The Storyteller from Signal Hill

(Several years ago I was involved in a community project in KK. An important part of this project was collecting stories from members of the public to compile into a book. I met and spoke to a number of people who graciously shared their stories. One storyteller was this guy who also showed great interest in the old pictures we stuck on the walls of the Gaya Street shops. That was how I found him--- looking at the pictures.)

Francis—born on Signal Hill in 1945, at a time when Jesselton had been reduced to smoky piles of rubble—has enough stories to keep his listeners enthralled from morning till nightfall and still the telling would not be done. However, the stories need to be coaxed out of him but once he’s convinced he has an interested listener, the words tumble out effortlessly.
                                    

                                             

                                  

Even his name has an interesting tale. His father, also named Francis, gave the same name to two sons and also named his daughter Francisca!

“My father named us after his favourite saint,” he explains, “Saint Francis of Assisi.”

Francis’s grandfather and his wife were among the Hakka families recruited by the North Borneo Chartered Company to start farms in North Borneo. They landed in Kudat but made their way to Jesselton where Grandfather Chong became a trader dealing in sundries and selling them to the local community including the Bajau fishermen in Jesselton.

                                             

                                    

Francis spent his early childhood on his grandmother’s farm and among the families of Hakkas who cultivated vegetables for the market and grew rubber on Signal Hill.  These were deeply religious people who, along with Grandfather Chong, built a church on the hill. It was a Basel Mission Church and it doubled as a school. It was where Francis had his early education before he moved to Sacred Heart Primary School and later to Sabah College.

His father was a high court clerk who was proficient in Malay, Chinese, Kadazan and English.  His office, on the hill near the Atkinson Clock Tower, had a magnificent view of the town and the South China Sea. As a government servant, he was provided with quarters so the family need not live in the attap-roofed, zinc-walled houses built on stilts over the sea where, on windy days the houses shook and during high tides the walls were slapped and hit by incessant waves.

“My father’s government house was one of several arranged in neat rows near the beach in Tanjung Aru,” Francis says. “It was spacious and although all the government houses were built of attap and kajang there were no cases of fire.” Perhaps people were more cautious then, knowing the fragility of their situation especially when there was only the Armed Constabulary to turn to when there were fires because a fire brigade was non-existent.

What does Francis remember most about living in the kajang houses?

“I could hide in the attic,” he says. He smiles broadly before he continues. “The toilet… well, it wasn’t really what you’d call a toilet today. Each house had an outhouse some distance from the living quarters. There was a bucket placed underneath a hole and every morning a man we called Ah Pak would remove the bucket and pour the waste into another pail. Then he had to clean the empty bucket with water before replacing it in the outhouse. I was told he was paid three hundred dollars although I had no way of finding out whether it was true or otherwise.” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe that there were people who didn’t mind working as a shit collector.

In Jesselton itself, latrines were built directly over the sea and narrow timber catwalks connected them to the land. Passing boats could be rowed very near the latrines and many townsfolk were known to sit nervously in the cubicles because they could not dismiss the possibility that a passing boatman might just use an oar or a pole to poke him in the rear just for fun.

There was a time when one latrine was painted white and another, some distance away, was red. No one now remembers why there was a white toilet and a red toilet. Perhaps one was for males and the other for females? Or it was convenient to tell a family member: "I’m at the red latrine if anyone looks for me”!

Francis himself worked at various jobs that included living in the wild and collecting soil samples as a Junior Agricultural Assistant. He later became a policeman but left the police force so he could go on his own adventures and chase dreams instead of law-breakers.

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

(Reproducing a post I wrote on 31 August 2010…)

People are shouting ‘Merdeka!’ and enjoying the public holiday. Another day off from work. While I sit at home and watch the celebrations on TV, I can’t help feeling somewhat peeved that the announcers and the people being interviewed on TV keep repeating that Malaysia is celebrating her 53rd year of independence.

Fifty-three years? Hellooo? Malaysia was formed on 16 September 1963, just forty-seven years ago. Unless you, my dear reader, have also forgotten how to count, know this: what the country is celebrating with shouts of ‘Merdeka!’ is the independence of Malaya from British rule on 31 August 1957. Fifty-three years ago.

