Widows and Shared Rubber Tapping

 

The Olden Days Foochow Social Welfare Support

How were Foochow widows helped during the early Pioneering days?

Riding motor launches in the early 50's village children would hear of good and bad gossips. I picked up two good stories I will share with you today. I have linked the stories from the time I heard about the two ladies to the modern days as I have been in touch with the next generation.

Two widows were well known for being able to help their families of young children to survive through their grief and poverty, before and after the Second World War.

The Rubber Tapping and Sewing Widow

One was given accommodation by Lau Kah Tii and a plot of rubber trees to tap. It was a share cropping system, 50:50. All the coolies or share croppers (especially those who had just arrived from Fujian) would live in the numerous COOLIe Factories (dont know why they were called Chiong or factory) built near the rubber gardens. So this Tiong surnamed man's widow was given a small unit in the factory.

She managed to take in sewing for extra cash. She was one of the famous ladies who could sew belly covers very well, stitch by stitch, and with beautiful embroidery. 

Her children later grew up to help her and prospered. One went to Sarikei to start a coffee shop and another continued to tap rubber and slowly bought his own rubber land. The girls grew up and married good men. In her old age, she helped her son in Sarikei. Today her grandchildren are all over Sarawak and doing well.

It was hard life for her but she was well known for being a good Foochow widow throughout Ensurai.

The Ah Poh Minnang Widow

The second widow well known in Ah Poh, Kwong Hua, was actually a Minnang lady (related to Mr. Bean of Sibu). She was one of the few Minnang ladies who lived in Ah Poh. After her husband died the Methodist Church helped her by allowing her and her children to tap the Mission rubber trees. She and her children tapped rubber until her children graduated from their university!! From her own stories, we learned that the Methodist Church owned some rubber gardens in Ah Poh as well as Bukit Lan. As she was very hardworking and very faithful to God, she was helped by the local Chinese community leaders like Tiong Wang Ming and Chieng Kek Ming also. 

She and her children lived in a wooden attap house by the river side. For lights they had kerosene lamps, and they collected rain water and river water for daily use. Life was simple but she was able to put food on the table.

Rubber tapping (Stephen KK Ling) 

Thus every day she would tap the allocated rubber trees and after she had collected enough dried rubber sheets she and her children would send them to the smoke house for smoking. At the end of the smoking session, she would be able to buy rice, oil and daily necessities. 

Once she had to pay some fees for her children, she rolled up some unsmoked rubber sheets and placed on her back, determinedly walked all the way to a head man's house to exchange for some cash. The kindly headman was sympathetic enough to give her extra. Her older son remembered the story and kept the incident in his heart. Inspired by such a godly man, the boy studied very hard to be a top student in the Methodist School, Sibu and later obtained a Methodist scholarship to study in Singapore and later overseas to become a doctor.

So there were actually some community support in the olden days to help widows to make a living. 

In those days, poor people especially widows like them all said that if they had two hands to work, they would not starve to death. Their children would not starve but instead even have good education. They built up their families with dignity and hard work.

Let us remember our ancestresses with respect and love. May they rest in peace.

Today widows who are destitute apply to the Social and Welfare Department for assistance.