Nang Chong Man : He who wore Takalong Sirat

My siblings and I grew up listening to stories told by both my parents. Mum told us stories from her childhood, but Pa had a wider experience and he drew from his reading of books and life experiences within Sarawak and in China and else where.

When mum told us about one of her distant relatives wearing tree bark cloth during the Japanese Occupation, we felt sorry for him. But we were sorrier for mum and her siblings who had so little to wear.

I was to meet takalong bark cloth only much later in life because the bark cloth was not a common commodity then. It was not even common knowledge. So at our younge age my siblings and I thought that it was just poor people's response to material needs in those days.

During the Japanese Occupation this distant relative planted sweet potatoes, vegetables and lots of loi ling jing in the back hills of Nang Chong. He was a very hard working man and could speak Iban very well. He seemed to be a very gifted linguist.

My mother mentioned that he used to bring sweet potatoes to my maternal grandfather if he had extra during the Occupation. Life for him must have been very difficult. He had to use spears to catch wild boars for food. Sometimes he trapped fish and other animals.

During the whole period of time, he seldom came out of the rubber garden he had to look after (that was the name of the place so we actually do not know specifically where) and he only got married in his late 40's after the war. He was a very quiet and humble man. In many ways he had lived like an indigenous man.

Because he had come from China as a single man and was helped by my grand uncle , he was very thrifty and very obedient. He had to repay my grand uncle the fare he used. 

It was a pity we never knew if he ever remitted money back to China to his relatives. 

He was the only Foochow man my mother said she and her siblings knew who had worn the Iban Takalong Sirat during the Japanese Occupation. He had wanted to save his cotton clothes from China!! He must have been very conscious of conservation.

New arrivals in the 1930's who came to help out relatives in their rubber gardens as extra helpers and later to work elsewhere to find  their fortunes would wear this kind of cotton clothes. (Photo from Google)

After the Japanese surrendered, he got married and moved away so that he could earn a better income. It was also the time when rubber was not fetching a good price. 

My mother got married and my youngest auntwent to Singapore to study. Many of the young people from that area lost contact with each other.