My Maternal Grandmother : She Had Connections!!

My maternel grandmother was very fond of two particular VIPS of Sibu. And she was often teased that she HAD good CONNECTIONS. Indeed.

First of all, her good connections started from even before the Second World War in Sibu. She had raised a family of 9 herself in Nang Chong and she desired to build a family house in Bang Dong, Minqing just like my maternal grandfather's brother. So SHE sold her share of the family rubber garden and left for China.

Together in the same boat going back to China, she was happy to note that Mr and Mrs. Wong Hung Kwong and their two sons , KK and CT, were also on their way to Fuzhou City. She happily looked after the two Wong boys. Uncle Hung Kwong required medical treatment in China. They stayed with my grandmother in Bang Dong while their parents were in Fuzhou City.

Their surname in Chinese character was King or the Three Stroke Wong. Wong Hung Kwong had two brothers Wong Liing Kwong, and Wong Heng Kwong. The three had started good business enterprises in Sibu in the 1920's and 1930's.

By coincidence my paternal grandfather was  cousin to the three Wong brothers (my Great Grandfather had married their aunt). they had all migrated to Sibu in 1902, led by Wong Nai Siong. Thus the Tiongs and the Wongs were related by marriage.

This account of my Grandmother's life in China relates why at a very early age, CT and his brother Chii Kiong or Kie Kiong attended primary school in China which was cut short by the Japanese attack on China . When the Japanese war ended , my maternal grandmother was tasked to look after them from Fuzhou to Sibu. 

They "came out of China by the first boat out of Fuzhou".

As my Ngie mah had seen to their needs during the time of war  they remained close in Sarawak when they returned. Whenever my grandmother came up from downriver by motor launch, she would stop by the Nang Kwong shop at Blacksmith Road to say hello to Grand Uncle Hung Kwong, who after the mainland treatment was completely cured. He was a very humourous man. 

CT and KK went to the Methodist School and graduated with good grades. While CT went to England to complete his law degree KK went into the Police Force and became a top cop.

 In the 1960's, when there was political unrest in Sibu, KK saved my grandmother and Third Uncle from arrest by vouching for their integrity and their loyalty to the country. For that my mother's family was always very grateful. KK or Dato Wong Kie Kiong was one of the few Chinese Police Officers who rose to the very top in the Police Sarawak Force. 

My grandmother had another fear at that time and that was because she had a red IC. She was therefore often queried interrogated by the Police at road blocks but she learned to live with it and answered in good Malay. KK told her that she was going to be alright even though she had a red IC. Although my grandmother never went to formal school, her spoken Malay was excellent. And again KK praised and comforted her and lessened her anxiety from time to time when they met in Sibu.

Dato Wong Kie Kiong in wheel chair.

CT was very flamboyant, friendly, smart and good looking.

In those days Foochows admired him and wanted their children to take up law because of him. The boys were often told to be like CT Wong.

His legal firm became one of the leading firms in Sarawak. As a member of the Board of Directors of Methodist School, Sibu, he was invited to speak to the students in school assemblies and was a very humorous speaker. He really captured the hearts of the students. Not many men in Sibu were like him. A very talented speaker he could hold the audience in a trance for hours. 

Whenever there were wedding feasts and funerals and my grandmother met up with CT, he would always be ever so polite and kind towards my grandmother. He would come forward to shake her hands, This kind of Foochow value and respect can be said to be quite rare today. Usually the VIPs and the lowly and ordinary citizens would be separated by status. The VIPS would sit at the High Table and the ordinary folks at the LOW Tables.

I truly believe that my grandmother had a lot of confidence in the 1950's and 60's, even though she was from the village of Nang Chong, because she knew SOME BIG Guns ....However, I must say, Foochow values held by the two boys also guided them all their lives, to be respectful, to be humble, to do good, to help fellow Foochows.

We used to tease her and she would smile that happy smile. My grandmother passed away in 1985.

(In later years my siblings worshipped in the same church with Uncle KK, together with other cousins. He would always be very kind to them and acknowledge the connections he had with my grandmother in China and Sibu. A good Foochow gentleman always does that.He remembers the good old days.)

Sibu Tales : Ting Kwong Tou

Translated from Wong Meng Lei's book on the Kutien people's history in Sibu.

陳觀斗與力昌是帶領第一批福州人南來詩巫的先鋒隊伍。

　　第一批72人自1900年12月23日離開福州乘豐美號船，8日抵新加坡，1901年1月12日離開新加坡，經過古晉後於2月20日抵詩巫。

　　他是古田人，在王士來初期患病臥床七十多天，後來回中國及美國唸書，成為傳道人，在西馬實兆遠及新加坡三一神學院牧會與教書多年，也擔任《南鐘報》主編

Ting Kwong Tou and Lik Cheong were the two men who brought the first batch of Foochow pioneers to Sibu. The two were thus the vanguards of the first Foochow settlers in Sibu.

The first batch left Fuzhou city (and Mawei) on the Soon Bee on Dec 23rd 1900. They arrived in Singapore on the 8th January.

In 1901 January 12 they left Singapore, and after passing by Kuching, they arrived in Sibu on 20th January, almost one month after leaving Fujian.

Ting Kwong Tou was a Kutien. He was ill for more than 70 days, in Ensurai. Later he returned to China, studied and became a missionary.

He served in Sitiawan and Singapore. He was a lecturer in Singapore's Trinity Theological College for many years and was chief editor of Southern Bell (Nang Chung newspaper).

Hii Ing Dier : From Minqing to Sibu 1886-1984

 This is a story from Philip Wong Hieng Hung who wrote to me about his Grandmother.

In 1973, my mother, Lau Hung Chuo, his parents , Mr and Mrs. Wong Teck King and a few other Sibu parents attended an MU Graduation Ceremony.

