Kuching Reservoir Park

Kuching Reservoir Park today.

Today I went to visit Kuching Reservoir Park which is located at Pearse Road , a 10 minutes walking distance from Kuching City centre. There is a vivid and memorable story that I would like to share here of the park which I painted in mixed media ( water colour, felt pen and crayons) way back in 1982. This painting , now 27 years old is still in my custody and will be displayed at my 2nd solo exhibition scheduled in October this year in Kuching. As I see it today the very colourful ixora shrubs that nestled below the two trees are gone.

'Kuching Reservoir Park' in mixed media, circa 1982, 22x29 cm, Artist Collection.

Gone too is the rich collection of water lily plants that floated in abundance in the pond. The side of the ponds where the two trees stood were protected by 'belian' timber planks and posts. Today however the embankment is protected by stone pitching. After 27 years the trees have really grown up and pleased to see today that the municipal council have tagged the names of the trees on the tree trunks ( viz 'Bintagor Laut' and 'Penanga Laut'). The Japanese bridge still retain its red colour but the railing that is seen at the far background is no more there. The railings were fixed on top of the reservoir wall then to allow visitors to have a higher view of the ponds. In recent years the dam wall was demolished and thus the red railing. The dam was erected more than 100 years ago to store water and filter them for the consumption of Kuching town population. Today it merely functions as a public park.

What captivated me then was the interplay of the sun's rays against the juxtaposition of colours of the liles, water, leaves, flowers and the red railings. Despite the lack of flowering shrubs around the place now, this is being compensated by the lush greenery. When I walked through the park this morning the cheerful twittering and flight of birds were plenty and the shouts of children followed every where they ran . I felt very happy today to have recorded the park 27 years ago in a painting as testimony of me being there. "I was here".

( Click here to see more of my paintings done many, many years ago)

Satok's Night Hawkers Food Centre

'Satay' - barbecued and spicly marionetted fine slices of chicken or beef as seen above is one of the most saleable dishes .

Life is Kuching is convenient. At night there are many hawkers centre throughout the city that open business around 6.oo pm and close before 1.00 am. I went to one at Jalan Satok, which is a major banking and retail centre during the day but bustling with about 50 hawkers stalls at night in one particular car parking location called the Satok Night Hawkers Food Centre . Here you can find all sorts of hawkers food from noodles ( mee), smoked or barbecued chicken, fish, meat, etc and various soup like vegetable soup or the hot and spicy 'tom yam' ( Thai dish) soup. Burgers and hot dogs are also available too. Drinks are from a variety of choices like fresh tropical fruit juices, a rich assortment of hot and cold drinks however alcohol is not served.

The Satok hawkers food centre of about 50 stalls opens nightly.

One of the beauty of eating street hawkers food is its richness of types and tastes that can be enjoyed at a markedly lower price than in restaurants. The open air ambience and colourful neon lights and occasional TV screens and loud music add much fun and character to the place. I find it a good place to dine casually, meet friends over dinner or late super . The more frequent you visit the place the more familiar you become with the chef and the operator of the stall which in most cases is the owner of the business thus giving you his or her best service. Overall I would give Satok night hawkers food centre a B rating, all things considered.

Raw Fish Menu

Our destination today is Buntal, a fishing village some 3o minutes drive from Kuching city. It's becoming popular as an escapade for fresh fishes especially among the Kuching folks who seldom have the opportunity to buy fishes directly out of the fishermen boats. Well, we were able to buy fishes at source today. No middlemen. On the tables were huge live river crabs neatly tied to keep them in check. Big and small fishes were sold by the village ladies ( while husbands do the fishing) and the prices were much cheaper compared to what you can buy in Kuching city.

A plate of 'Umai' displayed in our garden before the disappearing act.

