Tales of a Hakka town (5)

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

Tales of a Hakka town (5)

The Hakkas, living in the area between the two small towns of Pusing and
Siputeh which are about four kilometers apart, were mostly immigrated 
from Dongguan county in Guagdong province. They were either rubber tappers
or tin mine workers. They called their little village Sayap which was a
Malay name.  

All the babies born in this village were home delivery and none of them
was born in a hospital. This custom was common among the Hakkas. Therefore
the babies were not registered in the hospital. Although the birth of a
baby could be registered in any police station yet none of the Hakkas did
so because it required a token fee for the registration. They argued that
they never registered their babies with any authority in Tang Shan. So
why should they bother themselves and besides they could save the little
registration fee.

In 1941 the Japanese cpnquered Malaya and occupied it for three years and
eight months. The Japanese surrendered in August 1945 and the British came
back to Malaya. All the schools were reopened in 1946. Most of the
children in Sayap village went to enroll in either the Pusing or Siputeh
Chinese schools. 

The enrolment required the birth certificate to prove the identification
of the child. This was a new regulation imposed by the British Military
Administration. Since in Sayap none of the children possessed a birth
certificate the teachers in the Chinese schools told the parents of these
kids to go and register them in either the Pusing or the Siputeh police
stations. 

The policemen were surprised to find out that the children wanted to
register their births after seven or eights or even over ten years late.  
What the policemen did was to enter in their registration books all the
names of the children with the same hour, the same day, same month but
seven years before. In order words, according to their birth certificates
those children were all born at the same hour, same day, same month, same
year and in the same village. Worst still, some of the parents wanted to
save the few cents took up only one birth certificate for their children.
It was not unusual to see a brother and a sister or two or three brothers
sharing only one birth certificate. This created a hell lot of problems
when they grew up. This was the major problem for that generation 
in this small town.

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan