After we moved from Pulau Kerto in 1956 to Sibu, my father missed watching the Rajang River from our own Hua Hong Ice Factory jetty.
Thereafter in Sibu, he would bring us kids every evening to watch the sun set from the Government Jetty. Our Sibu wooden house at Kampong Nyabor's Kong Ping Road (now known as Brooke Drive) was actually within walking distance from the jetty. But he would take the jeep out.
It could be his way of ending the day with a nice view of the river. He was a very quiet man, very taciturn in fact and did not say much to us kids. But we enjoyed his presence with us. It was obvious he enjoyed watching our only brother Hsiung growing by the day. He carried him most of the time in his quiet loving manner.
According to my aunts, my father had grown up enjoying fishing, boat rowing and swimming in rivers. The family had lived in Sg Merah, Bukit Lan, Binatang (Sg Meradong) and the Rajang at Hua Hong Ice Factory, on Pulau Kerto.
After moving to Sibu, he could not longer have his dip in the Rajang river every day or go fishing. He enjoyed setting up traps on the muddy banks. When the tide went down, he would love to get his fresh fish from his traps. Even though he was a university graduate (from YenChing), he was basically a very small town boy in his heart. Not many knew that my father was a good ball room dancer, from his Shanghai student days, like his third brother, Hua King.
He must have enjoyed all the nostalgia when watching boats passing by at the Government wharf and us kids (age 1 to 6) jumping around the cannons which were pointing to the Rajang River mouth. Mum would be at home washing the dishes after dinner and folding the day's laundry. My mum never had a maid all her life, as she preferred doing all the chores by herself.
It was much later in life when I went to Shanghai that I realised that lots of Chinese men in Shanghai and Beijing loved to watch river scenes, and going out for a breath of fresh air after the evening meal.
My father and his nostalgia. It was a pity I was so young to understasnd his inner thoughts while he was approaching 50. Was he missing China, the streets of Beijing and the Shanghai Bund?
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