Air Putih Kemaman

My brother came to stay with me for the month as he has an instrumentation project in Gebeng Kuantan area. He mentioned to me about our uncle who came to build a bridge at the entrance of the Kampung Air Putih in the late 70's. He was then the sub-contractor working under a French company for the bridge projects that lasted for almost a year. That bridge spanned over a river and linked towards the Cheneh direction. The source of the river water comes from a distant mountainous region further to the West and I was told the river used to have green Arowana or Kelisa fish.

Air Putih is about 28 km from Cukai and driven by curiosity on seeing how does the bridge look like, my brother and I took a slow drive and finally reached there before the sunset and took some photos as posted above. We would like to show our uncle these photos during the Chinese New Year home trip to remind him of his work done almost 30 years ago.

During those earlier years, there were only narrow jungle roads or paths that could lead to the bridge building site before the current tarmac roads were built many years later. Basically it was an area used to be covered with thick primary jungles filled with vibrant wild lives. And now because of housing development projects and land clearing for palm oil estates, the landscape was changed entirely and their natural habitat had been destroyed by the encroachment of humans and the boundary was shifted further in towards Taman Negara direction. My brother related to me a story about a group of wild boars was chased all the way by a tiger and found their refuge in the company warehouse despite the presence of humans. They were trembling inside the warehouse but managed to keep the fiery beast at bay, perhaps because it was a place dwelled by the humans. And its natural instinct might have forbidded the beast to trespass that boundary despite hunger and reluctance; it had to give up the chase, and thus forego its meal for the day. The big footprints of a tiger probably in the region of 200Kg were found near the warehouse the next morning.

We took a look at the surrounding area by driving through the Kampung Air Putih, it was a nice and quiet place with good scenery and river. Some of the old shop lots, wooden houses and one particular Chinese shop along the main road reminded my brother of the good old early years of this village.

My favorite insect - Cricket

Cricket is a fascinating insect. The chirping sound in a serene night was something that had accompanied me for years before I moved to the big cities. Strange enough, I remember certain period of time that I really missed the sound so much that a night without hearing this soothing noise from this creature is never a night for me. Whenever a night was filled with such chirping sound that originates from far and near colonies, coupled with the distant calls from the night jar bird, I would always have a very deep and sound sleep. It functioned like a time machine and my sub-conscious mind then brought me back to my childhood good old days, peaceful and without worries! Perhaps because of this, my entire being was totally relaxed by this background sound effect, I was able to sleep very well for the night!

One of those moon lit nights, my father had brought my younger brother and I to the sweet potatoes field right in front of my grandpa's house. He used a torch to shine on one of the chirping male cricket. All I could remember was seeing a big cricket for the very first time, undeterred by the torch light, crouching at the entrance of a small hole in a little pit, with its wings flared up and flipped in high speed motion, where one of the wings rubbed against the teeth like structure of another wing that created the loud and jarring sound. I had the earlier misconception that the sound was created by the rubbing of its hind legs.

My village is within the Kinta valley where it owes its existence to tin ore mining. Kinta valley was once the biggest and richest tin ore producing region in the world. The ex-mining land with its fine white sand and desert like vegetation formed a good habitat for such crickets. This big brown cricket is a different species compared to the black type, which makes a more gentle chirping sound and used to be the favorite fighting species in ancient China. If you watch the movie on the "Last Emperor of China", you would be able to remember how the last emperor had placed that black cricket under his throne seat. And after many years when he suddenly remembered it and then retrieved the container again, the cricket inside it was amazingly still alive but the color had turned grey!

I used to gather all my brothers and friends from the village and went for cricket digging in the ex-mining land. We brought along a little short handle "changkul" digging tool and a wooden container with wire mesh that allowed ventilation for the caught insects to be kept inside, started out early in the morning and came back just shortly before lunch time. Catching the insect needs some skillful digging; just before reaching the end of its nest, one has to dig more carefully so as not to snap the insect into half. One has to use finger to dig the last portion of the nest, and you could even feel the kicking of its hind legs upon reaching the furthest end of the hole and that was the greatest excitement and joy of cricket catching! Sometimes centipede was inside the hole because it had eaten the cricket, therefore extra care has to be exercised. It was really enjoyable and also money earning pass time for the kids.

This big brown cricket fetched a high price of roughly 5 cents each many years ago. This is because raising Magpie Robin was a trend and this insect is the favorite and most nutritious food for these birds. The cricket collector would come to the village around 11pm under a big tree and we sold him our crickets. We could easily earn 3-5 dollars per digging trip.

Cricket is still my favorite insect and if ever I have a chance again, I would want to go for such cricket digging trip just for the fun of it!

My father's traditional medicine

My father is a person of all trades. When he was younger, he learned the trick of Chinese Sinseh of curing sprains or dislocation of joints, application of herbal medicine with the formula of which passed down from his distant uncle. The herbal medicine was a combination of the Chinese traditional medical herbs plus one kind of leaves from the tropical forest. We went to the forest once to locate some of those leaves from a creeper plant and he taught us to tear apart those leaves and learn to distingush by the tissue structure of the specie.

Many village folks came to our home for that magical cure and my father is well known in the village then. To me the herbal medicine was a very good formulation that relieved pain of most of the patients. So much so that one of my father's buddies had learned that formula and built a name of his own as sinseh of bones and marketed the medication under his own brand. The news about him was that his house in Kampar was burnt down by a fire and subsequently he and his family moved to Kuala Lumpur. Other than some occasional visits to my fathers in those earlier years, heard that he passed away and never to be seen anymore. That brand of medication is forever lost!