Sabah, the ‘Land Below the Wind’, was given self-rule by the British on 31 August 1963, forty-seven years ago. And exactly 16 days later, on 16 September 1963, Sabah, together with Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya united to form Malaysia. I was at the celebration parade at the Town Padang on that day. I heard the proclamation of independence read by Donald Stephens who became Sabah’s first CM. Tun Abdul Razak, the deputy PM was there. But the Tunku, the PM of Malaya was busy elsewhere.

For 46 years, no importance was placed on the anniversary of the formation of Malaysia. Only Sabah celebrated this day without fail… as Malaysia Day and also the birthday of the TYT. I am told that even the date is not recorded in students’ textbooks. It is as though some people want to mislead the younger generations into thinking that Sabah joined Malaysia, a nation that was already in existence. Wrong!

Now, suddenly someone at the federal level woke up/wised up and has called for a celebration on 16 September starting this year (2010). Better late than never, you say? I smell a rat. Sorry.

Moral: If you tell the truth from the beginning, you don't have to resort to creating lies to support the first lie or omission.

I have a list of wishes for our country:

1. I wish for exemplary leaders; leaders we can be proud of and for whom we’d go that extra mile.

2. I wish for Malaysians to look beyond their fellow Malaysians’ races and religions and know that we are all for peace, health and prosperity.

3. I wish for people to be kinder, more generous and more charitable to one another.

4. I wish that Malaysians will not follow each other blindly especially when passing on opinions or information that might not be true. In situations where the blind lead the blind, ‘they all fall into the ditch together’.

5. I wish that the day will dawn when we’d fill a form that requires just our nationality instead of the options: Malay… Indian… Chinese… Others. (I am not ‘Others’ and so are countless like me in Sabah, Sarawak; and the Peranakans, Orang Asli, etc of Malaya.)

6. I wish that the government takes care of our destitute before helping the poor in distant countries.

God bless Malaysia.

What are your wishes for our country?

The Red and White Tea Set

Photo credit: Sabah State Archives

As the Sentinel No.13 clickety-clacked to town Katie and her best friend, Esther, discussed how they were going to spend the lovely afternoon. There were things to see and friends to meet and maybe they could even watch one of those talking movies!

The mile-long trip from the station at Karamunsing took them past the mangrove swamp; past the houses on stilts connected to each other with a maze of rickety catwalks; past the police station and the jails and clumps of coconut palms on South Road; past the raintrees standing at the edge of the padang. Then there was the long, final whistle from the front of the train and it was time to get off. A glance at the quaint clock tower near the railway station told the girls it was a little after two.

Photo credit:: Sabah State Archives

                             


The coaches disgorged the passengers; tired mothers with sleeping babies strapped around their chests; traders with boxes and sacks; kampong folks with their bananas and bundles of vegetables; hawkers loaded with rattan baskets filled with snacks: boiled eggs, steamed corn, rice dumplings bound in bamboo leaves and sticky, angpow-red rice cakes sitting on bits of green banana leaves.

Neither Katie nor Esther wanted any of the snacks. They were going to have long, cold drinks—a glass of orange squash perhaps, or some lemonade with chunks of ice floating to the top of their glasses and sipped slowly through a straw. Off they went along Birch Street and into Market Street which would take them past Bond Street straight to the sea. But their favourite coffee shop was at Bond Street and that was where they went before they paid a visit to the store run by a Japanese man called Mr. Sakai.

The girls knew him well and Katie had visited him at his house (with a couple of other friends) where Mr. Sakai had made them take off their shoes on the stoop and insisted they put on slippers in the house. Mr. Sakai had a two-storey shop at Market Street. He operated a photo studio upstairs and ran a sundry shop downstairs where he sold everything under the sun: rice and salt; dried fish and rainbow-coloured sweets; slippers, dainty handkerchiefs and pretty paper umbrellas of mint-green, or drenched in pure sky-blue, or pink like the blush on a geisha’s cheeks.

Photo credit: R.Chin

That day Katie and Esther found Mr. Sakai carefully unpacking a ceramic tea set. His eyes sparkled as he held up a saucer to the girls.

“See what has just arrived from Japan,” he said. “Have you ever seen anything as beautiful?” It was square-shaped with the corners cut off and the trim alternated with white and red. On the white parts were drawn a filigree motif in gold. It reminded Katie of her parents’ bright red dragon tea set and she fell in love with it.

