MediaWiki:August

From askoh.net wiki

Koh Kim Lock History continued

(3rd.Dec.20028.

Bukit Berung during my childhood days.

It was a village situated about five miles away from Melaka town. It was mainly a Chinese farmers village. The farm houses were built far apart from each other and the farmland for cultivation for each farmer were also large. There were meant for wet padi planting. The whole aea was well irrigated. There was a man-made canal run through the middle of the village with small tributories running among the padi field (the Malays call the padi field 'sawah'). We can still see the main canal if we travel from my grandpa's house to Jelotong where the deads are burried. The head of the canel is at the Air Keroh, it was a very thick jungle then and we seldom went up there in those days. The reservoir is still there today although it is not as serene as in those days. We always blame the colonialist as being bad but to see what they had done to make the colonies productive, they deserve the profit they made out of the colonies. They must have done a lot of surveying and they must have employed a lot of labourers to dig the canal and build the road from Melaka town to Air Kroh.

The water buffalos were not allowed to walk on the bunds of the cannal or the bunds of the tributories. If one is cought it will be a five dollar fine.

Between Melaka town to my grandpa's farm there is a small town with a Hokkian run provition shop, a mamak coffe shop and a Hainanese coffee shop. There was a Malay school with Malay kampong. There was also a mosque. The road was red dusty one, when any vehicle passed by it stirred up a cloud of red dusty cloud. There was no public transport serving the village. People who wanted to go to Melaka town would use bicycle or private car. There was one private car ferry vegetables and people to town, whether it has any permit to do so it was an unknown matter. At that time only my grandpa had an Austin car in that village. Because he had to go to Machap to supervise his workers from time to time say four or five time a month. He had the contract to look after 1,000 acres of rubber estate in Machap while my fater had 1,000 acres of the other half of the Ong Eng Tiang rubber estate. Ong Eng Tiang had another l,000 acres of rubber estate at Tebong which is about six to seven miles away from Machap. The estate was looked after by my mother'second sister husband.(In Chinese I called him Ah Teor). He lived in a small town called Pasir about one mile away from Machap.He also had an Austin car. He could drive his own car while my grandpa had to employed a driver whose name was Wahup. In those days we only knew Austin for cars, Reliegh or Herculis for bicycles and the best and high class cigarettes were Craven 'A' black cat head brand in the 50stick round tin. Of course with other host of British made products. I presume at that time there was no such thing as free trade treaty etc. From my recollection life at that time was very peaceful until the year l937 when the Japs attacked the China proper when I heard about the looming of the second world war. The sound of war grew louder. Sometime my grandpa went to Melaka town with me to a small open field next to the Central Market to listen the radio broadcast on the war front, of course I did not understand the whole thing until they said that the Jap had landed on Malayan soil. Then I saw them when they came to our village and to my grandpa's house to grab the cars and petrol. As the war was approaching my grandma passed away. I think she died of lung cancer because she had suffered sever pain on and off for almost a year. One morning I was waken up and told that she had died. My grandpa sold the car away and I remember like a few months later the Jap arrived. In the village particularly around my grandpa's house they were a lot of Melaka townfolks came to take up refuge to escape the Japs, even Ong Eng Tiang put up a Malay type house next to my grandpa's house to take refuge and his large household including the servants took up refuge in the school building next to my grandpa's house. The whole area was just like a small town. They went back to Melaka town when the situation became stable. I think that was about two to three months after the Japs arrived. That was after the Japs had arrested the ones that they wanted and killed them emass. Those are the people who were active in organising the resistance against the war effort. My father was one of the figures in Machap who organised various activities to collect money to send to China to fight the Japs invasion. So he went into hiding too. The Japs knew so much about these anti-Japanese activists was because of the local informers, they were the culprits. The war had brought hardship to my grandpa's and my father's fortune. The rubber estate was left unproductive. My grandpa had to rely on his farm and my father spent his days in hiding in Melaka town with no income. On the second year of the occupation I and Kim Chan moved to Machap to live with my uncle who was helping to look after my father's small provision shop. In the beginning of the occupation we still had some business to do because we had a rice distribution licence. Rice, sugar, salt, kerosene and cloth were on ration. Slowly all these things disapeared from the market. We had to rely on local supply. We make our own sugar, we distill our own salt, we used coconut oil in lue of kerosene etc. Our bicycles used tyre without air type and out shoes were made from raw rubber sheets etc.etc. If the Japs were to stay for another two or three years we would be going back to the stone age.