Three of us, Foochows from Sibu graduated that from different faculties, Wong Leh King, Philip's sister (Science Faculty) Peter Wong Hung Huang (Engineering Faculty) and I (Arts Faculty). My eldest Aunt Lily, came from Singapore to represent my late father who was the first Sibu Foochow boy to graduate from Yenching University Beijing in 1937. I became the first Foochow Sibu girl to graduate with a BA (Hons) from MU. Lee Kee was always the top student in my class in secondary school. She was good in maths and Sciences. The Wong family's Maths genes must have come from their grandmother.

( The parents later went to Sitiawan for a tour. And they talked about it for years.)

A few years ago I started collecting oral history of the Foochows of Sibu and I was glad I connected with Philip to get the story of his paternal grandmother, a bound feet lady from Minqing aka Ming Chiang. She lived in Sibu from 1947 until she passed away in 1984.

The Wong family had a shop in Sibu, along Island Road, and it faced the Rajang River and the Tua Pek Kong Wharf. The shop, Chii Sing, was a favourite stop over for down river Foochows when they came to Sibu. Philip's father, Towkay Wong Teck King , was a nice man, humble, hardworking and very pleasant. I remember him as an uncle who was always smiling. And Philip's mother was also a pretty and very polite lady. Because they were shop keepers, the downriver people often dropped by to seek their advice. They were like counsellors to them.

Their shop had a lot of general goods. To the eyes of a child it was like Ali Baba's cave with 1001 items!! I liked the pressure lamps the most because they were the kinds of presents I would buy for my down river relatives who did not enjoy the benefits of electricity.

It was this kind of background that Philip, who used to live upstairs of the shop, grew up and became a man of the world and migrated to Australia. His parents had migrated from Minching, China to Sibu.

Here is the story of a bound feet grandmother. Thank you Philip.

Philip's grandmother Hii Ing Dier (许永娣) was born in 1886 in the village of Koh Loh Sen in Minchiang.

Philip's Grandmother is on the left. Photo taken in 1906. 

Philip's grandmother is seated. A typical Fujian photo studio style. This must have been taken in 1947, to commemorate her trip to Nanyang (Sibu) to join her son.

Philip's grandmother at home in Sibu.

Her patchwork quilt.

Another patchwork quilt.

As she was from a well to do family, she had bound feet from a very young age. Being born into such a family, she was not expected to do any menial work or chores. 

She used to tell her grand children that she cried constantly from the pain from the tight binding,  and she would occasionally sneak down to the creek to soak her feet in the cold water, to alleviate the pain. When the pain got worse, she would secretly unbound her feet. But when she got caught by her parents, they would beat her and rebound her feet.

The binding of a young child's feet actually deformed the bones and slowly they became bent and misshapened but in those days, bound feet or LOTUS FEET were part of the beauty of a wealthy young lady. The smallest of the lotus feet were ideally, 3 inches. 

In 1905, at the age of 19, she was married Philip's Grandfather, Wong Nai Soon, in Kei Tau Wo, 6 Du. In 1906, she gave birth to a baby girl and went on to have 6 more children, 5 boys and 1 girl.

She was brought up as a Buddhist. And she remembered a Buddhist nursery rhyme to teach her grand children in Sibu.

Sin gan tat tat, Ng kian buh lat. Buh lat loh jui Ng kian jui gui.

(Translation : Pat your chest, Don't be afraid of the Buddha, The Buddha goes into the water, He is not afraid of Water Ghosts). This is a rhyme to comfort children when they are scared of the dark or ghosts.

Philip remembered a story, "Even though she had never attended school or received any formal education, she was articulate and intelligent. She excelled in arithmetic and calculation. All the extended family members would consult her when they needed to calculate an individual payment on a bulk communal purchase. An example was four communal families who wanted to buy a chicken but can only barter with rice. All four families can only afford x amount of rice to get the chicken. How much in chicken weight was allocated in proportion to the weight of rice was mentality calculated by my Grandmother. She was indeed a mathematical genius."

Philip's grandmother was brought to Sibu by his father. She witnessed how her son, who had a fractured back miraculously recovered due to constant prayers from a group of Christian women who came and prayed for him. She subsequently converted to Christianity and went to church every Sunday. It must have been a very slow walk to church on her own two feet!

The demure and delicate Grandma made all her own clothes and shoes by hand.

The soles of her shoes were cut from a rubber sheet and the top portion was hand sewn on the soles. All were glued together with scrap rubber sheeting and kerosene (a glue paste resulted from the mixture)

She was a skilled seamstress and made many quilts for her grand children. She also made shorts and pajamas for them.

Grandmother Hii loved pomelo. Interestingly, whenever she wanted to eat fruits from the fridge, she would pour hot water over them to warm them up. She would never eat anything icy cold. 

Her daily bath was quite a ritual. Her bath water was always heated up in an aluminium basin (sali turn) which was placed in the sun for a few hours. Most Foochow houses in Sibu were built with a wide balcony for laundry, keeping of water for cleaning of vegetables, fish and other food preparation. Rain water would be collected by gutters and drained to a diesel tank for example. This was the Foochow response to the tropical rains.

In her later years, she picked up reading of the Mandarin Bible. As her eyesight was slowly fading, Philip's father bought her a Bible with big fonts.With the aid of a magnifying glass, she happily went through the whole Bible.

Philip remembered a story she told about the clan's first sight of an aeroplane in 6 Du, Minqing. She was still young at that time. Every one was frightened by a loud rumbling noise and when they saw a huge eagle looking monster they shouted, Keh jou loh, lou yew bien jian (Run away quickly, an eagle has become a monster).

In 1969, when the Americans landed on the moon, Philip told her about it and he got a good scolding.

