THE COMPANIONS OF KO KO WANGI

                                                             KO KO WANGI

I can’t remember not loving animals, especially dogs. I sobbed watching Lassy and was outraged with what happened to King Kong (still am, and will someone, please, change the ending of the next remake?). As a matter of fact, I never missed Daktari and had seriously planned to spend my future life as a veterinarian somewhere in wild Africa (plan B was to move to Florida with Flipper’s family). Needless to say that I hated the evil poacher who murdered Mighty Joe Young’s mum and pursued him all the way to the USA.


I never made it to Africa, let alone to the wild part, not even on a tour; and I have yet to visit Florida. Instead I ended in Borneo, where I never planned to go (life is like that!) with my dog Picsous, a mean cross dachshund I had adopted from SPA, the animal welfare society in Marseille. Picsous had to spend six months in quarantine for rabies prevention; I must say that while there, he received a five star treatment. One day though we learned that Picsous had fathered puppies (Tony the warden was also a match-maker) and that one of them, a female was left unwanted: the articulations on her right hind leg were reversed. We took her home and named her Lady. I improvised some sort of physiotherapy and a couple months later she had become one fast three legged dog! Quite a number of people offered to pay me top ringgit to have Lady, a dog with a “tabalek” (reversed) leg is supposed to bring good luck. I made it clear that Lady was mine to stay.

I had always dreamed of owning a house in the countryside and possibly by a river. Hubby caught the bug too. Whenever we would find a picture of a mill house, we would both fall in a dream state. We would often drive to the hills in Matang and follow the river, playing John Denver’s Greatest Hits cassette over and over again. Once back home we would seriously discuss the house we would build there, some day. In retrospect, isn’t it what The Secret and the law of attraction are about? Indeed a few years later, we attracted a farmer who wanted to sell his land which happened to be crossed by a stream, and at the right price too! The deal was done and the hard work started: pulling out at least a hundred of cocoa trees, dumping soil to landscape, planting fruit trees, building the house and even a bridge over the sungai (stream). At last we had our country home and we named our very own Eden Ko Ko Wangi.

The Sungai at Ko Ko Wangi

A couple of nights only after we moved in, Hubby and the kids had to go to town; I was left alone to enjoy our over-sized terrace. There are no silent nights in the jungle; for a while I could hear an owl call, until it drowned in a cacophony of sounds; every living creature it seemed was caught at once in conversation! While days are much quieter in comparison to the nights, especially when the moon is full, I can say that, over the years, Ko Ko Wangi has attracted a substantial number of now permanent residents of the animal kind. Obviously, some are domesticated, with a job to do, while other are kept for breeding purposes (supposedly anyway). The present leader of our guard dogs is Sherlock, a black Belgium Malinois. He clearly believes he’s on a life mission to control all traffic on the path that follows our front fence. Big Athos (of unspecified breed) is more detached from his duties; I suspect he knows by now that everyone is scared of him despite his bright blue eyes. As for the breeding dogs, they are of course obvious company to me and certainly good entertainment. First there is Caramel the toy poodle; he can climb any fence of any height and yet he is not as gifted to become a circus dog as Kenzo the Maltese who can learn any trick within minutes; Kenzo is not only attention seeker, he is also a drama queen. Last but not least, Kenzo’s wife to be, Ines who deserves to carry the name of a former French top model for her beauty and pose, is really a female wrestler.

Sherlock

Caramel

Kenzo

As for the insane cats that keep coming to the house behind the dogs' back, I am not sure if they can be classified as wild? Why not? After all they are left to breed in the nearby jungle and our family is the closest they ever come to approaching a human being. Those are Felix Sarawak, typically with a crooked knotted tail yet and despite their uniqueness, I can’t say that they fascinate me, unlike my other yet wilder companions do.