Well, back from Buntal we were all excited to have the simplest dish of fresh fishes for lunch called 'Umai '. It's a Bintulu Melanau word for raw fish menu , really no cooking needed. I would assume it to be something quite similar to the Japanese 'sushi'. The menu is as follows: Slice fresh fishes into small pieces, mix them with a condiment of chillies, ginger, lime, large onions, salted vegetables and salt and serve it after 30 minutes. From my experience I find that chilling it for about half and hour would be wonderful to the taste buds. Serve raw.

On the way out of the village one could see many makeshift road side stalls selling smoked fishes. I dropped by one to sample a few on the hot barbecue stove. The smoked fishes are mainly small fishes that fit neatly into the organic wrapper made of our local mangrove palm leaves called the 'nipah' ( nypa fruticans).

On the stove too were smoked fish liver and smoked fish roe all sold at RM1 per packet. For my 'ikan pais' -the term the villagers here call smoked fishes I paid RM1 and was glad to savour two small fishes in it on the spot. It tasted good.

A Small Town Park

On the way to the Malaysian-Indonesian border recently I had the chance to drop by at the thriving town of Serian, a 25 minutes drive from Kuching city. Within a tight space of not more than 2 acres I noticed some amount of Federal funding has been spent on the landscaping and public amenities for the town's populace. I am happy to note the use of elephant ears( Alocasia ) in the planting detail giving the place a unique touch of the strange yet refreshing image of the wild into the typically sterile concrete jungle of small towns in Sarawak today as they race to catch up with the only two cities in Sarawak i.e. Kuching and Miri.

This open space is partially covered by a unique structure that I guess can be used for many functions like open air performances, official gatherings etc. But in my travels throughout Sarawak most of these open park amenities are hardly used because of budgetry constraints. We may have the funds to build physical infrastructure but lack much in 'filling the content' to these cultural spaces. The long walkways coloured red above intersect the park and I thought was practical since an attempt to overgrow it with two climbing plants species have started and may take sometime for the plants to crawl over the walkway superstructure.

This was the surprise . Handrails made of stainless steel seen at the edge of the park.

Rural Sarawak

This morning we took to the road to a small town at the Malaysian-Indonesian border crossing.
The hour long journey through low-lying Kuching terrain gradually turned into sharp turns and steep climbs as we neared the second leg of the journey. The border town ,Tebedu sits on Malaysian soil and I noticed two physical projects that were underway that could give this town an economic boost, mainly a Custom, Immigration and Quarantine Complex and an Inland Port. However just by the look of it, I think the facilities will only be up and away probably another 3-4 years down the road.

What captivated me throughout the journey was the 'ruralness' of the economic landscape. The paddy or rice fields were starting to be harvested on plots largely owned by subsistence farmers.

I stopped to take a picture of two women busily harvesting the ripe paddy stalks. In Sarawak paddy is hardly grown on a commercial scale and very little mechanisation is used in its operation from tilling to harvesting. As such though Sarawak is under-populated and with a vast land size, it has for decades been importing rice from other neighbouring countries of South East Asia, principally Vietnam and Thailand which have proven to be much more advanced in technology and producing competitively new improved clones especially of fragrant qualities.

Another unresolved issue in the productivity of paddy or rice in Sarawak is the problem of land tenure. Most of the land farmed by the farmers are owned by the state which does not award private ownership even though the families has been working on the land since their great great grandfathers. This issue of very fragmented and untitled land tenure constitutes a tricky political issue and many natives are upset over this unresolved problem lately. In many instances the government will grab the land from the farmers at will or with the tiniest of compensation ( akin to a pepper corn) which ultimately make the natives landless or homeless.

Consequently the younger generation migrate to urban areas and being unemployed create much urban social problems , unrest and urban squalor.

Another interesting thing I discovered today is the use of live plant for post to hold the pepper vines. Sarawak is among the top producers of pepper in the world. Sarawak pepper is now processed into a variety of products like sweets, perfume and of course the pepper flavouring chefs all over the world sprinkle steaks with, viz black, green or white varieties. Pepper growing demands intensive care and thus is carried out largely as a family concern like the small pepper plot in the above picture.
Note: The front posts are of hard round timber while the background posts in the picture are of the live plant.