My father's interest in medicine had driven him to learn from some qualified Chinese medical hall practitioner on traditional medicine. One of the guys he always liked to talk to was from this so-called "Dongfong or Oriental" medical hall in the village. This guy had a lot of medical books written both for traditional Chinese and western medicine related to topics such as vitamins etc. This person subsequently migrated to USA and I have also never seen him anymore.

That time there was no photocopy machines and my father diligently hand copied many of those manuels for his studying. Later part he was so particular and fussy about the handwriting that he paid someone living on the western side of the village by the name of Wong Ngen to copy on his behalf. I still remember the look of that man, he wore a square dark spectacle, riding on a big ancient bicycle, passing many of the handcopied medical notes to my father. His handwriting was good and it also happened that his son of my age was from the same primary school.

Time flies and that herbal medicine was never used anymore and at one time I asked my father for the formula and he said it is no more useful with the advances of modern day western medicine. Anyway I am still curious on the formula of this good old traditional medicine, it is very effective and useful. I personally feel that this medicine did a lot of goods for the patients compared to the actual skill of my father in twisting and making good of those dislocated joints!

Dragon Boat Tragedy

After the Kampar waterfall incident, now I read about the news on the dragon boat strategy in George town Penang, and I really feel very sad because of the loss of young lives and also my empathy on their grieving parents. Just imagine the pain of losing a child after all the time, effort and love of raising from toddler to become a teenager. How much hope, joy and future days we want to anticipate from them as we see them grow, and this is all suddenly dashed by the mishap. As parents, we wanted our sons and daughters to be healthy, safe and happy, all the rest is simply immaterial! May God's consoling spirit move over these grieving parents, only God one day will be able to tell them the answer why this should ever happen to their beloved children!

There is always a Chinese saying which could be translated as: "You many want to adventure freely in the mountains, but never and never underestimate the danger of the water". Indeed this is very true! I had heard many stories and incidents in my village that ex-mining ponds had drown and taken away lives of many young kids when their parents were busy engaging themselves to earn a living outside and are not around at home to keep a watchful eye over them. I myself had, in numerous occasions, sneaked out of the house for such swimming trips without the knowledge of my parents. Come to think of it, it is simply too dangerous, and I am really glad that I am still alive till this day!

Water is a place, even if you are a good swimmer and equipped with proper life jacket, the undercurrent could be so strong that one could easily be sucked and drawn in, carried by the current, splashed and in the process knock against some rocks underneath the water that you could be injured and lose your consciousness. This is how life is lost even in a seemingly calm sea around Penang island in this dragon boat tragedy! And I always caution people who wanted to swim or fish in the East coast of Peninsula Malaysia especially near Cherating and Terengganu beaches. Those beaches are facing the open and much rougher South China sea compared to the strait of Malacca, where somehow Indonesia has cushioned off the strong waves from the Indian ocean.

Therefore all water sport events must be well planned and thoughtfully anticipate all these possible consequences. If possible, have all your swimming and water sport of young children done in artificial pools or water theme parks!

Sea is always dangerous whether for young and old! Just be very careful when you opt to plan your recreation there!

My Mountain Bike - Scott Aspen

This is the mountain bike that I use it to cycle every morning and evening near the beach. It is a good form of exercise and I need that to improve my overall health condition.

Hope to do more with the machine after more training is done. The road condition along the beach line is asphalt paved and is simply too good for a mountain bike. The tire thread pattern is some sort of hybrid type, with the central portion of fine pattern while the edge is more knobby.

Life in Terengganu

After moving into my Geliga house, I started real living in Terengganu. I feel like I am just one of the Terengganu folks and even bought some small stickers with the sea turtle logo of the state to stick on my vehicles; this indeed made me feel very Terengganu!

The bungalow house rented by the company is simply good; what I mean is location wise, convenience and is also walking distance away from the Monica Bay beach. During this monsoon season, sea is rough and the wind is strong, but it is airy and fresh to live in this area. The Samajaya mini-market is nearby and I could just take a stroll to buy my groceries there without having to drive all the way to town. My family and my brother visited me in this new home, and I just told them to watch out for the very 1st traffic after they entered the Terengganu state, turned on the left and waited for me at the Esso gas station. It is so easy to locate. The only complaint about this place is the black striped mosquitos, likely to be Aedes and they are simply abundant and hungry. When you walk out to lock the gate, you would be bitten at least once or twice! I burn some mosquito coils outside the house, just to deter these creatures from getting near to the entrance of the house.

After settling in for about 2 weeks, I had brought in my Scott Aspen mountain bike, wiped and greased it clean with WD40 and some bicycle lubricant, put the rear wheel on a RM30 stand as it does not have a kickstand. Every evening and morning, I take the bike for a ride as a form of exercise along the seaside beach area. I fixed up some of the lights, reflectors and blinkers, lubricated the key components etc. And it is fun to put up some of the accessories onto the bike. In the process of biking, it also taught me the different kinds of Schrader and Presta valves for the tires, and also the nomenclature of those bicycle components.

I put up two aquarium tanks, one medium and one small size tanks in the hall. Tried on the old pump brought from my KL home, tested and it is still working fine. Cleaning up the tanks and setting up the stand for the the tanks in place kept me busy a few evenings. Now the tanks are well aerated, perhaps after installing the filters bought from aquarium shops, then it is ready for me to start the new phase of my aquarium fish rearing hobby!

Looking forward to do more in this Geliga home!