"Mehrei gong pien wah, Siongneh eh what nii."

"Don't tell lies God will punish you."

According to Philip, his grandmother was very cute, innocent  and sweet in her old age.

She passed away in 1984.

(To be refined from time to time.)

Lau Nga Hung : The First Foochow Woman Principal in Sibu

Ms. Lau Nga Hung was born in Fujian and came out to Sibu as a migrant teacher on her own. She was employed by the management board of Tung Hua School which later developed into both primary and secondary schools, as was the common norm in those days.

She was outspoken, articulate, educated and very dedicated. She was a very focused lady and was well respected by the local community. 

She served Tung Hua School before and after the war, until she retired.

After she retired, she used her own savings to start a very much needed private school, called Sibu Secondary School in Oya Road to help those who could not pass primary six Entrance Examination and Sarawak Junior. The school operated for more than 15 years until the government changed its education policies and abolished the different public examinations to allow students to remain in school until Form Five, or until they are 16 years old.

With no students, the private school closed and she fully retired a second time, leaving her quite a disappointed educationist.

She was well known as a frugal educationist and throughout her life, she either walked or cycled.

She was also well known as a Sibu Foochow woman who loved to wear cheong sam or qipao.

Chieng Siew King : Child Bride from 5Du

Did a man's family acquire a child bride for him because they knew that he was sickly and fated to have a short life? Did they take in a girl of 12 as a bride to help with the family business, as a kind of family slave?

Here is a story of a child bride who was taken in to help the family to make hoong ngang in 5Du , Minqing in the 1930's. 

As fate played a kind of hand, the child bride of 15 had to set sail to the unknown Nanyang in 1937.

Chieng Siew King thus migrated to Sibu with her husband Ling Toh Liong, 12 years her senior. It must have been a very daunting journey for her to travel in a small boat for almost a month, first stopping at Hong Kong and then Singapore. She was only 15 years old.

Her husband, ling was born in 1910. The child bride was happy because her husband was educated and had a desk job. She was happy to follow the 27 year old husband. Together with him was his eldest brother  and they set sail for Sibu. The couple felt a little safer with 10 other Foochows in the boat. 

In Foochow traditional ways, a marriage was recognized after bowing or Buai long ( bowing to ancestral hall), to Heaven and Earth, to the ancestors and to the living parents and relatives. 

Chieng, had just bowed to Heaven and Earth with Ling to declare themselves married in the village. She was just too young but was glad that she had a few other women in the same boat. She could have someone to speak to.

The group had left Fuzhou city, a huge city then which was quite near Ngu Du, their village. After they left Mawei, the port, and China,  they arrived in Hong kong . From then onwards, she thought she saw places becoming smaller and smaller.

After a month they arrived in a very small town of Sarikei, and then a one street town of Binatang, places with names she could not pronounce. She was glad that Sibu was bigger than Sarikei and Binatang. 

She was a child bride, sent to the Ling family at the age of 12. Being big in feet, she was turned into a very strong helper who was asjed ti make Foochow vermicelli the moment she arrived without any wedding ceremony. She had to carry the freshly made rice noodles in large rattan trays to dry in the yard. It seemed that her work could never end. She had to be in the sun most of the time and waited for her in laws to tell her what next to do. Her husband went to school to learn about accounting as he was not a very healthy young man and could not do farmer's work.

Three years later, her in laws told them to migrate to Nanyang to seek their fortune!!

Thus she ended up in Bukit lan to tap rubber for wealthier relative. She would only get 4 sheets while her relative took 6 sheets. Her husband was sent to a sawmill in a place she could not even say the name. It sounded like Simunjan.

While the older brother worked for a rubber planter relative in Bukit Lan, the younger brother went to work for a sawmill for a salary. He came back once a month or once in two months.

Meanwhile Chieng worked very hard to do her share of work to tap rubber, save money, support her absentee husband and their growing family, besides helping the brother in law and his family who lived next door as best as she could.

When Chieng gave birth to 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls, who were very far apart. When she was 33 she gave birth to a daughter and in fact she had another son when she was 42 way past an age for child birth by today's standard. All her children were born at home and she was attended by barefoot midwives who did not come with proper equipment. There were stories of women who gave birth in rubber gardens or by the river side. She was lucky as all her children were born in their own house. In those days, no woman would ever think of going to the hospital to give birth. They were quite comfortable with just a mother in law or a neighbour to help with the child birth!!

By the time she had the youngest child, the couple owned 12 acres of land near Thian Ching Primary School and had sent a son to study in Taiwan. The oldest son was the guru besar of the Thian Chin school from 1972 to 74, the height of the communist insurgency in the Rajang Valley.

While their children were still young, Chieng sent back money to her in laws and other relatives to buy sewing machines as wedding gifts or cash gifts for engagements. She had to really save money by tapping rubber every day, 365 days a year, and planting pepper.

When she was 50 years old her eldest daughter who was already married brought her a Foochow traditional birthday gift of a ceramic picture and hanged it in the living room. It was a sign of achievement. She never thought she would see such a day when her photo could be hanged on the wall. What a proud moment!!

Not long after that, family disunity came about the two brothers had differences and they had to split. The Foochows called that parting of ways as "dui pun dieh doh tiak" or separating the shares of the family. So the older brother took his share of the land and the younger brother had to buy his own rubber garden. But Chieng had been saving her hard earned money and they managed to become independent of the older brother with their own 12 acres of land.

In her twilight years she looked towards the direction of her own home in Fujian and reflected how she became a child bride at the tender age of 12. She marvelled at herself and the long journey she took to the rubber gardens and jungles of Sarawak. She had learned to read a few words or Chinese characters by reading the local Chinese newspapers and by looking at her children's homework.

