Sibu : Good Teeth Bad Teeth

Photo by Steve Ling : Dr Ling Wang Hong, with wife and Wong meng Lei in Sibu

 I came across a photo of young Foochow girls in school in Fuzhou on Google and thought about a remarkable business woman I knew when I was a young girl in Sibu.

This is her story and her exceptional marriage.

Chinese girls from a day school class pose on the footsteps of their school building.; This photo is from the papers of Emily Susan Hartwell, who was an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions missionary stationed in Fuzhou in 1884.

Grandfather D was a respected business man dealing with jungle produce. He spoke excellent Malay, and Iban and was often seen in the Kapit wharf waiting for goods from Kapit, be they rubber sheets, latex strips, balls of jelutong, and fruits. But his special love was for engkabang, which he would dry himself very often on the pontoons he rented from friends and relatives along Lanang Road. He would pay young boys RM1.00 for keeping an eye on the drying engkabang. One of my friends from Sacred Heart Boys school used to tell me how smelly the seeds were but he also told me that Grandfather D would say, "Never mind the smell. What is smelly out there on the wooden floor, and drying in the sun is good money." He gave my friend a good lesson. My friend learned it well and he worked hard and is today a successful businessman who keeps his eyes out for opportunities.

Grandfather D loved everything to be very sweet. By the time he was 60, he lost all his teeth and suffered from diabetes. In spite of his medication, and lots of advice from doctors, he continued to have a very sweet tooth.

Occasionally he would give himself a treat and drink three cups of coffee with lots of condensed milk.

during his old age, his daughter in law had to mince all meat,to make meat balls, fish balls, etc for him. The good old man passed away at a fairly old age and enjoyed all kinds of good food. He had dentures made for him after he lost every natural tooth he had.

Grandmother Sia on the other hand would eat nothing sweet. Being born into a very poor family in Fujian, she did not know what was sugar. She drank only jasmine tea, and had only plain food flavoured by salt. 

She did not KNOW how to eat curry, or rendang, in the town she came to live for the rest of her life, Sibu.

She, who lived right in the middle of the town, with the market in front of her, was not tempted to eat food which she was not used to as a little girl. She could not eat any biscuit or cake which was sweet. She lived a life without spices, except a bit of pepper in her fish balls, according to her grand daughter, who went to school with me.

How did she come to live in Sibu?

When Grandfather D earned enough money to find a bride, he took the boat back to Minqing where word spread around that the almost 30 year old gentleman from Nanyang was looking for a bride. He was tall and lanky and not really that particularly handsome. But he had rubber trees and a few pieces of landed property. 1930 was a good year in Sarawak and the dollar was good. The Brooke government was doing well, and Foochows have already set up Sibu for almost 30 years and have ventured into the Baram, opening a new area called Poyut for more rice and rubber planting. He was not only a Nanyang VIP but a good catch!!

People flocked around the very confident and mature man making suggestions. However he took a fancy on one tall and fair lady and decided on her. His first thought was that she was capable of bearing children, working hard in the hot tropical sun. She was about 17 years of age, he was told (but she could have been younger). There was no birth certificate for her. 

Within days, a wedding was held in the village. And so after paying respects to the ancestors, heaven and earth, the newly wedded left for Nanyang, most probably even without a marriage certificate.

In the early days, certificates were mainly landing certificates (for the China born wives or employees) and some kind of paper documents endorsed by local headmen.Travelling documents in the olden days were just pieces of paper, with a simple studio photo.

Her grand daughter told me that her grandmother probably only had a Malaysian passport and a Sarawak Identity card after 1963, two documents which she kept in a safe!! 

Grandmother D became a very dutiful business woman from the time she arrived, counting cash every day at the cashier's desk, a job she loved very much, while Grandfather D employed a accountant to do all the accounts. No money was ever short in their accounts with both being very accountable. theirs was a very typical Foochow "OPIK" or office in Sibu. the front part was the shop, with a middle part acting as an office with 2 employees and the back portion as kitchen. There was an air well where a staircase would go upstairs to where the family members lived upstairs.

Grandmother D was only able to see her birth village in 1980 when she was already in her 60's. But she was healthy and strong. Although she gave birth to only one son Grandfather D was very faithful to her and never desired to have a concubine although he had all the wealth to have multiple wives. Unfortunately he died a little too early after the visit to China. However she lived a very long life, surviving him for more than 20 years.

Her almost sugarless life was exemplary and remarkably she had all her teeth during her old age. Her grand daughter used to tell people,"My grandmother's teeth were made in Fujian, with more calcium and other hard substances. She could bite a chicken thigh bone any time." 

A dentist cousin of mine, Dr. Ling Wang Hong,once told my mother that if every one had teeth like Grandmother D, he would have had a very hard time earning a living!!