Rice Fields, Pigs and A Gold Chain

"I have eaten more bitterness than anyone of you here,"exclaimed my elderly cousin, as we swapped stories of our past.

"Planting of rice, opening up rubber land, growing potatoes, hiding from thieves and others? I have done it all and more," she continued with a gentle shake of her head, with some sighs of regret but some element of achievement.

She had grown rice from the moment she could handle a changkul in China and when she came to Sarawak to marry her late husband, at the age of 16, just after the war, she had already suffered a life time of hardwork, so to speak.

In Sarawak life was not much easier compared to that in China because she had to start from scatch as her husband later proved to be quite a playboy in the old generation style. "Never stay at home, liked to sit in coffee shop, and chased after a few skirts (at that time, samfoo), but I managed to bring up a fairly good batch of children...."

She said that she was very focussed in her objectives in life and that was how she managed to keep her soul, family,property together. An illiterate young lady, with no other relatives and alone in this wide, and foreign land of Sarawak, she had no choice but to plod on.

She started with just two acres of rented padi land which she cultivated well and later bought and as her children grew, she managed single handedly to grow rice seedlings, replant them, spray pesticides and weed the fields, harvest and hull the rice. It was a struggle for her with just her changkul, motor bike and her brains.

Although illiterate, she could count very well and no shop keeper could cheat her by a cent of her money. Her late husband respected her for that and in a way trusted her to do everything for the family but unfortunately he was very tightfisted.

With the money she earned herself from her rice growing, she saved to buy hersecond piece of land, a piece of rubber land, a little inland from the river bank.

But what she remembered was how she saved money to buy herself her first gold chain. Everyone else was wearing a great gold chain and she also desired to have one then. Naturally her husband did not have any gold to give to her.

She decided to rear some pigs in her backyard. It was quite an achievement according to her that her pigs just grew to be so fat and nice. She must have raised more than a hundred pigs in a few years. She bought and sold them and to her great satisfaction she had a bit of money stashed away.

Besides, she stint, she scratched every bit of produce for sale and even to the extent of not buying herself new clothes for several Chinese New Year. Finally she got enough Malaysian dollars (at that time) to buy herself her own first gold chain at the value of 28 dollars per gram/chien. She wore her gold chain very proudly for about two years.

When she heard that her brother-in-law in China was very sick, she and her husband decided to sell the gold chain and send the money back.

It took her another twenty years to buy one more gold chain for herself because there were other priorities.

Life has been a struggle but she said that her land has given her enough. Life to her is made up of changkul, parang bengkok, a motor bike and two strong hands.

Asked if she would grow rice again, she said that if her hands and arms are strong enough, she would. But she must have her own land. Unfortunately she had sold her padi land to educate her children and to buy a small terrace house, as her husband had died not too long ago,distributed his property to their sons and had left very little to her. Typical of a chauvinistic old fashioned Foochow man.

She still has a small piece of land of her own but it is to be sold for her own final journey if her children are not filial to her at the end. Her small cash savings are just enough for her bills and a little food and the occasional angpows.

Amazing story? But she said, that was the way most Foochow women lived in the 50's and 60's or even until the 90's. She reminded the next generation/s women to save money and work hard for their old age. "Have your own money. Don't trust 100% your husband. And perhaps not even your sons.....Daughters don't count."