My Grandmother's Precious Goods

 My Maternal Grandmother 's precious goods.

In the 1950's my grandmother's smokehouse was one of the biggest in the lower Rajang Valley.

She was the supervisor while my eldest and third uncles would do all the work- collecting stray logs from thr river, sawing them into smaller pieces and burning the wood to send the smoke up to thr first floor to smke the rubber sheets for two long weeks until they were translucent.

My uncles were very careful and trusted workers for they made sure that they never let the fire die. The temperature must always be kept steady to ensure that the rubber sheets maintain their quality as RSS Grade One which fetched the best of prices fixed by the government.

The rubber tappers, mainly Lau relatives, who sent their rubber sheets to my grandmother all kept good records of their tonnage before and after the smoking.

After the smoking was completed and the desired quality was reached all the tappers would monitor the prices of rubber from the Sarawak Radio. The 5 o'clock evening news broadcast was in Foochow

Richard Jee

My uncles, my grandmother and the rubber tappers would choose the day for the rubber sheets to be shipped out.

A motor launch was chartered, usually Sin Hai Hong, to transport the rubber sheets to Sibu

And everyone would be at the smoke house to tie the rubber sheets into bales. These bales of fragrant, freshly smoked rubber sheets would be manually carried into the.motor launch waiting at the pontoon.

If the tide was high the launch would be at the same level with the river bank and the muscular tappers and my uncles could easily carry a bale of rubber sheets, one at a time, into the.waiting.launch . But if the tide was low it was more difficult for the carriers. They had to walk down the gangway to the pontoon at a sharp gradient but nevertheless they were extremely agile in their barefoot.

The atmosphere would be festive for every one would be expectant-- cash would be soon arriving together with my Grandmother's return in the evening.

A dinner would be cooked for everyone including the skipper of the.motor launch. Grandmother would buy one ot two huge pork leg and lots of meat and vegetables for the post sale dinner. It was really a time to celebrate community effort or gotong royong.

Grandma and my uncles really appreciated the efforts and camaradarie of the tappers. One could really see how much effort they and my uncles put into the smoking of the rubber sheets

Grandma and my uncles also made sure that the tappers would take home the accurate amount of cash from the sale of then rubber.

My uncles were very honest people and my grandmother was a good rubber dealer when facing the middle men. No one dared to cross my pint sized grandma.

In those days trust and integrity were absolutely the norms!!