She was contented that her husband was faithful, kind and responsible. When he died at age 59 and she was only 47, she was inconsolable.

Her fate as a child bride, when compared to many others she knew of, was not bad at all. She had good children and grand children in  Sarawak.

Bound Feet Aunty: The Rajang Took Away a Beautiful Life

This story is written with a great deal of respect for my Uncle Lau Sing Chiong and his children.

I have grown up with my cousins and never knew about the aunt who drowned in the Rajang River until much later.

As a secondary school student, I was happy to know my cousins better. I visited their down river house and enjoyed playing in the village shop run by Uncle Sing Chiong. In those days, clan relation was very strong. My mother and Uncle Sing Chiong shared the same grand parents and that made them siblings in the Foochow sense. I got along very well with Cousin Yen, uncle Sing Chiong's only daughter. She came to stay with us in Sibu for a while, and so did Cousin Tim, who studied in Sacred Heart School

Uncle Sing Chiong was a student in Fujian, and was supported by Grand Uncle Lau Kah Tii, his father's brother. He married at the age of 18, and later joined Grand Uncle Lau Kah Tii.

When Uncle Sing Chiong's wife came out to Sibu in 1937, my mother was 10 years old and it was a happy occasion for every one. By that time, the Lau Mansion was already built and was the most beautiful mansion in the whole of the Rajang Valley.

Her name was Wong Hung Kiew from 6 Du, Minqing. She was not a child bride, nor an adopted girl. Aunty Hung Kiew had married uncle Sing Chiong in 1928. He was 18 . They had their eldest son Kung hui in 1929 and second son Kung Hoon aka Tze Cheng in 1931. In 1933 they had a third son Kung yew( who passed away because of polio when he was about 3 years old).

Uncle Sing Chiong chose to bring her and their two sons out of China. the boat journey took more than a month.

She was another bound feet lady but fate was cruel to her.

In April 1937 she arrived with her two sons Tze Cheng and his brother, Kung Hui in Sibu to join Uncle Uncle Lau Sing Chiong who had been brought out to Sarawak by his uncle Headman Lau Kah Tii.
In those days, uncles looked out for their nephews and their well being. It was quite a common practice for a migrant to work hard, earn enough and then send for their wife and children much later.

She was a very hard working woman who would wash all the laundry by the Rajang River. It must have bee very daunting for her because the Rajang was such a big river. 

The Min River in Minqing is just a small river by comparison. Even today, like before, it is very safe for Foochow women to wash clothes by the clear creek. My 21st century visit to 6D enabled me to see the lovely Min river and the Plum Creek or Mui Keh. Ducks swam in the creek, and washing was still done by the creek!!

As a new comer, she must have been quite scared of the big river and probably was quite unaware of the big waves created by the motor launches. Each morning she would wash all the clothes on the pontoon. One day, a huge wave from a motor launch rolled up and swept through the floating jetty and she lost her balance. As she had bound feet, she was not steady. She fell into the Rajang and was drowned. She could not swim. 

She was only 26 years old on June 18th 1937 and her son, Lau Tze Cheng ( Lau Kung Huong) was barely 6 years old.

May she rest in peace.

A Bound Feet Grandmother's Love

 When we were in Primary School, we had a beautiful Mrs Chang as a our English and Arithmetic teacher. She always had a handkerchief to wipe off her sweat on her forehead. She tucked the nice handkerchief into her sleeve at her arm pit where it would stay snuck and safe.

We enjoyed her lessons very obediently and we did our homework.

What was interesting to us in those days was the fact she lived in a shop house. That was a mark of wealth so we were very impressed.

But it was later in life that we learned about how her father in law became rich in Sibu. Here is the story of how a small feet grandmother of Tiong Wang Ming, who came to Sibu to manage the family and to help the grandson stand on his two feet before returning to China. What a wonderful love she showed her grandson, who must have represented her eldest son in her heart.

Was she a visionary? Did she foretell that her grandson would be a leader among the Kutiens of Sibu?

Grandmother Ting saw many disasters in her family but she was quite a decision maker and management expert. She in a way practice PLOC, Plan, lead, organize and control.

When her first son, (Wang Ming's father) died in Sibu after arriving in 1901 with Wong Nai Siong, she must have been devastated. He was only 24 years old then and had died in less than 3 months after reaching the new land. She and her eldest son must have had visions of a better future. What was she to do with a daughter in law and two young grandsons? Wang Ming was only 7 years old. As the family was poor, she encouraged her young daughter in law to remarry. She kept Wang Ming with her.

When Wang Ming was 9 years old, his grandfather who was studying in Christian College, Fuzhou passed away. He was only 58 years old. The poor widow had to manage somehow with her two sons.

She then encouraged her sons to try their fortune in Sibu again and she would follow as soon as possible. A woman of less courage would not have done that.

 In spite of the fears of the tropical climate of the new land and bad health , in January 1910, Wang Ming's two uncles arrived in Sibu. In July that year, Wang Ming and his grandmother arrived in Ah Poh and were reunited with his uncles.  The family worked hard to clear some land for agriculture.

At the same time Wang Ming studied a bit during his spare time, encouraged by his grandmother and uncles.

In 1915, when he was 15 years old, his grandmother made a brave decision to divide their family property fairly to prevent any family issues later. The rubber trees were growing well (2000 plus trees). Wang Ming was given 1/4 of a share of the property. Wang Ming represented his late father. His uncles were given equal shares.

In 1917, Great Grandmother Ting arranged for Wang Ming to marry 14 year old Hii Jeng Yieng. It was a very outstanding match made in heaven according to relatives in later days. After his marriage Wang Ming went back to school to study as he had a good helper in his wife. He graduated from primary school at the age of 21.

