Selling Memories

A selection of old memories of Kuching from colonial buildings to personalities and places are sold here at Satok Sunday market.

If you go the the Satok Sunday market don't forget to drop by at a stall that sell memories. The stall owner sells old photographs of Kuching especially the romantic and adventurous early history of Kuching . The focus of the photographs are places in and around Kuching during the early days of Brooke rule, the Brooke's personalities or figures, events and historical buildings of the colonial period. Most of the photographs are laminated and a few are framed. Customers are local residents, visitors and tourists. I noticed his repertoire of photographs quite sizable . The first Rajah ( monarch) of Sarawak is James Brooke a British ex-soldier-cum-adventurer who was given the region around today's Kuching after he managed to quell a local rebellion there in 1841. Those were the romantic days. His picture is shown above at the bottom left row. There are accounts that because of this successful military adventure he was given the region around Kuching as reward. In the Malay language " Serah Kepada Awak" means "hand over to you", in short "Serawak" from which originated the state's present name "SARAWAK". That's history if you are willing to buy.

The above photograph shows the Ranee Margaret of Sarawak with aristocratic Malay ladies in Malay costume, circa early 20th century.

Charles Brooke was the nephew of the first Rajah who became the second Rajah of Sarawak after the death of Sir James Brooke. Charles Brooke married his 19 year old cousin Margaret de Windt hoping to have a heir to the Brooke monarchy. The Ranee Margaret became a popular and loved figure in Sarawak. She spent 17 years in Sarawak and gave birth to three sons. One of them , Vyner was to become the third Rajah of Sarawak in 1917, a week after the death of his father. The Brookes handed over Sarawak to the British crown ( colonial government) in 1946, a year after the Japanese were defeated from their short military occupation of Sarawak from 1941-1945. The colonial government ruled Sarawak from 1946-1963. In 1963 Sarawak, Sabah, Singapore and Malaya formed Malaysia and thereby achieved Independence from the British.

My ! 1888 Sarawak coin is today 120 years old

I have a rare coin in my collection which is a time capsule of the colourful Brooke's Dynasty rule in Sarawak during the middle of the 19th century. Before Sarawak was colonised, it was ruled by a British family and they gave up their dynastic rule to the British Crown after they found it impossible to run the state without much budget and a bigger administrative structure which could only be provided by The Empire.

The first 'White Rajah' or 'White King' was James Brooke and was succeeded by 'Rajah' Charles Johnson Brooke who ruled Sarawak from 1868-1917. During his rule Rajah Charles struck or minted the above copper coin, dated 1888. This coin is 3 cm in diameter.

Before the Brookes rule, Sarawak was under the Sultanate of Brunei which used coins of tin. However being of soft metal it wore easily. With a more modern British minting technology coins were then minted in copper like the one above.

For those who believe in the power of numbers like the number '8' among the Chinese, what is the significance of the triple 8 digit, I wonder?

( P.S.: BTW this coin is not for sale)