I do not know much about my grandpa's background. I only knew that his father came from China and he was the first generation born in Malaya. I was not told as to where he was born. I assumed that he was born in a house across the road below the present house where we lived. I was told that the house was built with large earthen brick blocks. He built the present house when he made some money. How he made the money I was not told. I presumed that it must be from his contract work with the rubber estate. I believed that he was the only son because I never hear anything about he had any broher or sister. In turn he also had only one son. I can remember when his son was born because I was already about five or six years old then. I remember that my grandma was suffering from hard labour because I was by her bedside. He adopted one son from one of his relative but I never saw the relative concerned. The adopted son was not a bright fellow and worked in the farm for the whole of his life. He produced one son from the first wife and he turned out to be not normal. He did not disturbed people but he could not live and work intelligently. He died miserably. I am sad to think of him.

My grandpa: I do not know what to say about him. He is a normak sane individual. He was a person belonging to the old traditional norms. He did not believe in the Western medicine because he did not want to see Western trained doctors. He did not want to send very sick person to hospital for help. He sent us to school and he was the head of the school board but he never read newspaper or book. He knew of the importance of school but I don't think he knew why it is important. The only book I used to see him referring to was the book about weather and dates good for marriage,dates barial etc.etc.(all about what they call Feng Sui). He never take alcohol but his only son died of drinking at the age of fifty plus. He never drank pure water except luke warm thick Chinese tea. There was a special cotton padded box to keep his tea warm at all time. He seldom stay at home during the day time, what I heard was he spend his time in gambling. He would go round inspecting the sawah and he would lectured to his adopted son and others harshly during the dinner time. Our dinner was in three shifts. The first shift was for him, me, Kim Chan and other grand children. The secon shift was for the manhood, i.e. the adopted son, the farmhand, Ah Lian and his brother etc. The last shift was for women folks. He used to sit in a separate chair away from the head of the dinner table and gave all the lectures as what was wrong and what should be done etc. We seldom got togather to talk even at night because at night we had to chop a kind of grass to boil for feeding the pigs. This may take up two to three hours. My memory of those days is pleasant one although I used to get spanking from time to time. I think it was all of my own faults as I was very mischievious fellow.

My grandma: I am afraid I have nothing much to tell about her. She is just like any other woman folk. What I know about her was she rared about two to thirty pigs and sold them when the pigs had come of age. She managed the house. Before Chinese New Year she would take us to Meleka Town to buy our new year outfit such as new shoes, hats, belts, shirts and shorts. The choosing of the colour of the hats and clothing took a long time and the fitness of shoes and hats were also determined by the elders. The criterion was the sizes of the hats,shoes etc. must be larger for one year's growth. A good hair cut was a must and I still remember the Indian barbers were talking so much amomong themselves. After all these were done we had to go back quickly before four or five o'clock for the pigs, the ducks and the chicken would be making noice for food. I remembered she suffered a lot before she died. Of course we were not told what she was suffering from. I remembered she died just not long before the Japanese arrival.