The acrobatic squirrels for instance; they can run along a cable and keep their balance by swinging their tail from right to left like some pendulum gone crazy. I love to watch when one that has just climbed down a tree, cautiously looks right, then left and finally behind before running for dear life across the lawn to the next trunk and repeats the action from tree to tree. The scene never fails to remind me of the star squirrel in Ice Age.

Some birds are regular visitors while others have built their nest somewhere on the land. There is “Big Bird” the egret that sometimes comes with a partner or two. Big Bird works very hard, the whole day long until the sun has already set, tirelessly patrolling the mini dam on the sungai to catch some jumping fishes, then moving on to check out the breeding pond where it often has to compete with a few monitor lizards, then back to the dam…

The blue heron likes to keep its distance from Big Bird, it seldom strays from the sungai, while the flashy blue and orange kingfisher enjoys perching on the pontoon over the pond and cross the width of the land like a low flying bomber, which never fails to create total mayhem at ground level among the water hens, the noisy magpies and other small birds that have established their home in our trees or in the high grass of the marshland. The only ones not impressed are the eagles that patrol above our heads; I can often hear them clearly calling for the hunt of our closest neighbor’s chickens.

Heron

Snakes are not uncommon, after all we’re in Borneo! They often cross the narrow country road that leads to our house; and yes they are usually dangerous. Once in a while, one will make it to the terrace and sometimes even closer to us like the brown cobra Athos recently spotted under our living room sofa! Before the bird flu scare, when we still kept chickens, greedy pythons used to get caught on their way out of the poultry yard, stuck in the wire-meshing fence, thanks to the bulge of the chicken in the process of being digested. A couple of years ago, python meat was selling for 5 Ringgit a kilo at Serian market. Wilson our gardener was always only too happy to take his pricey catch to his best friend’s kitchen (secret recipe!); it certainly made him feel like a rich man!


The sungai is a world of its own in Ko Ko Wangi; a world I can’t tire of exploring as far upstream from our boundary as I can possibly push, either on foot or swimming, until some trunk and entangled branches from a tree fallen victim of a fast flood won’t allow me to proceed any further. As I brake the flow, I disturb the peace of all kinds and sizes of frogs, of small colorful water snakes and of course of the monitor lizards.

Yet nothing had prepared me for the most exciting encounter I have ever made to date. It happened a few months back. Helen and I had decided to live the dream (we just love to do that) and bring a bottle of chilled white wine with two glasses to the sungai. We were happily seated, Helen on a half sunken trunk and I in the flow, on the river’s bed, both holding our glass and for once, quiet, when I sensed a black animal had just come to my side and dived in the water next to me. Helen had seen it too, then it emerged right in front of us, a large black shiny mammal with a long tail. It was off again in a flash and up on the dam when it turned around and briefly looked at the both of us. By then our jaws had literally dropped (but we were still holding our glass!) as we were staring at a magnificent otter that left us in a state of shock when it finally dived again and disappeared behind the dam.

I like to think of all my pets and all the free flying, climbing, swimming, crawling or lurking creatures that live and thrive on our property as my companions, the companions of Ko Ko Wangi. They certainly keep me under a charm and with them around loneliness simply cannot exist; and when the evening comes as Big Bird joins the hundreds of egrets that fly back in arrow formations to only they know where for the night, I know without the shadow of a doubt that tonight will be very noisy and tomorrow will be business as usual for the permanent residents, patrolling and barking, climbing up and down fruit trees, building nests or fishing, as I’ll be keeping an eye on them while doing my own things.

------------------

TRIBUTE TO CASSIUS BONUS DU BABA AU RHUM,

he never let any snake out-smart him.

