Kabong

It was my second time back in Kabong in a month, before that I have been estranged from it for at least 13 years. This time around, we visited so we could help my uncle move out of the shophouse that has been in my family for generations. The once glorious sundry shop, Kian Seng, also doubled as my paternal ancestral home since they travelled across the South China Sea and settled down in this tiny fishing village currently 6 hours of car ride away from Kuching City.

When we arrived, it was late in the afternoon and Kian Seng has now been reduced to a shell of what it used to be. The shelves are still where they have been for decades since great-grandpa started out his sundry business but most of them were empty. Things were neatly spaced out across the shelves to fill the spaces that used to be tightly packed. All the items for sale were leftover stock that nobody had cared to buy; spray paints, kerosene, diesel for boats, fishnet mending tools...

The pouring rain was slowing down to a drizzle outside but we stayed in and away from catching a cold. Kabong town is calm, quiet and homely even though I haven't been there much throughout my life. As we stood around the shopfront, my eldest uncle who owns the shop pulled out an old book from behind the counter. It was a record of Sarawakian-Chinese-owned businesses in the 1930s. He flipped it to a particular page and started to tell us about the history of the humble sundry shop that is approaching its end :

My late-great-grandfather, 蔡妈长, migrated to Sarawak in the early 1900s. His uncle brought him and his siblings on a voyage through the South China Sea from the Fujian port of Xiamen. According to my father, the two main rows of shophouses were built by great-grandpa along with other villagers. The main contributors to the town's pioneering shophouse development were each given a unit for each own's business. Great-grandpa started his sundry business with his shop, ”长记“ (Tiang Kee), and lived on the first floor with his own family of 8 while his brother's family owned the unit next to his. Here's the page that my uncle took pride in showing us :

Great-grandpa passed on quite young and left his business... in the wrong hands. Tiang Kee went into decline after the inheritor stripped off all that were once glorious about it and plunged it into enormous debts. After the exploitation, the person skipped town and left the business in bad shape to my late-grandfather who was only at the young age of 16. Attempting to rid Tiang Kee of its bad reputation & debts, grandpa renamed the shop as his namesake, “建生“ (Kian Seng). He then had to slowly work his way up to keep his 'new' business and family afloat. He did all that he can to stand on his own two feet as the 'man of the house' and later successfully expanded the business after decades of toil.

Kabong used to be the economic centre where neighbouring towns within the Betong area would go for groceries & supplies. The town is located at the mouth of the Krian River and is also famous for its wide beach stretch, Pantai Tanjung Kembang. That made it one of the epicentres for villagers from inland towns and other coastal towns to travel to by boats. The Brooke family who were the White Rajah of Sarawak even had a fort built in town in 1895 (originally 1878 but yeah, Google that yourself). Fort Charles is now a kindergarten for the local villagers but there's a certain irony to the sight of barbed wire fences around the supposedly cheerful environment. Historically, Kabong was a fishing village with a mixed population of mainly local Malays and early 1900s Chinese settlers. Native villagers, mostly Iban, lived in secluded longhouses around the area but all gathered in town to trade. Hence, everyone who lived in the area spoke the local dialect of Bahasa Sarawak -- a fusion language between Malay and various native tribal languages.

My late-grandpa was known and beloved as 'Bujang Kurus' to the townspeople and his younger brother was 'Bujang Gemuk.' Together, their names meant 'Skinny Bachelor' & 'Plump Bachelor' in Bahasa Sarawak. I can't help but find humour in the nicknames that people used to give to others. My father is known as 'Ah Bok' or 'the fat one' while my eldest uncle who inherited the shop is 'Ah Tao' or 'the head' (as in 'eldest') in the Chinese dialect of Hokkien.

In Kabong town, everyone knows everyone so we really stood out as strange faces in town. The market stall vendors and passer-bys often asked us who we are to which my dad proudly proclaim himself as 'anak Bujang Kurus' (Skinny Bachelor's son). And if dad wasn't around with us, we'll just say we're 'anak buah Ah Tao' (Ah Tao's niece and nephews). When they recognised the names, their faces lit up and they would begin to bombard us with many excited questions to which I can only smile, nod, and try to understand. Unfortunately, my sheltered upbringing in the comparatively racially-segregated city did not teach me how to communicate in Bahasa Sarawak, much less understand it. Dad, on the other hand, had a really great time catching up with his old friend in the coffee shop next door.

We all took turns to shower in the retro, light blue mosaic-tiled bathroom before we had a seafood feast prepared by a neighbour who owns a restaurant. There was only one shower in the house so it took a while for all 7 of us, visitors, to make the rounds. Dinner was hand-delivered to us, by us, from a few houses away through the joint concrete porch (that used to be wooden) of the century-old row of shophouses. A quick family photo before we, hungry savages, eat away :

After dinner, we cleaned up the dining table and proceeded to sit by the porch on foldable camping recliners. As cans of beers were drained, the stories started to flow from my uncles and my dad. They reminisced their childhood in the small town fondly, the family history that are known to them, and the changes they have seen of the town.

