Re: hakka: Tales of a Hakka town (1)

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

>      In Menglembu  there is a Wan Li Moong Kayin Ng Sook Fee Guon - the 
>      Menglembu Kaying Hakka Association (Wanliwang - Jiaying Wushu 
>      Huiguan). The Hakka folks that started this Fee Guon came mainly from 
>      Moiyan region, (Guangdong, Meixian). 

   Is it near the Wan Hua Chinese school
   around the old cinema biulding or on Lahat Road?
   Can't remember now.
      
>      The Menglembu Kaying Association was formed around 1936.  The majority 
>      of the early Hakka folks were engaged in tin mining activities then.  
>      The members of this association had also build a Zhong Foon - Main 
>      Grave - in the Menglemb Old Cemetry.  Annually, the association 
>      committee members still conduct the tomb sweeping ritual at the Zhong 
>      Foon.


   I think the Main Grave of your association is at the foot of the hill
   called Xin Ji Shan. My father used to have a tin mine there. The MCP
   gave his mine a lot of trouble. There was an occasion when all his mine
   workers were arrested by the police. I was there as a very young kid.      


>      Menglembu, Pusing, Batu Gajah, Papan, Lahat  is situated in the Kinta 
>      Valley, which has one of the riches tin deposit area in the world. The 
>      towns are sitting on the foothills of the Kledang range.  I would 
>      guess that the hills around the Kinta Valley reminded the early Hakka 
>      folks of their hilly villages back home.
>      
>      The centre of the Kinta Valley is Ipoh. The city has a population of 
>      about 500 thousand inhabitants.  The early Hakkas played an important 
>      role in the development of Ipoh town more than a hundred years ago.   
>      This is evident in the Ipoh Kaying Association, which has its 
>      association building located in centre of the old town of Ipoh city. 

   Ipoh is the capital of Perak, but the main administration center
   of Kinta Valley is still in Batu Gajah where there was an old mining 
   pond which the British sodiers and the local residents used it as
   a swimming pool. I as a young lad and my young friends swam there
   hundreds of times. We cycled there. What a sweet memory!  
 

 CHUNG Yoon-Ngan