Just over 7 years ago, I adopted (from SSPCA) a large absolutely pitiful dog that could hardly manage to carry the skin that hanged on his bones. He also had a “funny” right eye, sunken into its orbit really. Later, when he allowed me to caress him, I found the shape of the tip of a shoe in his skull. When I brought him home, I realised that he did not know how to run; we all laughed, not to cry. He had never seen a cookie and didn’t know what to do with it; his nails were totally hollow for lack of calcium. He must have been one year old when he joined our family. It must have taken about half an hour for him and I to bond, then he took my hand in his mouth to walk with me the length of the terrace. As we stopped half way where we met Hubby, I suddenly felt a strange heat down my right leg! Our new dog had marked me and adopted me (thank God it happened only once!). Because I wanted him to be strong, because he was so good to me and because his coat was the color of a sponge cake topped with whipped cream, the pitiful dog became Cassius Bonus du Baba au Rhum. He also transformed into the alpha dog and ruled as the unchallenged king over our other dogs and all the dogs in the neighborhood really. Cassius left us last November after a long fight until his kidneys stopped functioning. We always knew he could not live a very long life like dear Carmen who died at 14, yet we are so happy that Cassius was able to spend all his 7 years with us feeling safe and happy protecting me always and giving me so much love.

Cassius Bonus du Baba au Rhum 2001?/2009

GREEN MONUMENTS IN BORNEO

When I was a wee girl growing up in France, I recall looking at monuments as sad and violent scenes of soldiers holding guns in one hand and their dying friend on the other arm. In front of the monument, there was always a very long list of those who had fallen during the first or second world war or during a specific battle. The names were too familiar; eerie feeling. Twice yearly or so, those carved scenes of patriotic sacrifice that existed in every city and every village were honored by the town council, the local politicians, welfare associations and of course war veterans. On Armistice day, led by a solemn bugler, they would lay large flower wreaths crossed with tricolored sashes in front of the statues. I always thought that if an instrument would be able to cry, the bugle would be the one.


As I grew up, I learned that monuments could be something other than “war monuments”; those had been given proper names and stood as double tributes, to God(s) (such as the Parthenon to goddess Athena, Notre Dame de Paris), to man’s glory (l’Arc de Triomphe) or his technology (the Eiffel Tower) yet always and forever to their architects and builders.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tugu Negara which is also known as the National Monument stands in memory of those who died to defend the country against the Japanese occupation and the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960); it depicts a group of soldiers holding the Malaysian flag, symbolizing leadership, unity, vigilance, strength, courage, sacrifice, suffering. It is a “war monument”. Most sightseeing itineraries of Kuala Lumpur stop at Tugu Negara, yet I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Petronas Towers are what every single tourist takes back home and not just in their digital memory card either!

Just across the sea, in Sarawak, old folks still bear the scars of violence (the Japanese occupation and the Confrontasi with neighboring Indonesia).                  I recently helped Helen’s grandma overcome her fear of thunder with hypnosis; she had been hiding from explosions since the Japanese! Yet, monuments in and around Kuching are not about suffering, in fact they are bound to surprise any visitor and certainly infuse a sense of balance and even grounding with an additional touch of humor.                                                                               

Recently I asked hubby if he was aware that monuments here were actually a celebration of something and very local too, which had nothing to do with war. Inevitably he mentioned the few cat monuments in Kuching (which means “cat” in Malay language). So I quizzed him if he had ever noticed the Sawi monument? Now, Sawi meaning Chinese cabbage, he took it that I was teasing him and he eyed me with one kind of look; still he agreed to keep the following Saturday morning for us to visit the Chinese cabbage in Tapah village, a few kilometers up the road from our home.



Chinese cabbage monument in Tapah



Then he believed, and when that happened, he became even more excited than I was in spending the rest of the day on a photo safari focused on what we now call the “green monuments”. After the Chinese cabbage, we were off to Serian. Hubby acknowledged that there was indeed a gigantic bunch of durians right in the center of the roundabout at the entrance of the town, yet he simply would not believe that there was one more durian monument, this one a single fruit, at the market place.

Durian monument in Serian

Once he had to admit I was right, he was gentleman enough to volunteer to drive back to Kota Padawan, ten miles from Kuching, to photograph two more memorials built in honor of carnivorous pitcher plants (also known as monkey cups and used by the Bidayuhs to serve rice).