My dad told us how herds of goats used to roam around the front porch, leaving their stinking faeces everywhere. And sometimes, mischievous teenagers like himself would steal an unsuspecting goat from the herd and roast it to be split amongst themselves.

My eldest uncle brought up the story of that one time he was the sole survivor of a shipwreck in a terrible storm. He attributed his safety to the buddhist amulet he had on him during the tragedy, claiming that it had cracked mysteriously to protect him from harm.

Uncle Joseph recalled his life-changing event where he was given to my granduncle as an adoptive son. Back then, it was compulsory to have a male offspring that is able to inherit family heirlooms, businesses and the family name. It was a deeply patriarchal society where daughters were unable to inherit anything from their parents. My grandparents were blessed with a daughter (my eldest aunt) and 7 sons so grandpa decided to let his brother adopt a son of his own. It was common practice to 'distribute' children this way in their generation when they had more than enough children to share. A few of my uncles took turns to try their fate, decided by tossing two coins on the ground while kneeling before the home altar of the Hokkien deity, 'Tua Pek Gong'. If both coins show the same face, it means that they get to stay; but if it lands with a heads and a tails, the boy will be adopted by his uncle in the city of Kuching. 11 years-old Uncle Joseph's toss concluded that he will be sent away to the city but he didn't mind it because he enjoyed city life. In his new family, he also got to inherit his adoptive mother's unit of a Bidayuh longhouse but he had to officially change his mandarin name to a native name to keep it.

My generation might not know much about grandpa except for the one legendary story that we often heard of since young. It was brought up by someone during our evening chat and it goes like this: when the Japanese troops invaded Borneo Island in the Second World War, Kabong was one of the towns that were ravaged in the war. However, there were many 'Japanese' soldiers who were Taiwanese. They were put in Japanese uniforms and conscripted to go to war after they were captured in their hometowns conquered by the troops. Caught in the crossfires of the brutal war, they had no choice but to play the part they were forced to play with no intention to kill and raid. Grandpa realised that when they came to him asking for help. Presumably out of compassion, he snuck them aboard one of his fishing boats at night and wished them godspeed on their journey home. Even at 22 years old and struggling with his small business to feed his 4 siblings, he sacrificed a portion of his livelihood in the war to save the enslaved soldiers. Although I do not know whether the freed soldiers found their way home into the arms of their loved ones, it was enough for me to see grandpa's generosity and heroism.

That story offered me a different perspective of the Ah Gong (grandpa) that I came to know in my childhood. I've always had difficulty understanding him because I didn't understand nor speak Hokkien. He loved my eldest brother dearly as Jordan understands Hokkien. Even with our language barrier and generation gap, Ah Gong treated my second brother and I well too. It was a shame for us to not be able to understand what he had to say and stories he had to tell but I'm glad we got to spend time with him at least. He would roll up his own cigarettes in the living room, read the mandarin newspapers with his trustee magnifying glass and watch peking operas on television. We would often find him in dad's old office's garden where he would sit on a wooden stool and weed the whole garden with a scythe.

I remember a hot afternoon where my brother and I intended to dig out some earthworms in the garden soil to feed the koi fishes. Ah Gong was weeding the garden as always and we observed him at a distance out of curiousity. His white shirt was damp with sweat and slung over his left shoulder, he must have took it off when it got too warm under the sun. Ah Gong looked up at us and gave us his hearty signature chuckle. He gestured for us to come forward and try it out. It looked easy... until we gave it a try ourselves. That was how we found out how strong Ah Gong is for him to make it look so easy. That must have been his way to humour himself in the long hours of tedious gardening because he chuckled even more when we failed to cut the grass and looked up at him with much confusion. Ah Gong lived with us until he passed away in 2011, I will never forget that he was the legend who taught us to eat McDonald's fries dipped in vanilla soft serve.

On the next morning after the porch chat, I woke up early as promised to visit the neighbouring town of Pusa. My dad had left for the excursion even before I got up which meant that I rose early in vain. Left with nothing to do, I decided to walk around the shophouses and take in all the sights and sounds of Kabong life. I watched as my uncle and his wife attended to what little customers who entered and browsed the sparse shopfront from time to time. A very quiet life to lead indeed. A thought popped into my sluggish I-just-woke-up brain: what I'm currently witnessing is just another day in this provincial town but it is one of the last days of Kian Seng. It seemed to me at the moment that it would be best to document it so that it wouldn't be lost in the memory of my father's generation. So I whipped out my phone to start documenting, salvaging what was left of this lifestyle led by my uncle, my grandfather, and his father before him. I believe that archiving this memory accessibly, even if just a glimpse, is enough for my father and his siblings to remember their home. It should be enough for my younger cousins and the next generations to come to learn about their history; and it is definitely enough for me to remember the humble beginnings from which I came from.

My eldest brother and cousin finally got up for breakfast and a smoke in the late morning. Unenthused by the provincial life, Jordan and Shawn went straight back to take a nap before lunch time. Dad, Uncle Joseph and Dad's best friend, Ongar, returned from their Pusa trip with their hands full of shopping bags. They obviously had a lot of fun shopping in the market while leaving me in Kabong with brothers who sleep excessively.

