langkau fiction

hmm…ok, I’m back.

I came home last night on new year’s eve only to find my car went missing. Too tired to think about the missing car, I unpacked my dirty clothes and other stuffs that I took with me on my trip. Mostly rubbish.

Plus minus 14kg. That’s how much my bag weighed on my walk from Ba Kelalan to Bario. For three bloody days! Off loading three Tiger beer cans at Long Rebpun on the first night didn’t help to lessen the weight.

My mother’s village, Bario

Oh yes, my car. I woke up this morning…oh, happy new year, by the way…with my stomach yelling out for food. Got out of bed, had a shower and looked for instant noodles in the kitchen. Nothing. Picked up the car keys from the table and planned to drive to a kedai kopi.

Oh, tiu lah. Where’s the bloody car?

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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.

Last month, I got a call from a friend in Kpg. Jantan asking me when am I going to visit their kampung again. I told him probably in the next couple of weeks, depending on my workload. I’ve been to this attractive Salako village a couple of times before and have always enjoyed a great conversation with the guys over rounds of langkau at Pak Durum’s warung. They’re also fond of challenging each other by telling riddles and exchanging quaint limericks.

My friend, Bading, insisted that I must go to the waterfall on my next trip to Kpg. Jantan. He told me everyone’s been there except for me! He was referring to the local weekend tourists who regularly goes there and made all kinds of hoo haa about the place. I tried telling him that I’ve no interest in waterfalls but he just wouldn’t take it. “You can’t just be coming here and drink langkau with us? You must also enjoy the waterfall!” I asked him if there’s any mermaid in the waterfall? Silence on his part. Then he said “What the fork is wrong with you? Tourists all go to the waterfall. You want to sit down at the warung. And no, there’s no mermaid there! What are you talking about?!”

Farmland (Puei mountain range background)

I told him that I’m not that keen to walk for 1-2 hours just to visit a waterfall no matter how beautiful it is. I don’t have problems doing long jungle hikes. In fact, that’s one of my passions. But just to see this particular geophysical attraction after a couple of hours’ walk isn’t enough to convince me to go. Bading told me “Noooo, we don’t have to go by the river. That is the tourist route. Saya ada bikin jalan baru untuk kita dua, ikut jalan darat, tempat saya selalu pergi cari babi.” (basic translation: “I made a shortcut for us. It’s my hunting route). He convinced me it’s shorter.

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She was told to harvest her pepper that very same morning. Being confused and a little shocked, she did as she was told. She, in her 50s, went to her pepper orchard and started frantically picking those tiny pepper seeds – from more than 200 pepper vines! – even though the pepper was not yet ripe for harvest. By noon, she almost fainted due to exhaustion. “You have to collect all your pepper this morning because the company will bulldoze your land tomorrow! You have to make way for this project”, the guy told her that morning, about one week before gawai dayak. The guy is a fellow villager representing the company, whose project was to establish a quarry from the nearby limestone hill of Darod Mawah in Bengoh. This is part of the Bengoh dam project.

Unfortunately, she was not the only one who was approached by this guy representing the company. There are at least seven others whose lands are already affected by the quarry project, and none of them were consulted prior to the land clearing activities, let alone a discussion between the company and local landowners on releasing their lands for this project.

Landowners and their lands being destroyed

According to the landowners, each of them were told by the company representative that they must release their land for this quarry project. While none of them were opposed to the project per se, everyone was clearly displeased with the way the project was carried out. They said none of them were consulted before the company decided to bulldoze the land. Even the tua kampung (village headman) was not informed of this matter. Talk about neglecting a simple but official courtesy!

Although the landowners erected a blockade against the advancement of the bulldozers so as to allow them to discuss this matter with the company, this proved to be only temporary. The company workers easily dismantled the fragile blockade only a few days later. The mean yellow machine hungrily devoured anything in its way.

Initial clearing on Darod Mawah

Seeing that their effort to negotiate this matter with the company representative had failed, a lawyer was then engaged to fight their cause. Something came out of it. People became more aware of their rights and the discourtesy of the company in carrying out their project. But in the days that ensued, the bulldozer continuously cleared the lands of fruit trees, cocoa, pepper vines, rubber trees and other perennial cash crops, as if the whole space and things on it don’t belong to anyone.