The experience was a lot of fun, not just for us though, but I suspect for quite a number of road users whom, with the passing of time and routine commuting had probably become unaware of those amazing expressions of man’s gratefulness for what mother Earth gives; and perhaps thanks to a nutty European woman standing in the middle of the road, armed with a camera, they might, from now on, remember to look at the “green monuments” and even have a laugh at my expense!

Pitcher Plant monument in Kota Padawan

TIGER IS BACK!

“Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright…”*


  So let’s get 2010 really started.


Disclaimer: No! This has nothing to do with Tiger Wood.


No offense to the bull, but I can’t wait for the tiger. For a start, I just read that it would be a particularly good year for me in the love department and that my worth will be recognized !?

Then too, I simply love the splendid, powerful, exciting noble beast. Not surprisingly, Malaysia proudly bears the great Asian feline as its royal emblem, and is now counting on the WWF to save the Malayan Tiger from total extinction, and all the heraldic artists from being sent back to their drawing board. Yet, and since my joss is good, I’ll gladly share it with the few hundred big cats left to roam the rainforest freely; after all isn’t it a wonderful sign that the tiger should enter the new year with a loud roar on Valentine’s day, bringing fire and passion of the loving kind?

Before life would come to a stop on CNY (Chinese New Year) eve in Kuching, Hubby had us kick out the old bull and ready for the dashing tiger by eating my favorite Chinese cold dish, the one delicacy that has me longing, drooling even for CNY many weeks ahead: Yee Sang. It is served on a large dish with the ingredients each separated into small stacks, dressed with sauces and condiments, salmon cuts in the middle. Then everyone around the table gets busy at once, tossing the salad, mixing bright green and shocking pink crispy vermicelli cracker bits with everything else, wishing for prosperity and, as Hubby insists, “for good health, for without good health, there will be no prosperity”.

Yee Sang

Yee Sang this year has been yummy and fun; with it good wishes have started filling the air. Helen will be serving dinner on New Year’s Eve; who knows, she might even serve Yee Sang? At midnight we’ll burn a few illegal fire crackers and fireworks to kick in probably a whole week of eating and playing mahjong with friends, with only short breaks for naps.

Yeap, I’ve tossed Yee Sang, “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright…” Now we’ve got the party started. 

GONG XI FAT CHAI!

Thanks to food expert Jacqueline Lum.

*The Tyger”, William Blake

DAF: A GREAT SCULPTOR IN BORNEO

If you are familiar with this blog, you will certainly know Daf as “a sculptor in Borneo” (also check out my last post on Elvis) and you may have already visited his witty blog at http://deedaf.blogspot.com . Just like me Derek Anthony Fitz Simons alias Daf is an expat who settled in Kuching for the love of his life partner Jennifer (best choice ever). Love makes you do things like that, he left Ireland and I France and we both got a great big chance to evolve.

Daf and Jennifer

When Daf came to Kuching, he left behind a well earned fame carved in granite. (For more info on DAF, check out http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2008/7/16/southneast/21793920 and

http://www.irishartsreview.com/html/vol21_no2/design21_02/design21_02_frame.htm)

With no good carving stone available around Kuching, one may easily guess that Daf found himself at the edge, somehow the right place to be when you need to reinvent yourself. Like the Fool in a tarot deck, a new Daf came out of the cave, stepping out to a new life, fresh and optimistic, fully confident. He had found his new media in the famous Sarawak clay, there was no stopping him to express his talent and create, more daring, more personal and always larger. We are so lucky to be able to see his extraordinary work until the 31st of March 2010, during the “Crossing Borders” art exhibition at Galleria, Wesberly House, Lot 2812, Block 195, Rubber Road West, Kuching Tel: 60 082 246197 .

The exhibition features not only Daf’s work but also paintings by local artist Melton.

