his rubber sheets, and home made rice wine in between.
He was quite a character.
(Note : Those whose passage was paid by my grandfather stayed longer as they had to pay off their debts.
In my opinion, no one absconded because everything was by word of honour. A Foochow man's word was his honour. Today it can be totally different. In the later days, not all who arrived were Methodists)
If I had a chance to write something on his grave marker, I would write, "He was a good man. People called him head of family, or towkay.
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