In 1926, encouraged by his grandmother, he and his relatives went to Binatang to open up land. There the group were blessed were success although at first they met many difficulties. His grandmother was pleased by the success. His two uncles remained in Binatang to look after their farms, with his grandmother's blessings, while Wang Ming supervised the property in Ah Poh.

In 1928 , his grandmother decided to return to China, accompanied by Wang Ming's third uncle and aunty. In 18 years his grandmother was happy to return to her original home for her "old age". She had also managed her family well and they had acquired a satisfactory fortune.

the Foochows call her skill as Tong Nga, or good housekeeping. She was a good Tongnga Moo. By her example, the family prospered and Wang Ming was groomed to lead the community. As a God fearing family, they continue to enjoy her legacy.

 4 years after her return to Kutien, his grandmother passed away.

(This is my version, based on Wong Meng Lei's publication of a book on Uncle Tiong Wang Ming.)

The Curse of Sibu Flooding : Father's Love

On Mother's Day I started to write this article after my relatives and I got together to talk about old days in Sibu. Being all women we talked about old day style of going to "do our hair"., about their hairdressers and how they could share some gossips with a listening hair dresser of their choice.

Being regular customers their hair dresser had all the time to listen to them. Sibu women liked to get a good hair wash and have their hair done. some did it every week like clock work, some only did their hair for occasions.

For my mother's group of friends in the later stages of life, they would meet every week at the Palace Hair Salon and shared news, just like the way we share in our WAG groups.

So today I share the story of the love of a father who passed away prematurely.

As late as the 60's in Sibu, electricity supply was not for every one. So for a suburban area near Sg Antu, any one having a generator was considered a lucky man.

Aunty was a young apprentice of a hair salon and was introduced to a young man who owned a small farm, a wooden house with a generator!! He was thus quite a good catch for her.

And after she got married she quickly became pregnant which made her husband and in laws very happy. She lived a peaceful and happy life with her husband and in laws. 

Coming from a poor family, she did not have the financial support to learn hair dressing in Singapore.

this is the story of her life.

While her baby girl was just a few months old and another baby was on the way, Sibu flood came furiously. The baby girl was always crying and one evening she started having a fever.

As there was no electricity supply in their area along Queensway at that time and they depended on a generator. In order to save money they switched off the generator as soon as it was time to sleep and get ready for the next day.

the baby cried non stop that night, so the frantic family asked the young father to start the generator so that they could see better in the darkness.

It was a very tragic end to him because when he started the engine, the electricity supply was strong enough to kill him as he was standing on knee high flood water.

It was such a tragic end to a young life.

Aunty never remarried. She gave birth to her second daughter prematurely. She started to work again, "doing other women's hair, making women happy....". That was her professional career and she raised two girls while remembering the love of her husband.

 She has been very good at her job, no one would bother to look at whether she had certificates hanging on her wall on the wall.

And Aunty is still operating her salon with one of her daughters.

Adoption Stories : Birth Certificate

 This is a story of a very skilled Sarawak born Foochow hairdresser in West Malaysia I was fortunate to get her adoption story. As a  teacher trainer I was often in West Malaysia as a team member of specialist English teacher training. I had opportunities too to visit small towns as well as big cities for about 5 years.

I will call her Sister Lotus. She was 60 plus , white haired and lovely when I met her.

More than 30 years before Sister Lotus "escaped" to Singapore and then later to a West Malaysian town with the help of a travelling salesman from Sarawak.

The town where she was born is not revealed here for anonymity.

She was a "bought" girl who came to live with the adoptive family during the Second World war.  The man who sold her was not her real father, so even her origin was a mystery.

As a lively girl she was sent to school for only three years after the Japanese Occupation, as she had to do a lot of work at the shop. She was sent to school because the missionaries insisted that she could go to school for free in the morning.

She was asked to help in the shop, cleaning, sweeping and dusting. In her spare time, and even at night,  she had to help with the sewing at the back of the shop where her adoptive mother operated a dress making business. Sister Lotus had to do all the hemming because her work was very fine. Hand hemming was charged extra in those days.

As she grew into a young lady people started looking at her because she was quite a good looking girl. And she too started to have her dreams.

But then her adoptive mother decided to make her stay in the kitchen, to cook for several families she was catering for.  Lotus was made to sleep on top of a wooden box in the kitchen with just two sarongs to cover herself and not even a good pillow.

Lotus had no time to do anything else. She had to cook in fact for 5 or 6 families and the shop assistant would deliver the food containers to the homes of the relatives very punctually. Her adoptive mother took all the earnings and never gave her a single cent.

Just as Lotus was about 22 years old she befriended a Kuching man who came to have business dealings with her adoptive mother and he had noticed the pretty girl. He took interest in her and spoke to her.

After about half a year he "proposed" to the adoptive mother and said that he wanted to marry her. But the adoptive mother wanted the man to pay quite a hefty sum which he did not have. This was his way of helping Lotus get away from the family so that she could learn a trade and be free.

He then secretly helped Lotus make a passport in Kuching after helping her get some photos taken nearby. A kind teacher , who had been a customer of the adoptive mother for a long time, had been looking out for Lotus also lent her some money secretly. The teacher did not ask any question.

It was also a lucky time because curfew had been imposed and every one must carry a Blue IC, so Lotus was allowed to have it in her pocket.

One night Lotus disappeared from the kitchen.

For about 10 years her adoptive parents looked for her but no one knew where she was. They just cursed her and said all sorts of bad things about her. In fact they could not say they have lost a member of their family. She was after all an unpaid servant and even considered a slave to them.

In fact she and the salesman did not marry. He was a good man who helped her go to Singapore to learn hairdressing. Slowly Lotus paid him and later she married a man from Johor. She clearly had her vision and mission.