Daf and Melton

Daf says of himself: '' I am a self taught Artist.... groping around the subconscious mind in the hope it all comes together...”  Daf http://www.deedaf.blogspot.com/

More pictures:

One of Milton's Paintings

ELVIS LIVES ON

A tribute to Reynolds Gregory


A couple of years ago Ian and I received an invitation to our friend Jennifer Lau’s daughter’s wedding. We were really thrilled, first because Jennifer and Daf, the Irish love of her life, are dear friends of ours, and also because we had enjoyed the kampong engagement party so much. As the date drew closer, Jennifer, who is a professional radio announcer and DJ briefed me on the latest news: “The Elvises have offered to perform for us; they are such good old friends of mine!”
I have to confess that the news concerned me a little. I am one of those who simply dread impersonators of famous stars, to the exception that is, of a few comedians. By the time we reached the city hotel where the dinner was to take place, I had “psyched” myself to bare the program with stoicism. Thankfully I became quickly distracted as soon as we met with a number of long lost acquaintances and dear friends. It was one of those multi-racial occasions Malaysians love, Chinese on the bride’s side and Bidayuh on the grooms side. We happened to be on the bride’s side, like Dutchman Jacob with Mina, his better half from the Kelabit highlands and Colin who wore full Campbell tartan to tango his darling shanghainese wife. It is amazing how the human ear can analyse and identify elements of conversation coming in with a whole range of accentuated English like Chinglish, Deutchglish, Dayakglish, Irish, Scottish and Franglish. Then, came the Elvises.

They each looked a million dollars in their made in Memphis Tennessee stage costumes; they also sang like legitimate kings. Those two kings of the night were Reynolds Gregory and Wilfred Vincent Ragam, they were cool, and they were professional. As much as I had dreaded the show, I ended up loving every minute of it and promising myself and Ian to save every ringgit to be able to have them perform during my brother’s next visit.

Sadly I found out in this Monday’s news paper that Reynolds had collapsed on stage during a Saturday night performance in front of 300 dinners and fans. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was his last tribute to the King of Rock and Roll, he died with a melody on his lips. May all the King’s men go on with the show.

DAYAK WEDDING AT THE LONGHOUSE

Christmas day in Kuching is always an extremely busy, exciting and yes, exhausting time (yet so much fun!). Years ago, I gave up practicing French style isolation for Noël. As much as I believed that I was doing the right thing by spending this holly day focusing entirely on our two young sons, it took me no more than a couple of seasons into double motherhood to realise that our children simply loved the fuss caused by un-invited guests who would turn up at our home (surprise!), to convey their best wishes, clearly expecting our full festive hospitality. The Malaysian tradition which, by the way, applies for all major festivals, be it Xmas, Chinese New Year or Hari Raya (end of Ramadan), is to “open house”. On our third family Xmas in Kuching, we too opened our house and with the exception of a pre-millennium holiday spent in France and a couple of escapades over-seas, we have never missed a rendezvous; that was until the 25th of December 2009 when my faithful Super Judy married her eldest daughter.

Judy AK Linda has been helping me keep up with the challenges of living at Ko Ko Wangi since day one, almost eight years ago. I would not dream of organising such a crowded event as our “open-house” has become, without her help. The obvious thing for us to do this season was to shift our focus to the wedding event.

Cecilia and Basco

Cecilia and Basco’s wedding invitation was for the 26th of December at Kampung Annah Rais, in Bidayuh Padawan, just over an hour’s drive from Kuching, a little bit shorter from Ko Ko Wangi.
The Bidayuhs, also known as Land Dayaks, are somehow a complicated people and particularly smart too; think about it, here is one single ethnic group, whose homeland is contained solely within the First Division of Sarawak, and yet has managed to develop no less than four dialects. You got to be smart to do that!

Judy comes from Kampung Temong Mura on the banks of the Sadong River; her folks speak bukar Sadong; when she married Wilson from Anah Rais she had to master biatah. Although Wilson can, more or less, make out what people from Bau say when they speak bau djagoi, it is another matter with Judy’s dialect and since his knowledge of the national language is rather poor, he finds it quite a challenge to communicate with his in-laws. Thankfully, the younger generation of Bidayuhs learns Bahasa Malaysia at school, making communication and intermarriages between them a much easier affair.