Banana trees and pepper vines on the fringe of the project area

Cut the long story short, the landowners decided to file a police report to stop the company from further clearing their land area. The police issued an order that all activities in the affected area must be stopped until the issue is resolved. That was about two weeks ago.

New building popping up on one of the landowners’ land

Either the company representative is made up of a bunch of fuckin’ illiterates or it’s a deliberate demonstration of their total disregard for the law, the company workers casually erected a building frame the day after the police order! It was built on one of the landowners’ land, again, without his permission. The landowner in question was aghast when he saw that alien object on this land. This was not all. Across a small stream behind a limestone hill on the slopes of Darod Mawah, a newly crafted development destruction was happily in progress.

In progress, ignoring the authorities

After receiving the police order to stop the activities in the area, which they gladly ignored, the company representative practically summoned each of the landowners to the site office in Bengoh. The landowners were summoned individually to discuss certain matters, obviously in response to the police report. The result from this discussion made things a bit complicated. Four of the landowners told the tua kampung that they had signed some kind of “documents” while at the site office. Each of those who signed did it individually behind closed doors accompanied by 3-4 company representatives. The tua kampung was upset with the four who signed after they were repeatedly told not to deal with the company without their lawyer present. The four left and isolated themselves from the rest. Two of the four landowners who signed are old and illiterate. One of the two is deaf. To say that they agree with whatever is on the “document” without a thorough comprehension of what is at stake is nothing short of being cheated.

A week after the four signed, the woman who was told to harvest her pepper was coaxed into signing a “document”. But unlike the four, she did not isolate herself from the rest and told her story. Apparently, the company representative had visited her house on three different occasions, trying to persuade her to go to the company site office and sign a document. She refused on that three occasion. The company representative told her that (1) she is the only one who has not signed the “document” and (2) if she doesn’t sign, then the money that the company are willing to pay her for the land will “go to the welfare”. Welfare? What welfare? Whose welfare? Not knowing what to do and understandably confused, she signed the document. Apparently, her son read the document for her. He said that the documents had three pages: page one, a ‘map’ description of his mother’s land area and its acreage; page two, the kind of crops on the land; and page three, a declaration that the landowner is willing to give up her land for this project. Although they told her that she’d receive compensation for her damaged fruit trees, there was no exact amount agreed upon in black-and-white. Just words of mouth.

The remaining affected landowners who did not sign the document and other village members decided to file another police report against this project. The police, obviously disturbed by the disregard of the first police order, decided to issue another order to halt the project. 4-5 police personnel even went to the affected site and ordered the workers to stop working in the area until the matter is solved. One day after this, the lawyer and landowners submitted their application for a court injunction on the company. Last Friday, the court slapped an interim court injunction on the company to temporarily stop working in the area. Landowners happy.

(Instead of straining your eyes to read, click the article to enlarge)

Accompanied by their lawyer, the landowners decided to visit the company’s headquarters to serve the injunction themselves, also complete with a press conference. Now, here’s the funny part. When the injunction was served, one of the company’s representative went down to the lobby to receive the injunction from the landowners. The press asked this representative only asked for his name but all he could say was that he was an office boy without any significant position in the company. One reporter asked “Well, even an office boy has a name. We just need your name.” It turned out that this ‘office boy’ was the corporate finance manager for the company! [see the last paragraph in the article] In other words, this made him the most highly paid ‘office boy’ in Malaysia (or probably the world!). A RM20k-per month office boy isn’t a bad job at all!

Why even bother to lie about his job? If they can lie or take this matter lightly, imagine the kind of disrespect that this company is capable of formulating against the local communities where they carry out their projects. Ok, so if this ‘office boy’ ‘wants to lie, then his kind should lie properly. If they can’t then, they should hire a consultant lair. In fact, I have a friend of many years (and whom I try to avoid) by the name of Seman who is a bloody efficient liar. He’s so bloody good at lying that you’d refuse wanting to know the truth! Fuckers!