“Five dollars… special price for a special girl,” Mr. Sakai said. Katie smiled and shook her head as she fisted what remained of the two dollars her mother had given her. Five dollars was a lot of money. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the tea set. All through the day and on the bus home her thoughts kept going back to that red and white tea set!

As soon as she reached home Katie told her parents about Mr. Sakai’s beautiful tea set. Maybe her father understood how much she wanted it. Perhaps he wanted to show that nothing was too much for his little girl when he gave her five dollars so she could go back and buy that lovely tea set.

Photo credit: R. Chin

                                         
It was to be one of the last things Katie bought from Mr. Sakai’s shop and she has kept it all these years because it is a reminder of a time when Jesselton was a peaceful little town; the time before the war broke out and before Mr. Sakai changed completely from being a nice shopkeeper at Market Street to a fierce kempetai everybody feared and hated. Katie treasures the tea set especially because it reminds her of her father and his unique way of making her feel loved and special.

A Letter to My Anak Buah

Dear Koyoh and Gurongit, it pays to know your history so you don’t burst a vein every time some folks say Sabah belongs to them. Many people repeat stuff they’ve heard, about something they know nothing about. With that in mind, I suggest you check the facts and don’t take everything I’m saying here as the truth although I’ll tell you as closely as possible what I’ve learnt about Sabah of the 1800s.

This was a period, long past long ago, when pirates prowled along the coasts and headhunters roamed the countryside. It was long before the word ‘Sabah’ magically evoked images of black gold and dollar signs, and ages before the natives discarded their loin-cloths for made-in-Thailand underwear.

An old map of Brunei

Sabah (North Borneo) was still under Brunei then. Do you know that Brunei used to be a huge part of Borneo? The Brunei Sultanate stretched all the way from present day Sarawak to the tip of Borneo. Apparently, from the very beginning we, the natives, have been the source of income for various sultans and pengirans of Brunei. These overlords or their proxies collected poll-taxes from the people residing in their jajahan and tulin— which were really river valleys. That was why they were also known simply as sungei.

Then the white men came…

The Americans were never really interested in Sabah. However, they did offer protection to Brunei —from pirates and invaders?—in return for friendship and commerce. Brunei declined the offer because the Sultan was optimistic of obtaining British protection. Various diplomatic missions were dispatched by the Americans to the Far East including Borneo in the early 1800s.This was mainly for commercial interests, not colonial expansion.

1845: The USA offered Brunei protection in exchange for friendship and commerce. Brunei, optimistic of obtaining British protection, declined the offer.

1850: The USA obtained commercial privileges and right to establish a consulate in Brunei.

1865: The USA established a consulate in Brunei with Claude Lee Moses as Consul.

Moses was more interested in making money for himself. He saw that the Sultan hoped to use US presence in Brunei as a counter-weight against Sarawak expansion. (The Sultan had given Sarawak to James Brooke in 1846 for the latter’s role in curbing piracy… and now James Brooke wanted Sabah too!)

Borneo (Google Image)

With the dwindling empire/sultanate, the Sultan and his pengirans were getting less rich  due to loss of income because there were fewer subjects from whom to collect poll-taxes. Moses shrewdly persuaded the Sultan to lease him large concessions in Sabah for yearly rents.

Sultan Abdul Mumin leased the land from the Sulaman River to the Paitan River for $4500 annual rent. The Pengiran Temenggong signed another agreement to lease Benoni, Kimanis, Paitan, Sugut, Bongaya, Labuk, Sandakan, Kinabatangan, Cagayan and Muming for $4000 annual rent for ten years but could be renewed.

(Note: Brunei also leased areas which were not under its jurisdiction but were supposed to be under Sulu rule. Why? More about this later…)

Moses was now ‘lord and master’ of huge tracts of land in Sabah leased from the Sultan. Was he going to develop the land? No. This was before the rubber era of the next century. Was he going to collect taxes on the inhabitants of his concessions?  No! Moses quickly left for HK and was able to sell his concessions to two Americans—Joseph William Torrey and Thomas Bradley Harris, and a Chinese named Wo Hang.

Harris and Torrey (Google Image)

Torrey formed the America Trading Company of Borneo (ATC) to develop the land he had acquired.