Preparations for Cecilia’s big day had started months earlier. There had been many meetings at Anah Rais longhouse; the first was to agree on the date of the event (not to clash with someone else’s) while subsequent ones were to discuss the number of guests and their overnight accommodation, the set-up, the banquet, well all the incumbent details. In order not to offend anyone, relatives and friends, and more or less the whole population of three villages (the groom’s, Judy’s and of course Anah Rais) had been handed printed invitations. Total number of guests expected: one thousand.

The main concern was to be able to serve food to everyone. A few hundred melamine plates were bought, a cousin who had recently hosted her daughter’s wedding contributed with 500 more and a considerable number were donated by a few of my close friends who happen to love Judy. A limited number of forks and spoon were to be set aside for “special” guests like ourselves and our friends Helen and Lau while all the other guests would happily be eating with their hands, as they so often do anyway. Quite an impressive assortment of plastic and paper cups had also been collected way early; the last things to complete the kitchen equipment were my biggest cooking pots and super-sized enamel trays from China, large serving plates, my liquidizer too and a few other items which right now, skip my mind.

All in all, our contribution to this wedding was far less dramatic that one we had made almost unknowingly a few year back, to Norayati, our Malay nanny who had helped herself with most of our kitchen equipment, our dining chairs, the living room carpet, my French make up and eaux de toilette (to display on the newly acquired dressing table in the newly wed’s bedroom for guests to see) and even the ashtray from Moustier in Provence! We spent almost one week in an emptied house and although the refrigerator had been left behind, we had to resort to going out every night for dinner for lack of most things in our kitchen. Don’t get me wrong though, it was good fun and such a joy to make Nor happy on her big day.

At kampong level, meetings to remind folks of what had been decided during previous meetings finally led to gotong royongs (community work, strictly a men’s thing) to reinforce the bamboo tanjung (outside terrace), build a full stage, and finally cook. In the final hours, the women had been fully involved in the catering team, to cut the vegetables. The men’s duties were the ones requiring more muscle work, like cutting hefty pieces of meat, stirring large quantities of stew simmering in huge kualis (woks) placed atop of wood fires, then transferring the ready food into western-type cooking pots to be used to serve. On the night of the feast, 12 men had posted themselves in a single line behind a makeshift buffet table, each standing, positioned behind a large pot and armed with a ladle to serve the never ending queue of hungry guests in their individual melamine plate with steamed rice, bamboo rice, nasi bunkus ( rice cooked wrapped up in leaves), meehoon goreng (fried rice noodles), pork stewed in soya sauce and pork ribs cooked with salted vegetables, ayam curry (chicken curry), ayam masak merah (chicken cooked in tomato sauce), hard-boiled eggs in tomato sauce, salted fish with chili sauce, mixed vegetables without carrots because someone had forgotten all about those carrots; salad à la mode, made with pieces of pineapple, turnip, the re-discovered carrots, large onions, cucumber and big chili. Judy told me that the dressing was a concoction of salt, sugar and white vinegar. Right at the end of the long table, honey dew melon was the fruit of choice.

The buffet

As God would have it, it rained heavily, on and off. Where I come from, rain on a wedding day is omen for a prosperous union; I assume this prosperity would come in the form of money currency rather than of a football team of children. I intend to keep the reader posted in Cecilia’s and Basco’s case. However, never for one minute, did the rain dampen the merriment. Cecilia, her long black hair fashioned elegantly by a Siburan hair stylist, wore a long, innocent tender pink satin dress, with just the right amount of blink to dazzle, leaving the observer guessing whether she was a demure or ravishing new bride as she opened the ball on the only part of the dance floor that happened to be sheltered by a roof.