This injunction is temporary. I’m sure the company is cooking up some monkey penis to lift this injunction against them. For instance, on the day the landowners had the press conference at the HQ, the company counteracted by calling for another press conference that same afternoon to ‘clarify’ the matters. First, they said that the landowners have been compensated and that they’re asking too much by serving the injunction. This is one monkey penis. Then, they said that the landowners had already agreed to allowing the company to establish a quarry in the area. This is another monkey penis. And lastly, the company said that out of the eleven landowners, nine of them signed the document agreeing to the company’s proposal to extract rocks from Darod Mawah. Huh? Eleven landowners? Nine of them signed? Either I am very poor at counting or is another monkey penis going into the cooking pot?

Dark clouds looming over Bengoh

How is it possible that such a reputed company willing to stoop that low to cheat the people? And to make it worse, they respond to benign inquiries with defensive and negative remarks? tsk, tsk, tsk…

Due to a simple mismanagement of financial supply this month, I’ve resorted to eating can food for the past couple of days. I’ve stored enough can food in my kitchen cabinet to sustain my life whenever I run short of cash should a nuclear war breaks out between Singapore and Faroe Islands. Anyways, this poor imitation of poverty will hopefully end tomorrow once I get my paycheck from the Slavemaster. And I have RM8.00 cash in my wallet now, which should hypothetically nourish my physical being until tomorrow.

Last night, as I was preparing for ‘dinner’, I came across an amusing label on the can that contained pork stew. The label said “Mengandungi babi”, which literally translates into “Contains pig”.

A short moment after reading the label, I started to laugh so hard that my puppies took the opportunity to run into the house, thus breaching the Man & Dog Agreement 2008*, to investigate the hysterical noise in the kitchen. They stared at me and tilted their heads to one side like what dogs usually do as if in bewilderment. Well, the label itself may not be that funny to you but the misuse of the Malay language cracked me up. The label should have just said “Tidak halal” (meaning “Not halal“) or at the very least, “Mengandungi daging babi” (meaning “Contains pork”), which I think is more than a sufficient warning to those who practice the religion that prohibits eating pork. For a while, I imagined a pig being squeezed into the can. And with that tiny picture of a pig on the label, how could you not imagine so?

On the subject of food, an important element of life that is relatively lacking in my house at the moment due to my financial constraint, I went to Danu last weekend because I heard that it’s not been raining there for the past five days. This is good news, first, because it’s supposed to be the dry season between April and July. For some strange reason, it rained almost on a daily basis last April. Those who pretend to know about the weather would explain “climate change” as the reason. Er, hellooo? Of course, it’s climate change. Even my deaf and half-blind paternal grandaunt who’s never watched National Geographic channel knows it’s climate change!

Another reason why the dry spell is good news is that there will be more fruits this year. If it rains at this time of the year, the fruit trees particularly the durian would not bear lots of fruits. Dry season also means the river will be abundant with fish and all other marine creatures (mermaids not included). When I arrived in Danu last Saturday, they were all talking about the frogs, river snails and fishes they caught the night before. Frogs, of course, is a delicacy and to hunt for it at night is always fun. Naturally, my lunch there was served with frogs and some fermented fish. Yum!

A bowl of frogs

These wild creatures, big or small, hunted for food are always delicious no matter how you cook them. It definitely contains more nutrition than my canned pork stew that mengandungi babi. So, I wasted no time finishing that bowl of frog soup, of course, with the occasional sips of langkau.

The kid seems to enjoy the frogs too

In fact, almost every time I go to the kampung to visit my friends, I’m always served with all kinds of wild meat. The meat is best eaten as snacks or tabas as the locals would call it during a langkau session. Sometimes, they would give me some either smoked or fermented wild meat to take home. Every time I declined their offer, they’d always remind me that, apart from instant noodles and can food, I don’t have food at home.

Meat of a banded civet (see the palm?)

Two weekends ago, I went to Sadir as I was told that a group of my friends had shot some terrestrial mammals not far from their village. Among them were the common banded palm civets or musang, the notorious nocturnal creatures that commonly hunts for other small mammals and sometimes, domesticated fowls. Some macaques also successfully made it into the casualty list and included in the lunch menu.

Oh well, all this talk of food is making me hungry now. Got to go home and open that can of sardines for dinner tonight. Come to think of it, even my pups’ food is more nutritious than mine….*sigh*

* Section 3.2.1 (d) of the Man & Dog Agreement 2008 states that “Mammals on four legs are not allowed to enter the living room beyond the doormat”