Booking Durians by the Tree

In the 1950's when the population of Sibu was still considered small, the demand for durians was not that big too.

Most people would have their own durian trees, grown by their grandparents. Hence whenever a customer wanted to buy durians, he would ask, "Whose durian is this?"

The traditional answer would be, "Grown by my grandmother." 

That statement would be taken as the brand answer and the durian would be definitely good.

Hence as a child of Sibu, I get rather disappointed when the durian I bought was not as good as what the seller claimed. Today we tend to be very suspicious of durian sellers. We have to look for honesty on their face.

I believe we have allowed an era of trustworthiness pass by. Today we cannot seem to trust any business people.

Another trusted way of buying durians was by the tree. Each durian season, my father who loved durian would book a whole tree in Kampong Nangka from his trusted Melanau friend. Whether the tree had 20 fruits or 50 fruits, he would pass  some money acceptable by the friend and the deal would be sealed. Whenever a durian or two dropped my father would be guaranteed his good fruit in the evening when he passed by.

In that way we had our guarranteed durian feasts during the year. If we were given more durians, my father would send some of the extras to his siblings, and his parents in Sg. Merah.

Unfortunately, our durian feasts from Kampong Nanga stopped when he passed away in 1965.

In later years we also saw that the Kampong Nangka durian trees chopped off due to road expansion and housing development.

I miss the love shown by my father for us when we ate durians together. I miss visiting my grand parents with him when he brought some good Nangka durians for them, even though they had their own durian trees in the garden.

A boatful of LOVE!!

Good durian trees start producing good fruits only after 15 years...so trees planted by grandparents would be the good mature trees, traditionally.

We Foochow would say, " How much you love me! thank you for the gift of durian!!" Nii guo tian ngui loh.....And the giver of durian would feel the love in the air!! Yums.