Ensurai or Wong Su Lai

There is a lovely promontory in the Rejang Valley called Wong Su Lai where more than ten families of Ku Tien descent (another group of Foochows)started pioneering agricultural work in 1903. The soil here is loamy and yellow and very fertile . Suitable for fruits and rubber and even pepper, the agriculturalists reaped rich harvests and prospered in no time.

The name Wong Su Lai came from these Foochows who settled in this area some 18 miles from Sibu in the Rajang Basin. They must have heard of the Ensurai trees which bore reddish fruits, but only edible to the fish. Thus perhaps they turned the name Ensurai to a more fitting Foochow name. Wong Su Lai was also the Chinese transliteration of the word ensurai.

"Wong su Lai" on the other hand in Chinese means "Arrival of Teacher Wong" and thereby one Foochow historian Lau Tze Cheng who came from this area,also said the name could be considered as a commemoration of the arrival of Wong Nai Siong, the pioneering business man who brought the Foochows to this part of the world. In due time people even forgot that the Ibans once were dwellers and food gatherers of this area prior to the arrival of the Foochows.

It became a bustling settlement which later boasted of the largest Foochow Mansion built by the second Kang Chu, Lau Kah Tii, a wealthy Foochow pioneer, who died in 1954. This settlement had a shop operated by him and his relatives and there was a primary school and a cemetery. It was indeed a thriving community also produced a large number of highly educated and rich Foochows.


The Ensurai is important to the ecology of the river banks and rivers. The fruits of the Ensurai is a favourite food of many fish including the tapah and middle valley fish.

Perhaps one day some one will find more ensurai trees growing along the river banks and thus discover fish swimming around.

Source : Sarawak Forestry Department.
Trees up to 40m tall and 200cm diameter. Buttresses up to 3m high. Tree trunks are usually crooked and twisted, almost horizontal at base, leaning over rivers and frequently covered with mosses and epiphytes. Branches arising from low down on the trunk, spreading over the river and tending to be semi-pendant at the ends.

The diagnostic characters are the large stipules that exceed 4cm long, pale green and often tinged pink when mature; leathery, oblong-lanceolate, shiny dark green leaves, 14-18cm by 4-7cm with 16-20 pairs of ridge-like veins.

The fruit has 3 long and 2 short wings, usually reddish. During fruiting season, the reddish fruits with pinkish stipules is a beautiful sight along the river banks.



Habitat: Locally frequent along the fast flowing river banks beyond the tidal reaches, below 600m above sea level.

Distribution: Confined to inland river banks from east of Batang Lupar to Lawas.

Note: It is a totally protected species because it protects the river banks and the fruit is an important source of food for many inland fresh water fish. The tree provides a micro-niche for many epiphytes including orchids, ferns, Rhododendron and Hoya species.

Salt

(This photo is from Daniel Yiek - Sarikei-Time-Capsule.) My maternal grandmother from a very early age was helping my grand uncle Kang Chu Lau Kah Tii, in business. One of her duties was to wrap nipah salt in the nipah leaves and to tie up in bundles the nipah leaves for rokok to be sold to the Malays and Melanaus along the Igan and Rejang. According to her, it was a very back breaking job and furthermore,she was very fastidious at her work, together with her sister- in -law, Mrs. Lau Kah Tii who was a good manager and leader. In those days, salt and sugar for the Foochows came from the nipah palm.









A Foochow woman must always have some salt of any kind in her kitchen. Salt is the cheapest household item a woman can buy so it is a great embarrassment if she does not have any in stock. In olden days, the whole village would be wagging their tongue if the neighbours found this out.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0cHn7Hk2hdbZd

This photo above starts my discussion on salt. It is always interesting to draw academic references from Chinese historical records on any topic. You are free to think that I am terribly biased.

Firstly, a reference to Chinese academic studies on salt draws this text and an amazing photo .

A Chinese worker cuts up the pieces of salinated salt from Lake Qinghai, in northern China's Qinghai province 19 May 2007. Salt was first mentioned in China in the annals of the Emperor Yu, (BC 2205-2197), and the cause for many wars fought to the control the salt resources, as it has always been the lifeline in China's history, for "Whoever controls salt has the power to decide his own fate and that of all others

And also this text (http://www.ioa.ucla.edu/backdirt/Fall99/salt.html):
Salt (NaCl) has been in great demand at least since Neolithic times when humans took up a plant–based diet. Whether we actually have a physical need for an added complement of salt is still disputed; many nutritionists believe there is already enough salt in the food we eat. Still, there is no doubt that humans crave salt to make their food more tasty and for a host of other uses such as preserving food, tenderizing meat, and tanning leather. Since salt resources that could be exploited with premodern technology are very unevenly distributed, salt was important early on as a commodity.

There is extensive textual documentation on salt manufacture in ancient China, with reliable records going back to the fourth century bc. At that time, the salt industry was already well developed, and its origins certainly go back to much earlier times. Until very recently, though, salt making in China had never been addressed through archaeological research, in marked contrast to the West, where exploration of salt–producing sites has been an important topic for over two hundred years. In Europe, for instance, extensive work has been done on coastal salines in England and France and on inland salt-production sites in Lorraine (eastern France), central Germany, and, perhaps most famously, Austria, where extensive Late Bronze Age saltworks at Hallstatt have given their name to an important archaeological period. Closer to China, a great deal of excavation of salt-making workshops has taken place along the coasts of Japan. Reconstruction of prehistoric salt-making techniques has been facilitated by anthropological fieldwork in such areas as New Guinea and Africa (Mali, Niger, Chad), where salt was still manufactured by traditional pottery–using technologies until very recently.



Secondly, in secondary school I studied "King Lear" by William Shakespeare. No one can forget the answer given by Cordelia that she loved her father, king lear , as much as salt, sealed her tragic fate.

Thirdly, the Bible said that we are "the salt of the earth".

Fourthly, the Bible also told us the story of how Lot's Wife was turned into a pillar of Salt because she regretted leaving Sodom and Gomorrah.

Finally, salt is so important in our lives that we simply cannot live without it. It is a preservative, an enhancer of our food tastes, an antibiotic,health giving as it helps our body to remain strong,etc.


We cannot live without salt.