Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 01-05-12 19:25
My Family in the British Colonial Malaya - 1858 to 1960 (5)
089 Round the clock curfew - 1950
好鐵不打釘,---Hao3 tie3 bu4 da4 ding,
好男不當兵.---Hao3 nan2 bu4 dang bing.
Good iron will not be made into a nail,
A good son will not become a soldier.
A Chinese proverb
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://yn.chung.id.au/24HoursCurfew.jpg
This was Tanjong Malim a small town about 50 kilometers west of Kuala Lumpur.
Pusing was like this town that the British Colonial Authorities often imposed
24 hours curfew on it. Someone wrote a book about it which was made into
a movie title
"Virgin Soldier".
In order to prevent the Hill People (山頂老 or members of the Malayan Communist
Party MCP) from coming into the town to obtain food stuffs, the British
Colonial Authorities wanted to put up a barbed wire fence to round in Pusing
town. The Hill People gave notice that they would kill anyone who dared
to help the British to put up the fence. No Chinese contractors dared to
do the job. Seeing that no one wanted to answer the tender the British engaged
two planters from a rubber estate from another town to do the job. The planters
employed Tamil Indian rubber tappers from their estate to put up the barbed
wire fence. The job of fencing went on smoothly without any incident for
the first day.
However, the next day morning the Hill People came down from the jungle
and put a bullet to each of the British contractors' heads. They died instantly
on the spot. The Indian workers were unharmed. The British Colonial Authorities
were furious. They imposed a twenty-four curfew on Pusing town. Many families
ran out of water and food because they never expected this kind of incident
would happen. The residents put up sign board in front of their houses saying
they were without food and water. With military trucks full of food and
water, the British soldiers went round distributing food and water to those
in desperation, according to the number of members in the families.
The British soldiers with Malay interpreters, no Chinese dared to work for
the British at that time, in Malay language, telling the residents to close
all their windows. As the Pusing residents were almost 100% Dongguan Hakka
(東莞客家) many of them did not understand Malay language they did not do
what was told. The British threatened to arrest them. In the end the British
had no alternatives but to employ a few Cantonese Chinese as their interpreters.
The Pusing residents understood Cantonese dialect.
The British imposed a fine of forty Malayan dollars ($40) on each adult
(over the age of 18). Those who had no money to pay for the fines the British
forcefully removed their bicycles or any of article, that worth forty dollars,
in the family and stored them in the Pusing Police Station. The owners
of the articles received receipts for their articles. They were told to redeem
their articles when they had the money. The Pusing residents thought that
the British were too harsh on them and they also thought that the fines
were to compensate the widows.
Actually the British did not touch the money at all but deposited in the
Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Ipoh earning a compound interest of ? %. In
the early 1957 before the British left Malaya and before Malaya became an
independent country, they paid the money back to the Pusing residents who
used half of the money to build an English primary school so that those
children who wanted to study English did not have to go to Batu Gajah to
study. They used the other half to build a Chinese public library (民眾圖
書館).
I was one of the residents who went to Ipoh to help buying Chinese books
for the newly built library. A few of us wrote to the Embassies of the U.S.A.
and Australia for books and magazines. We received tons of them from these
two Embassies, but all of them were in English language.
[*1]
The Star Online > News > Friday, April 19, 2002
Pusing's Hakka delights
By Foong Thim-Leng
IPOH [怡保]:
Pusing [布先] 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 [東莞縣] in
the Guangdong province [廣東省] of China 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, wantan mee and paan mee (broad noodles in soup served with ikan bilis,
prawns, pork and leafy greens [刀痲切]). However, nothing beats the nyonya
and Hakka kuih [cakes] 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 townós specialities
ǔ pink hei paan (made of glutinous rice) and the black chuh yip paan made
of glutinous rice and ramie leaves.
The chuh yip paan [抽葉粄 Zhu Ye Pan] is most popular during Qing Ming
[清明] festival. 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 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.
"There are residents who believe the townós 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 which locals called Chow Mun
Loong, 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 late 1950s 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 [鐘森], Foong Seong [馮相],
Leong Hon Nyean [梁漢元] and Datuk Cheah Fah [謝華 father of Dr Jeffery
Cheah, the President of the Federation of Hakka Associations of Malaysia].
"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.[See my postings "Tales of a Hakka town"]
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.
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. 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 area' 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.
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.
By Foong Thim-Leng
................................................
Posted to Overseas Chinese Forum at asiawind.com
By CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
All rights reserved
|
|
The Asiawind forums are provided to you by
InTechTra Inc.