My father: We didn't stay togather for long. I was raised up by my grandpa and grandma from as young as I could remember. When I went to live in Machap shophouse during the Japanese occupation (l942 to l945) he was staying in Melaka town. While I was in Machap I was staying with my uncle and his wife. My uncle was his youngest brother, another younger brother remained in China. I went away from Melaka in Sept. l952. Even when I was in Melaka we did not stay in the same roof as he was renting a room few door away from the shop to life with my step-mother and step-sister. So all in all we somewhat stay togather from middle of l946 to Sept. l952, 6yrs. To sum up about my father I would say that he was a good man as it should be. He was honest, straight forward, hard working and with vision. He was not a poplar person because of his no nonsense atitude in dealing with others but he was respected who understood him. The reason why I went to his village where he came from upon my first visit to China was my desire to know the back ground of his make-up so to speak. He came from a small remote village without much education. He never mentioned about his education but I had noticed that he could a bit of reading but he seldom read. If he did read once in a while it would be the newspaper only. His only aim in life just like any other overseas Chinese of the day was to be rich. In his case although he did not become rich but he tried to give education to his children to their most capability resulting that Kim Chan became a doctor. I did not become anybody because I was not good in study myself. His other actions showed that he was trying his upmost to elevate us to be successful in life. I was told that he bought a piano to present the school in which I sister was schooling. He bought a set of table tennis playing equiptment and a set of badminton playing equiptment for my sister to use. He also bought a swing and put it up at the back of the shop for her jus to make her happy to stay with him but unfortunate my sister did not stay in Machap with my dad for long. She went back to my grandpa's house again. I think this was due to the fact that my sister did not have good companion there. At that time very few fathers on earth would do so much to make a daughter happy. Between l939 to l941 I heard that my dad had taken anoter wife but I do not remember of seeing her even once and it ended up in divorce. I use the word another because he seemed to have dicorced the first wife before marrying my mother, of course I did not hear any story about the episode. My mum died when I was three while Kim Chan was three months old. So he took the third wife when I was between seven or eight years old. According to the story being told on and off I presum that the third wife was quite a young girl and that she was of course did not like to stayed in the shop day in and out. So frequent quarells ensued and finally divorce. Another strong point about him was he never gamble in his whole life for what I know of him. I never saw him pitch drunk although he was a regular drinker. He drank everyday but only after taking the evening bath and before eating dinner. The bad thing about this drink was he used to talk a bit too much and in a way it was out of tune due to the influence of the acohol, and this was a daily occurance. So he made himself an unpleasant person and it cost him the affection of the family.

My uncle, that was my father's youngest brother. He had two younger brothers. The first younger brother hang himself in l951. I went to school at age six and the first teacher I had was my own uncle, in Bukit Beruang. I learnt that he came from China and had no job so he became a teacher in my school. My school was a small village school. There were about thirty to forty pupils. The standard range from standar one to four or five. There was only one teacher to teach all the subjects. The subjects being taught were of course reading, writing, arithmetic and letter writing. I remember the letter writing stuff very well because I alsway got detained in school for not able to reside the text of a letter and the next difficult thing was the multiplication table. A lot of pupils got trouble with the time table as they called it.

When the Japanese was approachin Malaya, my father sensed the danger and so called my uncle to go back to look after his shop. At that time everybody was worrying on one thing or the other. Those who had young unmarried daughters worry that they may be raped by the Japs or the bad people during this disturbing time. So my uncle was vertually given one young girl as a wife (what I mean was with simple marriage ceremony.) I remembered that when I was in Machap with my uncle he used to gamble every night. He did not stayed home to eat dinner with us during the festive days like new year eve, cheng beng, dumpling festival day, and full moon festival etc. He had dinners with his friend who had a provision shop just like ours at the end of the street. Sometime he used to get drunk. He only remained in the shop when he was really necessary and when my father was present. Remember that my father was staying in Malacca Town hiding away from the Japs. After the Japanese occupation we move to Melaka town that was in the early l946. We ran a provision shop. We bought goods on bulk from the suppliers and in turn sold them to the smaller shops from the villages such as from Machap,Jasin etc. in smal quantity on credit term. Because of this it was difficult for us to make large profit and allowed the creditors to run away with debts. In l951 my father and my uncle split the business. The terms and conditions of the split were not clearly known to me. I still stayed in the shop until l952 when I joined the lst.Bn. Federation Regiment. In the beginning I was apprehensive of the army but later on I felt so free. I felt I had an opportunity in the army. Whatever it was, I did not feel hopeless.

The feud between my father and uncle is simple. My father blamed my uncle for not hard working enough because he liked to get up late in the morning and of course his work was unsatisfatory in father eyes. My uncle despised my father for being inferior to his standard of education because my uncle spent more time in school and being better educated so he thought that he was more intelligent and more capable than my father. But the actual fact was my father was more capable of making money. He was supposed to be the richest person in that village. So their their partnership broke up when they split the busines in 1950. That is the reason lead me to believe that everyone should go on his own way never to work together with anyone.

I think my story of my life with my family is over with me leaving to join the armed forces. My advice is never to live with relatives under any circumstances. Stay away from each other and peace will be on earth.