Fresh Off the Boat : Ah Soon's Wife

 1959. This was quite a later story of a Fujian born (Hokkien) woman who was almost 6 foot tall.

The is a story of a bride from Fujian who came to live among the Iban people in Ulu Medamit, Limbang Division of Sarawak where there was one row of six wooden shops owned by Chinese shopkeepers. the bazaar was built by the Sarawak Colonial Government in the 50's. Many such wooden shops were built by the government for Chinese traders, in order to upgrade the living standards of the rural people, mainly the indigenous population which have settled along river banks.

One of the main purposes of the wooden bazaars was to encourage the indigenous people to grow more rice and rubber in order to increase the coffers of the colonial government, i.e. through taxation.

Mr Teh owned a rice mill with a large old style rice milling machine. This was situated next to the wooden Nanga Medamit Primary School.

Mrs. Ah Soon came to Sarawak either from Hong Kong or Amoy but people were really not sure how Ah Soon managed to bring her to Sarawak. Mr. Teh did not give the reason why Ah Soon was not around and the people just mentioned that he disappeared from Nanga Medamit for about 5 months in 1959.

Any way much to the delight of the locals, he came back with a woman who was almost one head taller than him and he introduced her to the local Ibans and Chinese that she was his woman or bini. Was she his "child bride"? Was she someone chosen by his elders in China? That was a mystery because Ah Soon was not very forthcoming with information about himself.

Mrs. Ah Soon helped the towkay Mr. Teh to feed ducks, chickens, and especially the pigs. she also helped Mrs. Teh with household chores and kept the shop clean. 

But most importantly she was a very strong woman who managed the big rice milling machine. In fact one of the reasons the Ibans came to the Nanga Medamit bazaar was to get their rice milled by a machine. It was then a novelty and no one else could afford it. Perhaps it was the first time the local people had ever seen such a machine too. Prior to this, the Iban women had always threshed and milled their own rice by hand.

When the local Ibans came to have their rice milled, she was the one who started the engine which in the eyes of a young Iban boy, "almost the size of a hut". The rice mill was a building by the river on its own. She would weigh all the rice milled and charged accordingly. The Tehs trusted her more than they trusted Ah Soon.

Whether she missed her home country, she would never say much because at the beginning she could only communicate in her own dialect which to the local Ibans was a foreign language. She was calm, and courteous, never offending any one by her body language.

Ah Soon during his bachelor days worked for meals, like many of the China born HokKiens who came to Limbang. Mr. Teh probably paid for his passage from China.

These NEW Migrants or sin keh worked either in the timber camps operated by Limbang Trading (Datuk Wong King Min) or the various shops in the town or in the ulu bazaars like Nanga Medamit. Ah Soon had a very stiff tongue and he could never learn to speak Malay or Iban so he could not be of much help else where except to be a coolie with a shopkeeper. Finally he made it permanent by working for the Tehs in the Medamit Bazaar.

Mrs. Ah Soon however was different. She soon learned to speak broken Malay and Iban and was able to communicate with every one in the area. The Tehs left quite a bit of their business to her and she was even sent to Limbang town to order goods and to bring back goods in the long boat that Ah Soon drove. the long boat journey, using a very small outboard engine would take half a day.

Sometimes she would box Ah Soon's ears when he did not do what she ordered. The Tehs and the local Ibans would often be amused by her making Ah Soon her punching bag in public. They had three daughters together.

The girls studied with the Iban and Malay children in the Nanga Medamit Primary School. When they grew up they went to the Limbang Secondary School in town. By then the Teh's business had expanded and Ah Soon and his wife moved to town with the Tehs.

Ah Sik later took over the work of Ah Soon, but he was known to be not as reliable. Mr. Teh came to the bazaar to look after his shop from time to time. He had once told the Iban customers that he missed having Mrs. Ah Soon run his business in Nanga Medamit. The local Ibans nodded in agreement.

They  liked her because she was fast, fast talking and she was fast in doing every thing. If only she had more say in matters of importance, she could have been a community leader. But in those days, women had to be in the background. And she kept her peace.

One very important feature which endeared Mrs. Ah Soon to the local Ibans and Malays was the respect she had for every one. She respected those boys who went for further studies and she acknowledged them for their achievements whenever she met them in Limbang town.

When the Tehs and Mrs Ah Soon was moved to Limbang town with her daughters (for secondary school education) people from Nanga Medamit continued to look her up and have a chat whenever they were in town.

She had praises for the boys who became educated outside Limbang and told them that they would have good future because they had the opportunity to further their studies. Occasionally she would even sit down with them in the coffee shop. Probably she missed having sons, but being very quiet, she would not reveal her real feelings.

Perhaps it was because she came from Mainland China and had seen more. Her frame of reference was different from the other local women. Whether she was literate or not no one knew because no questions were ever asked then.

She recognized the good in people she met. Perhaps she accepted the fate after agreeing to marry the thin and weak looking Ah Soon and had hoped to make a fortune in Nanyang. May be he had not other suitors except Ah Soon who came highly recommended to her fellow villagers in Fujian. May be her parents advised her to marry the Nanyang man and Ah Soon got lucky.

Eventually she did wear the usual Chinese gold earrings, a gold necklace and a watch and bracelet. And perhaps she hid some of her gold jewellery. But most importantly, she saw that her daughters went to secondary school. Perhaps she was quietly happy that Ah Soon was by her side and never dared to glance at any other woman.

(Story told by a local teacher who grew up in Nanga Medamit and went to school with the daughters.)