Wild Fern Vegetables

The edible 'true fern' - Paku Benar ( Athyrium esculentum) synonym:Diplazium esculenthum

Just the other day while on the way out of the Jong's Crocodle farm road, I had fun collecting the young fronds of the edible fern called locally as 'Paku Benar' which directly translated means true fern. There are many varieties of ferns in Sarawak but truly the ones that I like are three, viz the 'midin' ( stenochlaena palustris), 'paku uban' (Nephrolepsis falcata) and the 'paku benar' (Athyrium esculentum ) . This pinnate-leaved fern grows wild along roadsides, open spaces and sometimes shady areas that are swampy or near rivers and water courses. They can reach a maximum of 1-1.5 m high and thus is easy to pluck. At any local jungle produce market throughout Sarawak one can buy them at RM1-2 a bundle depending on size and locality.

These ferns are so prevalent in Sarawak that nobody will attempt to grow them on a commercial scale . There are everywhere for the picking. There are three ways I eat this fern. First you can stir fry it . The next method is my favourite i.e. as a salad by just immersing it into boiling water and then dipping into the many traditional sauce available like 'budu','cencaluk' or 'belacan'( shrimp paste ). Thirdly it can be cooked in coconut milk. It is found that the fern is a good source of phosphorous, iron and vitamin B.

I have not planted them at my farm in Bintulu yet because there is the alternative 'midin' fern that grows in wild abundance there. To find out more about the 'midin' at my eco-farm in Bintulu, follow this link http://myeco-farm.blogspot.com/search/label/stenochlaena%20palustris%20%28midin%20%29

Colour Outside

From my walkaround Kuching city the other day, I was stunned by the daring show of colours that adorned the exterior of many of Kuching's well preserved historical shophouses. Some of the shophouses were built during the White Rajah or the Brooke's era ( 19th century) but able to stand the test of time. Their makeovers in modern splashes of colours are admirable giving the street much needed lustre and appeal.

The red colour is much liked by the Chinese and as such their temples are painted 'pagoda red'.

The blood red colour of the shophouse above caught my retina in an instant and clicked it went.

The Chinese Museum at the Kuching Waterfront area in rosy pink.

One of the many uses of colour is in branding and I thought the above does well to the identity of the shophouse and the company's name.

Mention of colours I always remember Claude Monet the impressionist painter, whose paintings especially the later ones were just colours in fleeting impressions. He was a master in the choices of colours that one critic ( I cannot remember his name immediately) commented that Monet is just colours , " But what an eye!".

Ethnic By Design

Kuching Waterfront Ethnic Pavement Design

Today I took an afternoon off to pay another visit to the Kuching Waterfront area, prompted by a relatively cloudy day and a weather condition that has improved greatly since two days ago by the absence of rain. To my mind this is an indication that the rainy monsoon season is at its tail end.

What fascinated me today was the design at the waterfront pavement. It's indeed uniquely Sarawak in style which reminded me of a sprouting fern I took a picture in Bintulu last month.

Sarawak is a land of diverse ethnic identities. There are 27 ethnic groups in Sarawak, besides the Malays, Melanaus, Chinese and a very small minority of Indians. Among the ethnic groups it is the Ibans, Kayans, Kenyahs and Kelabits that have a very rich and developed art in design work which are applied on fabric, handicraft items, totem poles, shields, doors, arches and weaponry.

The motifs are inspired from many sources that are deeply interwined in their 'world view' of the natural phenomena as well as that of the supernatural kind.

Motifs can be inspired from animal life ranging from the small lizard to the big crocodile. In between them , designs could well feature the squirrels, tree shrews, deer, bird's legs or birds in flight. From plant life are created in very stylised techniques images of bamboo shoots, leaves, flowers, lianas, creepers and various flowers. From the human form to the supernatural world are figures depicting mythical fore fathers, warriors, medicine men, chiefs or just plain mortals.

