Japanese Occupation : Enforced Food Production

Rice was running short during the middle of the Japanese Occupation. The local people, including the Chinese and the Malays around Sibu were eating more sweet potatoes than rice. Some had hardly anything to eat and were even cutting down sago palms to make sago flour, or just eat the pith. My mother and her siblings had to tighten their belts to let the elders and the new born have white rice and they ate the lesser staples. They had to forage for jungle vegetables to put some food on the table. And cash was no where to be seen or even earned.

Even the Japanese soldiers were facing shortage of rice.

This could be due to the fact that farmers were scared to go to the fields and the Ibans were hiding in their longhouses,seldom appearing to do any trading with the town people. Generally food production was almost at a stand still

At the beginning of 1944, the Japanese started a grand plan to have enforced farming. The empty land on the banks of the Igan and the Rajang were allocated to the Chinese to grow rice.

(According to a historian in Limbang, the Japanese had given instructions to the people of Limbang valley, namely the Ibans and the Lun Bawangs to grow rice in order to supply rice to the people of the town and the Japanese soldiers, at a special price which was not really acceptable. But with guns in their hands the Japanese were able to force the Iban farmers to bring out baskets of unmilled rice . One Iban family remember seeing Japanese soldiers visit their longhouse rather unexpectedly because it took  two days of marching or walking in the jungles from Limbang to reach their longhouse!!)

My young uncle, Lau Pang Hung, and his siblings were given an allotment in Sg. Ayam, under the jurisdiction of 8th district. His father, Headman Lau Kah Tii g Hung) was in charge of the 8th District, They thus obtained new land to plant padi. There were 10 groups of Foochows. Each group consisted of 20 farmers and they lived in attap houses called "factories"

Lau Pang Hung's leader was Tang Yew Sung. His siblings, Pang Soon, Pang Shu, Pang Ding, and Pang Heng were in the group. Several youngsters around 10 years old were also brought along to do the cooking. The rustic "factory was about 70 feet square with 10 beds on each side with wooden boxes in the middle. The wooden boxes formed their work tops and tables for meals.

The marshy land was difficult to travel on, and small branches were used to create some kind of foot paths. Most of the time the farmers were caked in mud.

Mr and Mrs. Lau Pang Hung 2014 in Sibu.

As they were short of nails or wires, they depended on rattan and other twines to tie pieces of wood roughly together. One day the roof (which was tied together very roughly by rattan) of their  hostel collapsed while the farmers were waiting for their lunch. Every one jumped up  and took cover in the swamps thinking that it was an earthquake. Luckily no one was hurt but lunch was completely destroyed. They had to go hungry that afternoon.

The Japanese soldiers had put up a toll station at 24 acres and any one passing through from the allotments or farms had to give 30 per cent of their harvest. So many farmers would secretly mill their rice in the hostel (using the wooden rice huller which they had taken apart and put together again) and carried the small packets of rice under their clothes. the Japanese soldiers were not any wiser.

Lau Pang Hung had in fact  rowed a small boat filled with milled rice from the allotment in Sg. Ayam to Ensurai, which took him 4 hours to row. In that way, he probably smuggled more than 100 kg of rice safely home.  If he had been caught, probably he would not live to write this story.

In fact Sg. Ayam is nearer the present Bintangor than Ensurai.

(Translated from Chinese article written by Lau Pang Hung, "Commemorative Book on Headman Lau Kah Tii)