The first part of the celebration had been the traditional union in marriage as practiced by the Bidayuh people. It was not a religious blessing per se; the ceremony performed by the heads of each of the three villages lasted over one hour during which the couple listened to wise recommendations simultaneously blasted through a multitude of loudspeakers. The long list of good advice was to help them succeed in their union; they not only had to listen, they had to literally swallow them one by one together with a mouthful of rice. What a splendid way to absorb wedding vows!

Once the blessing over, guests took their turn to congratulate the newlyweds and take pictures with them, more often than not around the three-leveled cake decorated in azure-blue and pink with yellow marzipan hearts.

Ian and I joined the long line of well-wishers then followed the tantalizing aroma that came from the buffet table. I chose bamboo rice and was served with the two types of chicken and a ladleful of stewed pork. When I hesitated in front of the ribs, the man in charge of it got rather upset: “It’s not the same” he assured me. Since crossing someone was the last thing on my mind, I let him top up my alreadyfull plate, which was a good     Nasi is Rice                                              thing, as everything turned out to taste    

                                 delicious.                

As the dish-washing team got busier with the growing pile of emptied plates, the crowd started dancing. It had stopped raining and I joined Helen on the bamboo floor which was now flooded with colorful laser lights diffused through artificial smoke.

When the band was not playing, a D.J who spoke in bahasa Malasia kept everyone happy with a mix of Malaysian hits, Taylor Swift and of

course Michael Jackson, yet making sure that Cliff Richard’s “Congratulations” would be the intermittent hit of the night, this to the joy and merriment of the youngsters in Jeans and the elderly ladies in Baju Kebaya (long sleeved blouse worn over a long sarong).

Queuing up to the buffet

By the time the rain returned with a vengeance, the crowd was beyond caring. We left just before midnight but I heard that the party lasted until seven in the morning, probably when the last one standing finally hit the nearest mat.

Cecilia and Basco, my best wishes and next year we will start celebrating your first anniversary on Xmas day, at our open house.

The following prayer by Cecilia and Basco’s was printed on the invitation card:

“Ya Tuhanku, Seandainya Telah

Kau Catatkan Dia Milikku,

Terciptabuatku, Dekatkanlah Dia

Padaku, Satukan

Hatinya Dengan Hatiku,

Titipkanlah Kemesraan Di Antara

Kami Agar Kebahagiaan

Itu Abadi. Dan Tuhanku yan

Maha Pengasih,

Seiringkanlah Kami Dalam

Melayari Ketepian Yang

Sejahtera, Sepertimana Yang Kau

Kehendaki”

AMEN

Translation:

Dear God,

Be it your will that he (she) is mine,

Created for me,

Bring him (her) closer to me,

Unite his half with mine,

Strengthen the joy between us

So that our happiness is genuine

And Lord, almighty and loving

Join us in peace,

As you wish

AMEN.

DURIAN FOR CHRISTMAS

December’s back and here I am, on a regular thirty something degrees Celsius pre-Christmas day, standing in my neighbor’s chilli-pepper field. I am here specifically to shoot a Durio zibethinus (a Durian tree) with my camera and collect a new picture for this blog. Standing near me and my tripod is Ah Chai, the chilli-peppers grower; he is frankly disappointed with the scarce number of oblong golden fruits which we can see, hanging from the huge tree ahead of us. “This season is not good” he laments. As I recall, the previous one, half a year ago, was not any better; climate changes?
                                                            
I seldom have the opportunity to talk to my neighbours; they are all farmers and our family is of the urban kind, “wanna be” hobby farmers. We commute in and out of the small country drive, we wave, we give way to motorcyclists, sometimes to a van, yet we rarely stop. The only friendship we have developed is with Ah Peck, which by the way is not his name, it really means “grand-father” or “old man” in local Chinese. We don’t know his real name; he’s never told us and he seems to enjoy us calling him Ah Peck.                                                                   
It was easy to for us to become good neighbours because he and his family are the only planters who actually live on their land; the others are daily farmers.      Today happens to be a busy field day for most of them, a fortunate coincidence, and a chance for me to finally meet them on my walk to that large durian tree down the drive where Ah Chai, and by now three other men, have gathered around my strategic photo-shoot spot. Right now, with them by my side, I can witness the legendary and amazing power of the durian: the power to attract and unite people. This is exactly what is happening here, in the midst of chilli-pepper plants for two Hakka and one Bidayuh men and I, a French woman.