Sultan Abdul Mumin signed a document on 24 November 1865 appointing Torrey as Rajah of Ambong and Maroodoo with the powers of life and death over the inhabitants; the right of making laws, coining money, creating an army—together with the powers and rights usually exercised by and belonging to sovereign rulers. So, Torrey was made a white rajah just like James Brooke in Sarawak!

With 12 Americans and 60 Chinese, the ATC opened a settlement in Kimanis. The new settlement was given a pretty name: Ellena. The plan was to develop commercial agriculture planting sugar cane, tobacco and rice. Unfortunately, the company had to be abandoned at the end of 1866 due to a number of reasons. Thomas Harris died after suffering a high fever. There was shortage of capital; there was sickness among the settlers and there was  labour unrest.

Thomas B. Harris's tombstone at Kimanis

Torrey returned to HK to look for someone who'd be interested to buy his property. Among those who expressed interest in this far-flung wilderness was Italy. Apparently, Sabah was perfect for a penal outpost where convicts could be sent to exile! Didn’t happen, by the way. (Can you imagine Romeos and Juliets labouring in the paddy fields and living in little water villages?)

1875: Finally, after almost ten years of looking for a buyer, an Austrian named Gustavus Baron Von Overbeck, offered Torrey $15,000 for the concessions if the Sultan of Brunei would renew the leases. The Sultan refused! So, Overbeck, having been turned down by Vienna, turned to Dent Brothers (London) for financial support.

Alfred Dent (Google Image)

1877: Alfred Dent saw great potential in the Sabah venture so in March 1877 they formed the Overbeck-Dent Association (ODA) to obtain the Sabah leases with the intention of selling them for a profit.

Dec 29, 1877: Sultan of Brunei leased his Sabah estates to Overbeck and Dent for an annual payment of $16,000—except for some tulin/private lands from Kimanis Bay in the west to the Kinabatangan River in the east. ODA appointed William Pryer as the first Resident of NB. He was to be based in Sandakan, was to eradicate piracy and establish an administrative centre for NB.

Photo credit: J. Kessey

A few weeks after the Sultan of Brunei had leased his lands to ODA, the Sultan of Sulu also sold his share of NB to Overbeck.

1883: Pangalat, Putatan, Kawang and Mantanani Islands were leased by Brunei to the British.

1884: The Sultan of Brunei signed over the Padas and Klias Rivers, and Tuaran, Bongawan for additional sums.

Jan 22, 1878: The Sultan of Sulu on the island of Maibu ( having been ousted from Jolo by the Spanish) relinquished his claim on all his territories in return for $5000 [five thousand dollars] a year, the same land the British was already paying $12,000 per year to Brunei.

1898: By 1898 the British NBCC owned the rights to every square centimeter of land in Sabah.

Now, Koyoh and Gurongit, which part of Sabah did some clown claim belong to them?

Love,

Aunty Tina

(p.s. Homework! Find out when the leases were transferred from ODA to the NBCC.)

Reference: British North Borneo Herald

Fires, Fireflies and Fairy Tales

Good question, Charles. Why was Kota Kinabalu called Api-Api? Actually, KK was known by a number of names besides Api-Api.

Let me tell you a short history of KK. The city started as a small fishing village. Because there are no written records of that very early settlement we don’t know when Bajau fishermen started a kampong there. However, we do know that except for a narrow strip of land hugging the foothills, there was little flat land in Api-Api. And we also know that the Bajaus of the old days were fond of building their houses directly over the water. So KK was just a cluster of attap-roofed dwellings built near or over the water.

Api-Api circa 1905

The areas all along the coast were covered with mangrove trees. I discovered only recently that there are thousands of varieties of mangrove and that the trees are natural protective cover along the coasts and river banks besides supporting wild life. They also act as filters which release clean water out into the sea.

Mangrove trees at KK Wetlands

Anyway, to go back to the question ‘why Api-Api?’ Some people say it was named Api-Api because of the many fires which destroyed the town from as early as 1901—just one year after a few shophouses had been built by Chinese traders who had relocated to KK after their shops were burnt in Pulau Gaya. (The NB Chartered Company started a trading post on the island in September 1882, hence the presence of shops.)

Some say it was because there were many fireflies in Api-Api. A version of this story went like this: A white man, just picking up some Malay words, was walking in the village when he saw this swarm of fireflies lighting the dark night and he exclaimed in his tottering Malay, “Api! Api!” The story about the sighting was spread by the white man’s companions. Thus the village got its name.