After lunch, the men of the family started moving furnitures around the house to be prepared for delivery to Kuching. Many of us stood with our jaws ajar watching Jordan and Shawn carry the sturdy wooden drawers down the steep stairs that we all had difficulty climbing even without a deadweight.

In the afternoon heat, Ongar or 'Uncle Ongar' as we kids call him, decided to escape the heat of the stuffy shophouse. He rolled his orange car around to come pick us up to visit the beach. Pantai Tanjung Kembang is known for its long beach stretch of white sand. I've never seen the famous annual Kite Festival held there but I heard it is quite a feat. While we were there, we felt claustrophobic about the amount of people visiting the beach and disgusted by how littered the beach was. An ice pop and several photos later, we were off again to Nyabor for an impromptu fishing trip. Cousin Shawn only caught a catfish but I think that was quite enough for us to kill time and reconnect with our ancestral activity (you could say great-grandpa came from one fishing town to a smaller fishing village).

Later in the evening, I stared out at the colourful sky from Kian Seng intently. I had just showered and the others were waiting for their turns. It is wet outside from the rain that seemed to be stopping, everything on the ground was breathtakingly tinged and glistening with shades of the pink and orange palette from the sky. Seeing that the sky is so beautiful and that it's my last evening in Kabong, I dragged Jordan and Shawn out with me again. It was a great partnership between the smokers and the opacarophile (it means 'sunset-lover'). We walked across the town square and past the other row of shophouses to get to the promenade and piers. You could say that I was chasing the sunset but it was all worth it because I got to see the most fabulous rainbow that arched over the horizon.

The waters were calm and the promenade was quiet except for the motorbikes passing by every now and then. If you listen carefully, you'll hear the water lapping against the beams and the hum from the engine of a distant fishing boat chugging its way home. The other boats parked by the jetties swayed in the water, their colourful but faded and tattered flags flapped and waved in the air as the winds rushed past them and through my freshly washed hair. All was good and wonderful as I took a moment to take in the scenery and breathe in the air that my ancestors breathed. Now that I think of it, I wonder if they used to also marvel at the sight of what I saw then.

As I turned around to face the town, I was struck by the horrendous view of human pollution. I looked at the bits and pieces of rubbish bumping against the stilts of the fishermen's houses and my heart ached to see the degeneration of Kabong. If the horizon could see and this is what it is forced to look at everyday, Mother Nature would be so heartbroken. She would be disappointed at how people take her for granted after her generous blessings for them to live off and fish off her. It is no wonder that grandpa's jellyfish farm had to shut down operations after it was passed down to my uncle. How can she carry on producing for us if her health is gradually compromised by us? But still, she continues to put on her best outfit to face us optimistically everyday. What if this is her way of reminding us that she is wonderful and not to be taken for granted? How many people will get her hopeful message? How long can she last with her facade? Or could it be that she's strong enough for her beauty to prevail through humankind's toxicity? I might never know how she feels but I do know for sure that our livelihood and lives are at her mercy.

We strolled through the pier and took the long way home through the Malay kampung (village). The sky started to drizzle again. It is as if Mother Nature is shedding tears of grief for what it once was before we abused her. Her tears, gathering, flowing, and gathering again; in an attempt to wash our waste away, in her desperate attempt to flood us away. But it looked to me then like the sky was so heavy and so saturated with colours, filled to the invisible brim of the sky until it couldn't hold any more. And that's why it began to spill little droplets of liquid sunset on us, colouring everything in its way. Like children, we raced our way home to Kian Seng under the increasing drizzle, rejuvenated by the scenery and the natural shower.

On our last morning, we spent a few hours at the market where I drooled over my newest obsession -- Suman. It is a Kabong delicacy made of ground sago and marinated shrimps or fish guts wrapped in leaves and barbecued over charcoal fires. I prefer the shrimp-filled Suman and I can't help but film it to make sure that I'll be enticed enough to visit again just for this aromatic snack.

I remember what it was like to pack our things and boxes of other things onto our cramped cars. As we moved every item onboard, I kept thinking that it might be our last time in Kabong. Even if not, it will definitely be my last time in Kian Seng. It was scheduled to close two weeks after our visit. After that, it will go to its new owner and no longer be the Kian Seng that it has always been. Without the shop, the signboard sitting in a storage room is just a dusty remnant of the hardwork and foundation in which my family was built upon. Without the signboard, the shop is just the shell what 4 generations of my family used to call 'home'. It was a long journey home and we were comparatively quiet from when we came as we sat and processed the same sobering thoughts of Kian Seng coming to an end.

In this documentary, you will hear and see the many corners of Kian Seng and Kabong. Try to spot the Tua Pek Gong altar that I mentioned earlier and come with me on a road trip to the street market of Pantai Tanjung Kembang and fishing at Nyabor. Lastly, do enjoy the amazing sight that I caught of the sunset and rainbow gracing the Kabong sky.