Juvenile Crocodiles at Jong's Crocodile Farm .( pix)
The crocodile being a living ancient relic of the carnivorous dinosaur family has an important place in the lives of the natives because there are creatures that are to be avoided and not killed for fear that once killed more will return. Whether there are of the saltwater or freshwater types they don't follow specifically their territorial boundaries. Therefore you may find the biggest of the reptilian crocs i.e. the salt water crocodile(Crocodylus porous) trapped in your fishing net somewhere upriver. There are hundreds of stories in Sarawak referring to the terror days ( some years) when some huge ones prey on humans along the many river systems of Sarawak. And while Sarawak is known as ' The Land of Rivers' it is also the playground of fearsome crocs, the most well known being named ' Bujang Senang' which loosely translated means ' The Easy Going Bachelor'.

Designs on 'Sape'- a local musical instrument having only four strings.

The above designs on the 'Sape' are symmetrical, repetitive and intricate and thus traditional.

They are unlike the design on the Kuching waterfront pavement which twirls and turns in a flowing and asymmetrical fashion and therefore more modern or contemporary in outlook. It is interesting to point out that the full length of the waterfront( about half a km) is tiled using this 'flowing pattern' resembling a long river that meanders, bends and joins other tributaries on its destined journey towards the open sea , crocodiles apart.

High Tea With The Crocs

Just 10 minutes drive from where I am staying is Jong's crocodile farm. Today I decided to spend my high tea with the crocs. At around 3.00 pm daily the crocodiles are fed. The feeding time is great show for visitors and tourists who are charged RM 10 per entry ( adults). Besides watching crocodiles other animals and birds are kept for additional interest like monkeys, bear cat, pheasants and peacocks, eagles, phytons, iguanas, fishes and peking ducks. The farm covers an area of 25 acres and there are about 500 crododiles here bred successfully in captivity after many years of trial and error. The farm is a private undertaking.

The main course on the menu is raw chicken meat served in chunks and whole pieces. From above the hut one man throws chunks of meat to many quarrelsome crocs below and for the adventurous ones a whole chicken meat is lowered by means of a pulley to the center of the pond for the taking. I saw a few tried this difficult challenge and were successful to the applause of spectators.

"I got an eye on you".

Below is success in the making.

High and Thrifty

While having a rest at this summer house 0n the Kuching waterfront area, I looked up and saw this rain tree ( Samanea saman) being clustered by ferns on its main branches. It reminded me of a picture I took sometime ago of an epiphytic orchid that bloomed on a rain tree in Bintulu as shown below.

The pigeon orchid ( Dendrobium cruminatum) has a peculiar habit of flowering after sudden thunderstorms which is believed to create a rapid fall in the temperature and thus stimulate the orchid plant to produce flowers. The tiny flowers look like white doves in flight, hence the name pigeon orchids.

This rain tree does have character. It looks ancient and inviting to many epiphytes. Sometimes called 'air plants' they survive on trees having chosen a location that is indeed fine living, though not that affluent. Because though there is less competition with other species on the ground below, they need to be very thrifty to survive at the 'penthouse' level. Some have developed abilities to reduce the evaporation of water thus making economy a way of survival.

A closer view of the ferns blanketing the rain tree branches

Epiphytes can come in the form of aroids like the broad -leaved scindapsus aureus or epipremium pinnatum 'Aureum' plant above. This plant has adhesive aerial roots that trail up the trees to great heights. Thus if I were to plant them in pots as an indoor plant I would have to hold the plant to a wooden stick to keep it upright. The epipremium has a wonderful foliage that is often variegated . The longer leaves fern above is that of the bird's nest fern ( Asplenium nidus)

In Bintulu I have this stag horn fern ( Platycerium superbum) atop a lengthy small tree vying for filtered light and great humidity of the environment upstairs. They grow to extra length of about 2 m and often the sheer weight makes it fall off the tree which makes it easy to collect.