Don’t believe any of them! Didn’t the village have a name before the fires? Would the village be nameless if that white man had not uttered ‘Api! Api!’?

Avicennia, a type of mangrove

I tell you what I came across through my search for the answer to this question. A place is usually named by the people who lived in it or frequented it. And they usually choose a name which has something to do with the place… a natural landmark (a mountain, a big tree,) types of plants, etc… because these have been there from the very beginning. Remember Tanjung Aru, Pulau Gaya, Keningau?

So, my dear reader, KK used to be called Api-Api not because of fires or fireflies or some fancy fairy tales but because a type of mangrove called api-api (Avicennia) grew there in profusion.

The British renamed Api-Api ‘Jesselton’ after Sir Charles Jessel who was Vice Chairman of the NB Chartered Company. Now two questions for you: when was the town renamed Kota Kinabalu and why?

Old Story

So was there dancing on Gaya Street? There was dancing and there was singing late into the night! The concert was a great way to end the day that started, early that Saturday morning, with the opening ceremony of the community heritage project, dubbed ‘Bonding with Gaya Street’ and the soft launch of the coffee-table book.

I had expected a long day and so decided to camp out two nights at a hotel with a bunch of family members: daughter, cousin, sister and niece. The only female family members missing were Mother—who was of course in the kampong, and MIL who would have been appalled at such frivolity as putting up in a hotel when one’s abode is just spitting distance away. She would have said I was foolish to pay money to sleep in a strange bed.

Musical gigs in KK (in Malaysia?) are more or less always associated with the young, not retirees with grandkids. The older musicians are expected to go into hibernation and fade into the background even if they had enjoyed a fantastic following during their heyday. So it was a surprise when the musicians agreed to dust their instruments and come out of retirement. They gave such a commendable performance that what was supposed to have ended at 10 or 10.30pm was extended (by Mr. City Mayor himself!) to midnight.

It was a good show and there were appeals to stage regular concerts in town.

That sure was some excitement and magic for this old Cinderella. There was a lot to write about. But as regular readers of this blog must have noticed, there’s a big gap between this post and the previous one.

I learned a lesson working with a group of people who have had experiences a whole lot different from mine. I rediscovered my own weaknesses and how easily bruised one could get if one dwelt too much in some angry words being tossed around by people in your team especially if you looked up to, admired and had high regard for them. The best way to avoid being wounded, perhaps, is not to catch those words and slights but let them pass overhead-- like high balls—to land outside the court…or in the bushes where they’ll get lost and lie forgotten. Why should we catch something and keep it in our hearts to let it fester for a day, a week, forever? Especially when the sources of those scorching words have forgotten them as soon as they’re released from their throats.

Pre-WW2 Jesselton (Courtesy of State Museum)

Okay, enough introspection. Let’s move on.

One of the most popular sites of the community heritage exhibition was the KK Timeline. Photos and short notes based on the city's history had been stuck on the exterior walls of the corner hotel. People gathered here to read and take pictures; they started conversations with complete strangers and had discussions about the events on the timeline. Earlier a passer-by had asked if he could buy the pictures. (We’re not selling them! We’re pasting them up on the wall!) The notes? (No!) Can I take pictures? (Yes!)



I realized that people were drawn to the timeline because they don’t know the history of the city. They don’t know that KK used to be Jesselton or Api-Api and that the town was built in 1899 after the NB Chartered Company moved from Gaya Island (which was razed to the ground). They don’t know KK used to be a narrow strip of land hugging the forested hills before reclamation and development pushed the city farther and farther into the sea towards Pulau Gaya. They don’t know the train used to come right into the town bringing rubber and other goods for export to the wharf (now Jesselton Point).

Many townsfolk know little about the story of KK because it doesn’t appear in our history books but this doesn’t mean they’re not interested in their history and heritage.  I’m glad I’ve helped some people fill in some blanks.

What shall I say about Mingo?

What shall I say about Mingo?

His name had been mentioned in the same breath as our most famous—and infamous!—politicians. But until recently, I knew practically nothing about this man. Not even his real name. To me he was just Mingo, the great cartoonist; Mingo, whose fans followed his caricatures avidly during the state election campaign of 1976 and collected them to stick onto office walls or to paste in scrapbooks or to pore over with friends during coffee breaks. 

