Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 03-28-10 02:35
This is an email I sent to my friend Lean Yen Loong, last week.
It is about my hometown, Pusing.
http://yn.chung.id.au/Pusing.1942..jpg
It is an old map of the Kinta District which had the riches tin-ore in the
world buried underground before it was depleted in the 1980s.
The Star Online > News >
Friday, April 19, 2002
Pusing's Hakka delights
By FOONG THIM LENG
IPOH:
Pusing, a town in the Kinta Valley, has certain secrets that will fascinate
visitors if they look hard enough.
The town's founders, Hakka immigrants who came to work in tin mines from
Dongguan county (东莞县) in the Guangdong province of China (中国广东省)
during the 19th century, brought along their culinary and ethnic delights.
The Hakkas are famous for preparing stewed pork and exotic dishes sold in
the town's restaurants. Stalls in coffeshops serve curry or soup noodles
with fresh prawns, the famous Hakka yong tau foo (客家酿豆腐), wantan mee
and paan mee (broad noodles in soup served with ikan bilis, prawns, pork
and leafy greens).
However, nothing beats the nyonya and Hakka kuih made by local residents.
The kuih sellers on tricycles are found daily by the main road. Most of
the kuih are prepared the traditional way using wood-fired ovens. The recipes
are passed on from generation to generation.
The more popular ones are kuih talam, kuih with paste made of beans, coconut
or groundnuts, kuih lapis, dumplings with shrimps and shredded mengkuang,
sweet potato balls, tapioca cakes, sago kuih, yam cakes and the townos specialities
' pink hei paan (made of glutinous rice) and the black chuh yip paan made
of glutinous rice and ramie leaves.
The chuh yip paan is most popular during Qing Ming festival (清明节). Kuih
maker Chong Yoo Thai, 40, who learnt how to make the kuih from her mother-in-
law, said that,
"according to folklore, those who ate the kuih before paying homage to ancestors
at graveyards would not be disturbed by wandering spirits."
She said that herbalists used the ramie plant for its medicinal properties
in treating certain women's illnesses.
Chong said the plant, once considered a weed, was found growing in gardens
of houses and vegetable farms in Pusing.
While Chong specialises in Hakka kuih, Loo Chee Keong, 67, and his wife
Liew Soo Peng, 62, make nyonya kuih.
Liew said her mother-in-law learnt how to make nyonya kuih like kuih talam
and kuih lapis from a Hokkien neighbour.
Liew said her family also produces sago cakes, tapioca cakes and yam cakes.
Lahat state assemblyman Lee Kon Yin said that kuih from Pusing was supplied
to hawkers in other towns.
He said that Pusing, initially called Xi Di (锡地 note: It was I who gave
this name to Pusing in one of my articles before Pusing was officially named
Pusing) which means tin land, would have become a sleepy hollow, when the
tin mines closed in the 1980s, if
not for its hardworking residents.
"Hakkas are known for their ability in withstanding hardship when bringing
up their families. There's a Chinese saying that they will work until their
ten fingers are blunt, to survive," he said.
Lee said there were several versions of how the town was named Pusing, which
in Malay means spin, turn around, change direction or whirl.
"The popular version is that the town occupied a central location among
mining towns in the old days."
The town has roads linking Menglembu, Lahat, Papan, Siputeh, Batu Gajah,
Tanjung Tualang, Tronoh, Gopeng and Kampar," he said.
http://yn.chung.id.au/Pusing.1942..jpg
"There are residents who believe the town's name was derived from the circular
movement of a stone mortar pulled by cows at a sugar factory which once
existed at the fringe of the town."
"Others claimed the town was named after the swirling movement of pans previously
used by hundreds of dulang washers in nearby rivers," he said.
Lee said that Pusing was a major mining town even in the 1960s. Most of
the residents were from Kampung Gunung Hijau (喜州新村) which locals called
Chow Mun Loong (曹文龙), the name of an early "mountain rat miner" who dug
for tin ore by using rough timber shafts and tunnels in soft ground.
At the peak of the tin mining industry in the late1950s and 1960s, hundreds
of bicycles with large baskets would be parked near the market and along
the main road while their owners, cooks and their assistants from the tin
mines, did their shopping daily," said Lee.
He said that prominent tin miners who made their fortunes operating mines
in the surrounding areas included Choong Sam (钟森), Foong Seong (冯相 ),
Leong Hon
Nyean (梁汉元) and Datuk Cheah Fah (谢华 the father of Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey
Cheah, our Pusing boy."
"Elaborate feasts were held to celebrate at the mines and in restaurants
on every excuse.
The residents and villagers had a happy time as they spoke the same dialect
and could
communicate well. Even Malays, Indians and Sikhs in the town could speak
Hakka then," said Lee. However, tin mining ponds were a concern to parents
as there were cases of children drowning while swimming in them," he said.
(Note: The new name of this area is "The Land of Thousand Lakes 千湖地"
Apart from mining ponds, signs of the town's glorious mining days included
the remains of a
smelting furnace in a farm and the last of a kongsi which once housed the
office, store and quarters of a tin-mining company near the town. The kongsi
has now been converted into a
motor-mechanic workshop. (Dear Yen Loong, where is this kongsi? Is it on
the way to Siputeh?)
Farmer Cheong Choong Choong, 79, said Pusing, like other towns, went through
hard times during the Japanese Occupation and the Emergency.
"After surviving the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders, the Emergency
brought a new wave of terror. The entire town and villages were surrounded
by an electric fence in the early 1950s to prevent residents from providing
supplies to communist terrorists operating in hills at the back of the town.
(Dear Yen Loong, in front of your house was the barbed wire and the electric
fence and the police check point was near by on the way to Batu Gajah.)
"One had to be careful in what one said even in coffee shops as one would
not know who would be listening.
Several residents were shot dead because they said the wrong things or were
believed to be supporters of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party founded
by Dr Sun Yat-Sen which was involved in a civil war with the communists
in China.
Pusing was declared a _black areao by British authorities. On one occasion,
the British authorities fined residents aged above 18 years $30 each for
failing to provide information on the killing of a British officer by terrorists.
Part of the money was used to set up a public library while the rest was
given as compensation to the family of the murdered officer," he said.
(Note: Part of the money was used to build the Pusing English Primary School.
The British Colonial Government in Malaya paid the compensation to the
widows. I was there and I was involved in buying English books for the library.
I was learning English then in an private English school in Ipoh. Wong
Kon Nan (黄官南) and I wrote to the USA Ambassador and the Australian High
Commissioner for books and magazine. Chong Yoon Lian (张运连 Zhang Yun Lian
was elected the Governor of the new English Primary School which was built
just behind the Pusing Polce Station.)
http://yn.chung.id.au/PusingPoliceStation.jpg
A new tall Police Station had been built on the site of the old station
in 1980s.
Lee said that current development in Pusing was slow with its population
of about 20,000 comprising farmers, petty traders, mechanics and rubber
smallholders.
Many of the younger generation had left the town to work in the city, but
occasionally, they returned to their hometown to enjoy its tranquillity
and taste the familiar authentic Hakka food and delights.
Copyright □1995-2002 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)
Managed by I.Star.
This article is for Lean Yen Loong
From CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (郑永元)
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