She was a loyal person and she managed to make contact with the hometown shop keepers very discretely when she was established herself.  When her adoptive mother passed away, she came to pay her respects and gave the adoptive father what the late mother wanted for her bride money. It really shocked the adoptive father and the family.

She said, "I have regarded her as my mother because she gave me food, and a place to stay.  And I did learn a lot, even though I did not complete six years of primary school. Now that I have my own business I can pay back what I owe the family."

When she gave the cash to her adoptive father, she demanded only for one thing : her pink birth certificate which stated her date of adoption but not her birth date.

She said, "Now I will never know when I was born. My adoption date is my birthday."

The adoptive siblings and father had never treated her as their own, just a kitchen maid all the 22 years she was with them. 

Lotus never had children of her own.  And she paid back the teacher manifold.

(A Pink birth certificate in Sarawak means that it is a late registration. In the 1950's it was quite easy to register adopted children without many questions asked. In fact the adoptive parents were named as parents.)

Soon Lee Guan, Sibu Photographer

Soon Lee Guan was born in Sibu in 1929 during the Brooke Rule.

Although he is considered a pioneer in the world of photography in SArawak during times when few people practised the art of photography due to its costs and difficulty in obtaining hardware, he is seldom in the lime light when he was younger.

Many people also do not know that he was also the founding member of two photographic societies, those of Sibu and Miri.

When he was 22, in 1952, the became a founder member orf the Sibu Photographic Society of Sibu. In 1963, be became the first president of the Miri Photographic Society, a post he held fo 7 years.

According to his friends, he loved to travel to the rural parts of Sarawak, photographing what he saw, both official and non official events.

Today some of the photographs he took have become very rare "seen" scenery and moments of rural life.

He compiled a book, "The Changing Faces of Sarawak" before the 20th century ended when he was 72, which contains photographs he took of Sarawak during the second half of the 20th century.

He was awarded ARPS.

His photography bears witness to the historical and social development of Sarawak in the second half of the 20th century.

Tang Yew Tung, Political Science Graduate of Fuzhou University

The eldest son in law of Foochow Headman, Lau Kah Tii, of Ensurai was the educated scholarly, Tang Yew Tung. He married Lau Hung Ing.

Uncle Yew Tung taught in Kai Nang Primary school until the Japanese Occupation distrupted his career.

He was educated at the Fuzhou University of Fujian before the Japanese War and was a political science and law major.

When he married my aunt Hung Ing who was then only 18 years old, my happy Grand Uncle prepared a sedan chair for her to "cross the door".  It was a very traditional wedding and every one in Ensurai was filled with gladness. She wrote in her reflection how grateful she was to her father for arranging the marriage and for making her wedding so remarkable.

Uncle Tang Yew Tung taught in Kwang Hua School, Chung Cheng School, and Su Lai Primary School.

He was hardworking, frugal, honoest and a man of letters.

During the Japanese Occupation, he cultivated rice together with his sons to feed the family.

He was later invited to be the Headmaster of the Miri Krokop Chung Hua Primary School in 1953. He  brought two sons to Miri at that time to serve the Krokop school. It was not easy to 'migrate' from one district to another in those days, so the younger children were left in Sibu for their education, with their mother. In later years after he passed away, my aunt moved to stay with her eldest son in Simanggang.



His hardwork in the education field took a toil on his health and he passed away soon after his work in Chung Hua School, Krokop.

It must have been hard for my aunt to be widowed at a young age. They had a very loving marriage.

Thus the older sons took over the managing of the household and together with my aunt, helped bring up the rest of the siblings.

My aunt celebrated he 80th birthday in Simanggang on April 7th in 1988 among happy siblings and cousins and her children and grandchildren.

She lived to a ripe old age and passed away in Miri when she was almost 90 years old in the 1990's.

Aki Unchat : An Iban Man who Rode a Bicycle in Sibu

(Aki Ben) or Uncle Unchat to most Methodists in Sibu sent him off on his final journey on 9th May 2020 during the MCO. He died at the ripe old age of 99 at the Sibu Hospital.

The Foochows in Sibu will remember him as a shophouse owner at Island Road and one of the few Ibans who became rich from rubber and rice. He was a very intelligent man and was able to stand tall among the businessmen of Sibu. He was an upright man, and a man of few words.




Towkay Wong used to say this of him , "He believes in savings and not squandering hard earned money. He can be trusted to the last cent."

Uncle Unchat was a pillar of the Methodist Iban Church in Sibu. He had led the church for many decades and advised both the young and the old church members.

He had lived in his house in Archer Road since the 1950's, where his children were brought up. All of them are well educated overseas and have been contributing tremendously to the community since they returned hom to Sarawak.

 For years people saw him as a veryremarkable and humble man because he only rode a bicycle to the town.  He and his good friend, the late Rev Ling Kai Cheng must have a lot of shared jokes when they rode their bicycles together along Queensway.

Many Foochows were honoured to have been his friends.

Sibu Tales : Rev Wong King Huo

Rev Wong King Huo served the Methodist Church in Sibu until he was 70 years of age, although the official age of retirement was 50 in those days. Rev Wong had arrived from Minqing 6 Du, the same district of Wong Nai Siong. He was in the second batch of the Foochow pioneers led by Wong Nai Siong. .

Sibu Foochows remember him by having a road named after him. 

(left to right) Wong King Huo, Tiong Kung Ping and Chang Ta Kang

                                      50th Anniversary of Foochow Settlement in Sibu, 1951.

One of the first Methodists to arrive in Sibu with Wong Nai Siong in 1901 (Spring), he was the first Sibu Foochow to study in the Singapore Theological College and upon graduation was appointed to be in charge of Sing Ang Tong in Sibu.