Now I know more about him than I do my next door neighbour or even my MIL!

I’m reading his book—lent to me by his daughter, a new friend—in which he has scrawled a poignant dedication: This book is for you to read and keep, to remember me by. Love, Daddy

One of Mingo's cartoons in his "Mingo's Meanderings".

And just the other day, I had the pleasure of being invited to meet Mingo himself! When I told my friends my unexpected good fortune, one said, “I love Mingo cartoons. Would love to meet him. Any chance?”

No chance, sorry! Oh, well... maybe. 

We talked about the good old days. In August 1946, Mingo left Singapore where he grew up, and after enduring a lengthy eight-day boat trip as a deck passenger, he landed in Jesselton. The town, the new capital of North Borneo, had been razed to the ground the previous year. Mingo described what the town was like in his book and I’ll copy an extract for you in a while. First, let me tell you what he said about coffee drinking and coffee shops in the good old days.

“The towkays were Hainanese or Foochows. Not Hakkas. In the coffee shops, they had this huge copper pot where water was always kept boiling and constantly being replenished. The towkay used a big metal dipper to take the hot water.

When the towkay made coffee, he always poured more water than the thick cup could hold so the water overflowed into the saucer. Everybody drank by pouring the coffee into the saucer and blowing at the hot coffee before sipping it. The coffee was poured into the saucer little by little until the cup was empty. No one seemed to drink from the cup itself!

The towkays were experts at preparing soft-boiled eggs. They scooped boiling water from the big pot, poured it over the eggs and always produced perfect eggs with cooked whites but in the centre the yolks were still soft.”

Mingo mentioned about the strong sense of community among the Chinese towkays. “When one of them was in trouble because of debts or other ill-fortune,” Mingo said, “the others would rally behind him by lending their hands, by contributing money towards a fund to pay off their friend’s debts and to provide him with capital to revive his business.”

I am amazed and touched by the people’s spirit of community and their feeling of brotherhood. These characteristics have been illustrated in other instances among the Chinese of Jesselton.

And now a short excerpt from “Mingo’s Meanderings” about Jesselton after WW2.

“The town had been hastily rebuilt with two blocks of 10 units two-storey, and four blocks of ten units single-storey shophouses, built of bakau round timber for the frame, sawn plank walling and attap roofing. The floor was lined with planks. These buildings were meant to last a year or two when the permanent structures would be going up to replace them, but they lasted almost ten years. When the attap roofs deteriorated and leaked they were conveniently covered over with thin, galvanized, iron corrugated sheets. Rainwater, collected from the roof and stored in metal drums was used for drinking, while the brackish water from open wells in the open courtyards of the shop was used for bathing and washing.

Two public latrines built over the sea served the whole town. Each of the ten compartments had a seven by sixteen inch hole through the plank floor. It was quite a thrill to watch the fish snatching at the tasty morsels during high tide, and crabs daintily picking at the solid pieces at low tide. I used to feel quite nervous when fishermen in their row boats passed too close below to the building. What was there to prevent them from poking a pole through the hole?”


So what shall I say about Mingo? I think he is very brave; the type who faces adversities head-on and who gets up every time he falls; the type we'd want to have on our side. He's also a fine painter and an amazing cartoonist whose works have appeared in our newspapers. He has other accomplishments, of course, having designed many of the buildings in KK and making contributions to the local communities but I'm not listing his achievements here. 

Note: I feel privileged to have been given a peek into “Mingo’s Meanderings” because, for personal reasons, the author doesn’t want to have it published.

The First Schools in North Borneo

I’m sure many of my former students would have loved to live in the good old days. Life was so much simpler. Kids didn’t have to get up at dawn to get ready for school. They didn’t have to slog through school assignments or be pestered to read a certain number of books per year. The kids who always complained about being up to their ears with school work would have loved the good old days because there were no schools to go to.

In the early days of the North Borneo Chartered Company (NBCC), the government did not concern itself with teaching the natives how to read and write. So anything a person learned was from the elders or through his own experiences and interactions with his environments. Because no one knew how to read or write, all lessons and knowledge were committed to memory.

