Wood Fire and Kettle

This photo reminds me of my grandfather who at a very old age was determined to start all over again to build a brick factory in Sg. Aup. He would boil his own water in exactly the same kind of kettle (which has been around Sarawak for a very long time) very carefully and make his own Chinese tea. The chicken wings would never have been part of his diet by the way. He ate very very simple food and in small amounts.

This kind of kettle is very portable. Have kettle and rice pot will travel my grandfather used to say.

He came with the third batch of Foochow pioneers and had a great struggle to make it. He did and found a fortune.

He later moved around a bit from Sibu to Bukit Lan to Kerto to Bintangor to lead in various enterprises and made successes of them. He had cinemas, motor launches,ice mills, rice mills and rubber and banana plantations under his belt.

His last endeavour was to contribute the making of bricks in the early days of concretisation of Sibu in the fifties and sixties. The family carried on his business after he passed away at a very ripe old age.

To me he lived life to the fullest and was a very "green" person as he only wished to make his money from nature e.g. bricks from earth, ice from water and rubber from growing of rubber. He had "cursed " any gambling or opium den.

He respected life and nature and would not hesitate to advise any one on how to love nature. He was one of the first person in my life to help me value the practices of recycling when I was only in primary school. And that was half a century ago!!

I am really proud of my grandfather who taught me about fearing God,hard work,being humble, determined and independent even though deep in his heart he had wanted me to be born a boy.

The Rattan and Wood Plantation Chair

My paternal grandfather owned a very beautiful rattan and wood plantation chair which he loved. It was very similar to the one in the photo. In fact this kind of chair is very hard to find unless one can find an antique shop which stocks this model. This type of chairs were very popular in the 1920's. Indians and the Thais made a lot of these chairs for the South East Asian market.

Grandfather would sleep on it in the afternoon as he had this siesta habit. The chair was very cool and airy because of the rattan used. He placed this chair in his little room where he had some privacy from children and visitors. Having very set habits no one should disturb his afternoon rest and my grandmother made sure that the rules were kept in the house.

Sometimes we naughty children would climb up the beautiful chair and try to sleep in it. But unfortunately, because we were small, we could not raise our feet onto the foot rest and the chair was too long for us. So we did not have the pleasure of getting a good afternoon's rest in this excellent, ergonomically made chair.

We will always remember with fondness that we tried our best not to disturb grandfather when he was having his afternoon sleep.