A man who was very upright, well spoken and intelligent, Rev James Hoover trusted him very much. The far sighted James Hoover learnt about the planting of rubber in Malaya and brought back the first rubber seedlings to Sibu. He entrusted them to Rev Wong to plant in Ensurai.

He worked closely with Rev James Hoover for 32 years, leading the Foochows in business, rubber cultivation and pepper growing. 

Rev Wong's family was also the first family to start kerosene and petroleum business to serve the motor launches when Hoover introduced the diesel engines to run motor launches. They started the  Hock Chu Huo Shell station, an enterprise which also acted as a bank for the rural Foochows who placed their cash in their care after selling their rubber sheets in Sibu.

He served the Methodist Church for more than 50 years of his life, while at the same time raised a good family, started a family business for and with his children. One of his grand daughters Wong Siong Ding became a top level police of the state when many Chinese would not consider a vocation in the armed forces.

Map of Sibu showing Wong King Huo Road.

 In 1950  he retired at 70. He had served as District Superintendent, and pastor in his active service of 50 years. He was witness to the 50 th Anniversary of the Foochow Settlement in Sibu. He must have felt a great sense of achievement.

He was a good friend to my great grandfather and grandfather, Tiong Kung Ping, who was also a rubber planter. 

Dr. Seh Mee Ah (Xavier)

Dr. Xavier of Sibu opened his clinic at Island Road, opposite our Methodist Primary school. His clinic was quite near the corner coffee shop of Ting Ngiik Huong, a very popular coffee shop. We used to be quite scared to pass by his clinic. We had no idea why he chose Sibu to practice his profession.

We were scared of him and his clinics, for as kids we heard of his famous injections. Mothers would scare kids if they cried too much. "If you cry again, I will take you to the Seh Mee Ah lohyun and ask him to give you an injection." Pah Jeng.

To the Foochows, he was Seh Med Ah Lohyun. He was good in treating all sorts of allergies and skin problems. Of course he was famous for his injections which patients would ask to get a quick cure.

We Foochows would say this of his injections, "One injection would be enough."

During one holiday, I had a terrible allergy to Mangrove and was not able to walk in fact , with all my skin breaking out in spots. I remember my grandma spoke to him in Foochow and then I fainted. But three days later all the spots left me. Until now I won't dare to "swim" near a mangrove tree. But I never remembered the injection he gave me.

I suppose it was true. One injection was enough.

One of his daughters Peggy was in the same class as my sister. His older daughter was an English teacher and a senior to me in school. 

We used to stare at his beautiful wife whom we heard was a Persian, which was probably a myth. And the family had a really great car, which we all called "a limousine" after we learned the word in primary school. The family had a driver.

Nang Chong Stories : Aunty Lau Hung Ing

This is one of the oldest  SibuStudio Photos/ It is also found in a book about Lau Kah Tii, the father and grandfather of the four in the photo.

The photo shows my mother's niece, Tang Chok Hung and and nephew Tang Chok Ching flanked by their immediate uncle Lau Pang Hung on the left and Lau Pang Ding on the right. (circa 1930's)

My mother being first cousin to Lau Pang Hung is just slightly older. She was born in 1926 and younger than her first cousin Lau Hung Ing,other of these two children, Chok Hung and Chok Ching. My maternal grandfather loved these four in particular because they were very obedient and affectionate according to my mother. Aunt Hung Ing was also an examplary Foochow lady who brought up her children well.



This is another photo  of the family from1967 - Aunty Hung Ing with her 7 boys and 2 girls.  Uncle Tang Yew Tung passed away at quite a young age. it was not easy for Aunty Hung Ing to bring up her children single handedly. 

Cousin Chok Ming (2nd on the right, middle row) and Cousin Chok Tiing (2nd left middle row) 

Cousin Chok Ming's daughter in law Jessy is our Grace Methodist Church office Administrator. 

These two cousins served the education department of Sarawak with great dedication until their retirement.  They taught in Chung Hua Primary School, Krokop in Miri.

My Cousin Chok Hung (in the photo above) is the pretty lady on the first right, seated.

The first two generations of the Foochows in Sibu lived in close proximity to each other, perhaps in different villages due to marriage, and work. And they would have news of each other by word of mouth. They met at weddings and funerals, at church, in Sibu, etc. It was all very warm and cordial.

Today, the fourth and fifth generations do not even recognise each other already.

Some times were are strangers to each other.

Do you go around trying to "recognise your relatives|"?

Tiffin Carriers

I have a distant aunt (May she rest in peace) who would cook and send food in a tiffin carrier or Cheng Ark to her bed ridden mother in law who was living in the one of the shop houses in town. I would see her every morning walking and passing by my house. She never rode a bicycle or drove a car in her life. It was later in life she could enjoy be driven when her daughter bought a car and stayed with her.

She was a woman of kind demeanour, soft spoken and very quietly positive and patient. I have never actually met another woman like her.

She brought up 5 children on her own after her husband left for Indonesia and sort of "never came back". Those were the fate of many Foochow women in Sibu in the 60's and 70's

Her eldest son helped her and then her eldest daughter graduated and came along to help. This was how she worked out her financial situation. Her older brother gave her some help.

But amazingly, she and her mother in law got along like sisters and she would say this to me and my sisters,"She is my children's grandmother and I have to look after her".

Tiffin carriers remind me of kind women like my Ah Koo. She was filial to her MIL and cooked for her for more than 12 years.

Her children are very blessed today.

May she rest in peace.

John Ting's Home Library

John Ting Sik Kang has one of the best home libraries in Sarawak. He loves books and has been a collector of books for years! And he reads every book he can lay his hands on.