Menggatal Lok Yuk School 1930 (Click pic to enlarge)

Although the NBCC began to administer NB in 1881, the government only opened its very first school in 1915. This was the Government Training School and was established specially for the sons of Native Chiefs. It started with a mere five recruits, all boys, naturally. The aim was to teach the students to read and write Malay as well as do simple arithmetic. These boys formed a pool of indigenous administrators, ready to succeed their fathers as government servants.

The Government Training School didn’t last long and was closed in 1930, only fifteen years after it was opened. What had contributed to its short existence? The school didn’t make much progress. Moreover, the NBCC had begun to establish Malay schools, known as Government Vernacular Schools. In 1931 such schools were opened in Kota Belud and Papar. The following year schools were established in Keningau and Menumbok.

It must be noted, however, that between 1881 and 1915, years before the NBCC opened its first school, the Company allowed Christian missionaries to establish schools especially in areas where many Chinese lived.

Thanks to the Spanish pirate-turned-priest, Father Cuateron, who asked Rome to send priests to continue his work in NB, the first school run by Catholic missionaries, St. Mary’s Primary School, was opened in Sandakan in 1887. By 1905 the Catholic, Anglican and Basel Missions had established schools in Sandakan, Jesselton, Papar, Putatan, Kudat, Penampang and Labuan.

The Chinese who had been recruited by the NBCC to open up farms—along the north-south strip of land stretching from Telipok to Inanam—also  opened and ran their own schools. The Inanam Lok Yuk School was opened in 1914; Telipok Lok Yuk School in 1925 and two years later, the Menggatal Lok Yuk School was established.

In 1909, the NBCC established the Education Department. It was manned by two ‘Inspectors of School’ who had to report the yearly progress of schools.

By comparison, Sarawak established the country’s first school, St. Thomas, much earlier, in 1848. And the oldest school in WM was established by Catholic missionaries in 1787.

We’ve come a long way since those long ago NBCC days. Now Sabah has 1,283 primary and secondary schools. That would be 1,282 schools if you disregard one primary school because it is a ‘sekolah tanpa murid’.

Back to my former students who didn’t like studying, homework, books, etc. If only there had been a ‘sekolah tanpa guru’ during their time!

Ref: The Hakka Experiment in Sabah

JPN Sabah, Website
Picture from 'The Hakka Experiment in Sabah'

Frank Hatton: Blood Brother to the Dusun

If you had lived a hundred and fifty years ago and you had one precious son, would you have let him leave the comfort of your home to work in the land of the headhunters and pirates?

The doting parents of a boy, barely out of his teens, did just that. They released their only son (albeit reluctantly) to sail half-way round the world and live in the land they knew only as a spot on a map.

The boy, Frank Hatton, was born in England on 31 August 1861. As a child he had wanted to be an engine-driver but he became an outstanding scientist instead and was made an Associate of Chemistry and a Fellow of the Chemical Society by the time he was twenty.

And by the time he had turned twenty, he had left his anxious family to become a blood brother to an unknown people (savages to them) in a faraway country.  

He had turned down the opportunity to work as assistant chemist at Guys Hospital in London and accepted an offer from Alfred Dent. It was the post of mineral explorer and metallurgical chemist. That was how he found himself in the equatorial jungle of Sabah in 1881.

Hatton had a flair for languages and learnt flawless French when his father sent him to study for two years in France. He displayed this same trait in Sabah, learning to read and write Malay and various Dusun dialects. He even compiled a comprehensive Dusun dictionary with the aim of publishing it.

The ‘mineral survey’ took him to the east coast of Sabah where he undertook journeys of exploration. In 1882 he surveyed the entire Labuk River and its tributaries, from the estuary right to its source in Mount Kinabalu.

He found very little evidence of minerals apart from coal but he found friendship among the Dusuns who, although Frank must have been the first white man they had ever seen,   embraced him and made him one of them in ceremonies conducted with traditional rites. In a letter to his father he told about being made a blood brother in five villages and that 300 spears would readily come if he needed help!

In 1883 while Hatton and his party were turning back from an aborted expedition—it was the wet season and very swampy—to discover the source of gold in the Segama, Hatton spotted an elephant. He shot at it but only succeeded in wounding the animal. The men gave chase and it was dark when Hatton called off the hunt. Going back to their camp, he used his rifle, holding it by the barrel, to clear a path. Unfortunately, he stumbled and the rifle discharged and shot him on the upper chest (probably puncturing a lung.) His party was 160 km up the Kinabatangan. The nearest hospital was 270 km away. The party paddled day and night for 53 hours so Hatton could be buried in Elopura by white men.

