langkau fiction

Two posts within the hour! Waaah…tiu lah, why not kan?

This means I’m quite tired with work for this week. And this is only Monday.

As I was writing a note yesterday afternoon, a horseshoe fly landed on one of my books. “That’s strange,” I thought, because I usually find these creatures near a river or on the beaches. It must have lost its way. Now, horseshoe flies — I think that’s what people call it (a diptera species) — are really a nasty bunch. I’ve been stung a couple of times and it does hurt. Usually, they suck the blood of animals in the jungle (e.g. bearded pigs, deers, monkeys) and it’s like they were never trained to pierce the skin properly. The pain is sudden and localized. Needless to say, I just flick it with my fingers and it miraculously died without leaving a stain on my book.

Yes, hard times indeed.

Another kind of death that fascinates me are these insects. Damn, I don’t know what they’re called. They should wear name tags next time so I can identify them. Anyways, they come by the hundreds and swarm the light bulbs at night. Old folks say when these creatures enter your house and go crazy with the lights at home, that means a heavy rain is about to come. The floor would be covered with their detached wings and they’ll just creep on the floor butt naked.

No, I don’t know why they remove their wings after frolicking with the lights. I don’t even know if they do it voluntarily. Even if they do, why would they voluntarily remove their wings and dance around in the nude? A friend, who’s not an entomologist, told me that these insects do that as a defence mechanism. What?! What kind of defence mechanism is that? Won’t they be safer with their wings attached? I definitely do not want to remove my arms if confronted with danger.

Then again, with or without wings, these suicidal insects are no match for these red ants that act like corporate undertakers of the insect kingdom. Still it doesn’t answer my question: Did they come to tell us that the big rain is coming soon? And if we don’t believe them they’ll dance around the light bulbs? The last resort: remove the wings! I tak paham…

Of course, the ultimate fascinating death relates with the kind of food we put in our mouth and into our stomach. Now, these aren’t normal creatures that you see served in your local restaurant. These are what people call ‘exotic food’. Well, it’s exotic only to the urbanites who tend to indulge in those things they call food: burgers, fried chicken, pizza, economy fast food, etc. But to those who live with these creatures, ‘exoticism’ doesn’t exist in their vocabulary.

What the…! What the fuck is that, you may ask? Well, it’s the fruit bat that got trapped into a mist net in one of the kampungs. This one is dead, obviously but decided to pop out of the soup bowl. Mixed with ginger, garlic and salt, do a sup terjun, and mmm…yum! This is one of those things that go well with langkau.

Ben Zoo demonstrates how we’re supposed to eat that creature. But he does it wrongly. The head must be twisted violently till it snaps off its shoulder and thrown to the salivating bunch of dogs under the table. It can be eaten whole. The wings are really nice. It has that rubbery texture feel to it.

Anyways, I’ll have to stop here before my vegan friends and wildlife conservation artists throw rocks at me.

A lot of stupid things have been happening lately. Most of it had damaged my brain and squeezed out all manners of reason into the comfort of confusion. For instance, the rape case that has been closed recently because “there was simply not enough evidence…”. And this is despite the Ministry’s report acknowledging the crime has indeed been committed.

Okay, so the Ministry said some 8-9 girls were raped but the police argued that there’s not enough evidence to pinpoint who did it? Or was it not enough evidence that the rape actually happened? If the case is now closed, it can only mean that the crime didn’t happen after all. How is this going to work?

There’s a host of other fucked up matters as well but I’m just too damn tired to keep pounding on it here. I’m sure a lot of you are fed up with me rambling on it. I’ll put a stop here…at least, for a while.

The above photo is blurry. Obviously. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes. This is a photo of the Mbaan women of Teleg. Eight of them came to join us one evening over bottles of langkau a couple of years ago. They laughed a lot, showing their dark red mouth filled with beetlenut sap. For that whole night doing the sadong, I had to wipe off the bloody red stain from the rim of the glass before gulping down the langkau. It was a fun evening.

They told me those brass rings were fastened onto their arms and legs since they were 5-6 years old. Some a bit older. The lady in the black shirt was so eager to demonstrate that she could take it off now. Since she was a bit tipsy and I was afraid she might hurt herself, I told her “No, it’s okay. No need to show. Eh, it’s your turn to drink the langkau…” She presented me with a huge grin signalling amusement, and then she pulled her leg to her body, twisted the brass ring on her calf without showing much difficulty and within seconds, the thing was out! I almost passed out when I saw the shape of her calf. They laughed so hard that one of them almost choked on her beetlenut. “Serve you right, laughing at me like that,” I thought. But they sure had a great sense of humor.

About an hour-and-a-half downhill from Teleg lies another Bimbaan village called Rejoi (above photo). About 14 families moved here from Bung Rajang in 1975 together with the school. This school was built in 1969 and initially located on Tibung Beru. The rest of the Bimbaan who didn’t move down to Rejoi stayed in Bung Rajang until 1990 before they moved to their present settlement in Teleg.

The most prominent physical feature in this region is the Bengoh mountain range (above photo). Four settlements, two Bitibia’ and two Bimbaan, are located within this gigantic semi-bowl of a mountain range. The Bimbaan, however, traditionally named this mountain range Melitang and it acted as a formidable barrier against their old enemies from Tawang, Petong and Pungon. There’s a list of interesting stories relating to this mountain range, which also include stories about the Tringos who literally became the guardian along the mountain passes. But I’m too lazy to write them now lah…

Okay lah, sekian. Terima kasih.