I remember one time he got very excited when someone told him that my old school, Methodist Secondary School library was throwing out some old books. He called up a friend and rushed with him to the school, at last to find lots of good history books written in English in the dust bin!!

He took most of them home and put them in his beloved home library. He had given the books a new posh home.

One of the books he took home is "A History of China" by Fairbanks, a book we used as a reference book during my 6th Form in 1968.

It is a pity that history of China (East Asia)  is not taught in Malaysian 6th Form now.

Although he is retired from many associations , he is still involved with many seminars and workshops on literature, culture and other topics he is interested in.

He is truly a man of LETTERS and BOOKS.

Miss Wong Hie Ding and Her Knitting

Miss Wong Hie Ding was a missionary and later a teacher of Methodist Secondary School from the time she migrated to Sibu in the 1930's until she retired in the 1970's. She served the school with diligence and dedication. She was one of the most highly educated China born and qualified Chinese langauge teachers in Sibu in those days.

When she retired, the school board of management presented her with a framed plaque, a calligraphy with the slogan, " Dedicated and Committed Service".

Her other gift was a Bible. What were befitting gifts for a retiring teacher? To her these were good enough.

Miss Wong was a sweet teacher, who taught knitting (as her extra curricular activity), Chinese literature and Chinese language. She was able to serve well in spite of the language changes in the Education System of Sarawak in the 1950's and throughout the 1960's.

For more than 20 years of her later life she must have been very worried about her status as a teacher. She was stoical, very cultured and well mannered as teacher. She carried out her missionary teacher role well and helped with many church women's activities in Sibu with commitment. She walked every where when carrying out her duties. She cycled to the Methodist Secondary School from the 50th Anniversary Methodist Building at Island Road throughout her career. Just before she retired she moved to live with Miss Hsu her life long friend from China. Miss Hsu was a pastor cum teacher, trained in China also. The two of them were inseparable.

As a teacher she had to under so many changes, political, linguistic and social. She saw the phasing out of Chinese medium of instruction, as well as the English medium. Just before she retired she saw the coming of the Bahasa Malaysia as medium of instruction. Being mono lingual, having been trained in Chinese only, she had to bear the burden of teaching in a secondary school which used English as a medium of instruction in the 60's.

How did she manage? She taught many classes of Chinese language. As a teacher, she had to be in charge of a club. So she chose knitting as her co curricular activity. She had Iban, Malay, non Chinese speaking Chinese and perhaps even one or two boys. She used sign language and her great sense of humour. She was admirable. And there was a school exhibition which show cased the work of her students' knitting. She was given a pat on the shoulder by the Principal  and the staff. Today knitting is no longer taught in school but it is still a global hobby.

We were glad that she was loved by the Board of Management, the staff and all the students of the Methodist School, Sibu. The management ensured that she was legally emplaced in the government service and had a pension, as she was such a good employee with very high ethical standards. This was the culture we all experienced teaching and learning in a Methodist Mission School.

Miss Wong was a good friend to many people in Sibu. She also preached and spoke to a lot of small groups. She was such an agreeable person that many testifed that no one could ever be her enemy. Always helpful, she would always be the first one to comfort a grieving widow, to help ease the broken hearted, and to help a child stop crying.

One of her favourite Foochow statements when comforting a child was "Tell me why you are crying?
Don't be afraid...."

She was such a small woman and yet she was not afraid to confront many obstacles and many Goliaths.

She was one of the Angels in Cheongsame in the early days of education in Sibu. She remained single all her life, extremely frugal in life style, dedicating herself to the education of the new generation.

Nang Chong Stories : Three Child Brides 1901 - 2019

 Three of the female family members of my maternal grandfather's family made the family history amazing.

The family history started with his father, who never remarried after his long suffering wife took her own life due to extreme anxieties. It sounded like a Qing Dynasty TV drama set in the 1850's.

According to some oral stories, after she gave birth to her youngest son, my maternal grandfather, Lau Kah Jui, she was so demoralized by the family gossips about her poor family that she became very desperate and weakened spiritually. The stories was oft repeated that she had married into the Lau family without any bridal gift. Burdened with such social inaequacy and even shame, she went into depression and could not be comforted as she nursed her baby. It could also be because she was suffering from post natal depression as those days were hard times.

According to family stories, she jumped into the Min river to end her own anxieties.

That was the the beginning of the saga of the three motherless Lau  brothers, Lau Kah Mik, Kah Tii and Kah Jiu.

My maternal great grandfather had already bought a child bride for his eldest son, Kah Mik and by the time he was 20 he had fathered two children.

Kah Tii who was around 15 years old then, decided to venture to The Southern Ocean with Wong Nai Siong. 

As he had lost his mother young, Kah Jui a toddler was breastfed by his eldest sister in law, the wife of Kah Mik. For that reason and bonding, Kah Jui was forever grateful to Kah Mik and his wife.

Lau Kah Tii's father worked hard in the farm and managed to "buy two child brides" for his younger sons. Indeed, the eldest son and his wife (a child bride to start with) helped him manage the household.

Just before Lau Kah Tii left for Sibu, Sarawak in 1901, his father bought two child brides, one 9 years old and one 5 years old.



My maternal grandmother Tiong Lien Dieh was bought for 5 silver dollars, from the Tiong Village, Kay Tou Puoh. It was supposed to be one dollar for one year of age. My grandmother's father wanted to earn one extra dollar, so he lied about my grandmother's age. Instead of saying that she was four, he told my great grandfather she was five.

But according to family stories, she was very smart and very alert,and quick with work. She was well loved by the family and especially by her eldest sister in law, Kah Mik's wife.

The three daughters in law grew up and were very close. Unknown to them at that time, they were to bring about many generations of Nanyang Foochows who were successful, and indeed many of their descendants have moved to New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.