A funeral service was held in his house before he was buried on the side of a hill. He was   the first European to be buried in Sandakan. He was only twenty-two.

Back at his home in England, his parents had been aware that the gold-prospecting expedition was to be his last before he went on leave. He had hoped that on his return to Sabah he would be appointed Resident.

His parents had been eagerly awaiting his return when they received the devastating news of his death from William Crocker (after whom the Crocker Range was named).

After his death his father wrote a book—“a tribute from a loving father to a devoted son”—in which he included the latter’s letters home and materials from his diaries and notes. The  father said: “I had my reward in a brave, upright, modest, scholarly son, to whom I hoped to have bequeathed my name and the care of his mother and sisters. We had all come to regard him as the prop of our small house and I knew that he was of the stuff that great men are made.” The senior Hatton added that he “could have been content to lay aside my work and have for my epitaph: He was the father and friend of Frank Hatton.”

During his short life, Frank Hatton had been a brilliant scientist, a great linguist, a gifted musician and, judging by the natives’ high regard for him, a lover of human beings.

We could only guess at what this brave, selfless man would have been able to accomplish for Sabah if not for his untimely death. And we could only regret that our own posse of leaders does not have a fraction of his brilliance or an iota of his humanity. (Wasn’t that People-First slogan just crap cooked up by desperate clowns?)

So, would you have sent your son to Borneo like the Hattons did?

I’ll let Frank Hatton have the last word: “It is the duty of everyone to see as much of the world, and to do as much in it as is possible in the short time allotted to us.”

Ref:

North Borneo: Explorations and Adventures on The Equator (Joseph Hatton)
Blood Brothers (Lynette Silver)
 
Pictures from Blood Brothers

What are you reading?

The Pirate Wind by Owen Rutter (Oxford University Press) was first published in 1930. If you’re interested in the history of piracy in SE Asia, this book is for you! It’s only 282 pages and beautifully illustrated.

You’ll learn about the origins of pirates such as the Illanun and Balanini (both from the Sulu Archipelago… and therefore NOT Sabahan!) and how they roamed the seas—in their fleets of ‘prahus’ which could number 200 vessels. Don’t think that the ‘prahus’ were puny little boats because each could exceed 90 feet long and carry a hundred slave-rowers! The pirates had safe hiding places scattered all over the coasts of Borneo and they travelled as far as the Bay of Bengal!

Plundering bigger European ships was no problem and slave trade was good business. Farmers and fishermen captured from the heavily populated coasts of the Philippines were sold as slaves in Brunei. People caught in Brunei were sold elsewhere.

How much did people pay for a slave? Needless to say, only the wealthy could afford slaves. A young woman cost more than a man—about 18 to 30 British pounds. A pretty girl was more expensive than her plain sister and a person past middle age cost about 3 pounds—the cheapest!

There is a chapter on the history of Balambangan, the little island to the west of Banggi, the island off the northern tip Borneo. (On a map, Balambangan looks like a fish spitting out some water and has half its guts hanging out of its body.) Apparently, the East India Company wanted to develop it as an outpost where ships plying the east-west route could stop with their goods and trade on the island. But the wrong man was chosen for the job. Not only did John Herbert incur huge losses for the Company when he sailed the Britannia (the Company ship) to Balambangan, but the voyage from London to Borneo took him two and a half years instead of the normal eight months. He also used company money to buy goods and pocketed the profits when he sold them! Sounds familiar?

Balambangan had to be abandoned when pirates raided the island. The pirate-mastermind had actually been employed as a carpenter on the island. He had noted that the island was only defended along the beaches but the forested ‘backside’ was left vulnerable! (Remember Singapore and Penang WW2 when the Japs surprised the British by coming overland??) Same tactic.

There’s even a ‘love story’. What happened when a pirate chief fell in love with a slave and was willing to do anything to get her?

Owen Rutter also hinted at some treasure the British flung into a well as they fled from the raiding pirates. Just in case you fancy going on a treasure-hunt, (after reading the book) the East India Company dug dozens of wells!

I haven’t finished reading the book. Another two-thirds. So, what are you reading?