The powerful spell of the durian spreads through South East Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, southern Thailand and Malaysia. No other fruit I know of can get people together to enjoy a splendid time like this one does. I mean, no-one would ever fuss so much over a pineapple, a bunch of bananas or even a jack fruit.
Despite its thorny nature (“duri” in Malay means “thorn”) the durian actually creates bonds, at least between locals. As a general rule though, sharing a durian with a non-Asian without any prior briefing may result in the end of a beautiful friendship. Although there seems to be a growing number of Caucasians who claim to love the custard-like pulp that covers the large seeds encased in the inner compartments of the spiky shell, even for those, it is still an acquired taste; most of them react by running off, literally, or like my friend Elsa did, by diving head first into a river.                                                                                       
As controversial as a durian can sometimes proved to be, and as much as it can test East meets West friendships to the brink, here in Sarawak, as everywhere else in the region, it is, truly, a diplomatic fruit which has been unanimously crowned KING of FRUITS, by both genders of all ethnic groups and regardless of their religious faith. Call a few friends to join a durian hunt all the way to some remote kampong (village) and you will find yourself leading a caravan!


Durians are good business too, and many shrewd farmers set up makeshift stalls on the roadside, the ultimate temptation for drivers to make an impromptu stop and start a “durian ritual”: pick a few fruits, sniff them like a French would a truffle, shake them like a maracas, close to the ear to listen to the dull, subtle knocks that tell the tale of a ripe to perfection durian. Buyers even like to exchange savvy comments with total strangers on how to pick the best fruit (yet not before they have finished picking their own) and finally negotiate the price with the seller.

Except for its look, I used to hate everything about the durian, its taste and its odour; then without me even knowing, my nose, first, got used to it, and what I had first perceived as a revolting stench, I now identify as a familiar call to get together with friends and have fun sharing a fruit I have grown to actually enjoy! Mind you I do have a preference for the orangey pulp rather than the whitish one. I am picky.

The durian happens to be particularly nourishing; it is loaded with vitamins and minerals, a real bonus to animals and for this reason humans actually have to seriously compete to get to it first while it is still on the branch. I remember an Iban legend that tells the story of an unfortunate young woman who had been abducted by a randy Orang-Utan and owed the success of her escape only to the fact that the big ape had let himself be distracted by the sight of a few durians that had fallen to the ground, long enough to give his sweet heart enough time to run to her rescuers’ long boat.

The KING of FRUITs does come with some dangers though. Although it never seems to drop onto the heads of those patient fellows who spend whole nights waiting for their prize to fall from the branch (they’ll tell you it just never, ever happens.), it does have bad chemistry with alcohol.

Yes, it’s almost Christmas; back on the French Riviera, my brother and the whole family are probably feasting on tiny and cute looking, irresistibly flagrant Corsican Clementines (a winter fruit), while I am ready to bet with my husband that the almost 30 centimetres long, 15 centimetres in diameter and well above 2.5 kilos orangey durian that dropped last night, from one of our trees, is going to taste like the perfect KING of FRUITS, and tomorrow morning, I’ll walk down the drive again, to talk about it with Ah Chai and may be with a few other neighbours too.

Have a splendid festive season!

P.S: To Raeleen, “thank you” and I hope I will have to say it again many times in future.

Some useful information was gathered from “Durian - How to Choose and Open a Durian” from Dennis Sim, former About.com Guide http://southeastasianfood.about.com/od/malaysianfruits/ss/ChooseOpDurian_9.htm

As published in THE EXPAT magazine - Dec 2010 issue