1959 January 19th

64 students were registered for the new year of school in 1959.

I was proud to be one of them.

How did I , at 12 years of age, from Ulu Medamit, Limbang, come to study in Tanjong Lobang School, Miri, miles and miles away from home? In fact every one of us who came to Tanjong Lobang before 1960 would have a great story to tell.

I feel that mine is therefore a story worth telling.

One day in 1958 while I was studying in the one room school house in Medamit, my teacher Cikgu Bejit, told me that I had to sit for a qualifying test so that I could be selected to study in Miri. I was about 12 at that time but was placed only in Year 4, hence I was already a few years behind the normal school age. I started Year 1 at the age of 9 when almost all other students in Sarawak would have started Year 1 at the age of 7.

The other boy who was selected for the qualifying test was Sunang and I will tell his story in another post.

The test was made up of English and Mathematics and it was held in another school. In my innocence, the test was easy and I finished answering all the questions within fifteen minutes, much to the amusment of the white man who was in charge. I believe until today, he was Mr. McCormick, the Education Officer of Fifth Division at that time.

God must have been very kind to me because it was not every day that an Iban boy from Medamit, about two days' journey by longboat then from Limbang town, could be given a chance to study in Miri.

But then the Sarawak Colonial Government at that time had a special program to help the native boys . This was to enable native children to gain a place in a good government school which offered boarding facilities and especially good teaching. Tanjong Lobang school was built by funds given by the New Zealand Government to meet one of the then colonial government's development objectives.

Had it not been this program, I would probably be just a rubber tapper today or at the most a government clerk (at that time every one wanted to be an SAO or Sarawak Administrative Officer)

Indeed I passed brilliantly and I was told to go with my father to Limbang town to get ready to go to school in Miri by January the next year.

So in January 1959, my father took me to the Education Office which was housed together with the Resident's office. I remember Mr. McCormick telling my father in his heavily accented Malay that Tanjong Lobang was like a heaven for boys to study and he did not have to have any anxieties about me. Every thing would be arranged properly and I was to be in good hands.

My first journey to Miri would be by boat , the Aline, to Brunei and I was to go with the others who I later found out was a Malay boy and a Chinese girl and another Chinese boy. Abu Bakar Matassan, Tan Poh Tin, Sunang and I were selected from amongst all those who set for the qualifying exams for this 1957.

I don't quite remember the first time I met Tan Koon Kee , our senior, although I still remember him being a nice Chinese gentleman.

In retrospect, how our three lives (Abu and Poh ting and I) were interwined in the past 50 years! Abu and I cannot be too far away from each other, we seem to be orbiting around north Sarawak! Then Poh Ting and her husband Phang Chung Shin have always been our best friends.....

Here is an amusing anecdote about my first pair of school shoes. In August 1958, my father received a letter, stating that I was selected to attend Tanjong Lobang School in Miri and I had to have the following :
1. one pair of white canvas shoes,
2. 2 pairs of socks,
3. a blanket
4. one pillow
5. some pencils
6. some exercise books
7. some pocket money
8. tooth brush
9. a cup or glass
10. one plate
11, two white shirts
12. two pairs of dark blue shorts

and other personal effects.

Till today I have would get a good laugh when I tell my friends how my father and I went looking for a pair of canvas shoes in Limbang. You see at that time, canvas was not a vocabulary in any one's language. The helpful Chinese towkay of the shop said that canvas was velvet.

There was a pair of black velvet shoes in his shop but it was one size too big. any way my father, being an "obedient servant of the government" bought that pair of shoes. So without knowing much, I proudly took my beautiful black velvet shoes to Tanjong Lobang School. That made me an instant hero in the school!

For more than fifty years of my life, since then I would be caught chuckling about this....hahahaha.....velvet shoes...Sawan wore velvet shoes instead of canvas shoes....

By the way, a few days later I did get a pair of canvas shoes in Miri...that's another story.

Back from the digression, Abu,Poh Tin and I got on to the boat call Aline and as the boat sped off, I could see my father standing on the wharf looking straight to me, almost emotion-less as was his character. I was waiting for him to wave but he did not.......It was the first time for me to be on board to large coastal steam and I was truly choking inside.

On the other hand,the Malays were very smart and well dressed and they formed a big group by the river bank, waving at Abu and his elder brother, Mohammad, who was already a student at Tanjong Lobang. they seemed so organised and ready for the send off. I was full of respect for their clothes and good turn out. In comparison, my father stood alone, being the only Iban father sending off his eldest son, was in a corner , trying not to show any emotion at all. I was beginning to feel awful inside and had just wanted to go home with him. My longhouse kins men and women would not have known the significance of a send off.

As I am writing this post,I can still smell the diesel from the hot and noisy engine and hear the loud din the engine was making. Poh Tin was crying by herself and Abu was looking very sheepish. The water was churning away as we moved further and further away from Limbang town.

I remember that I watched the shore becoming darker, trying to figure out where my father was standing...until he was just a dot on the bank of the river. And finally I had to look at something else to occupy my mind.

The pangs of homesickness were already starting inside me as I tried to notice the newness of the coastal boatm the smells, the hardness of the steel structure and the paints. My life would never be the same again. I knew I have left the one room school house behind. I was just 12 years old.

Our boat ride ended in Brunei, where some government officers looked after us and brought us to the bus belonging to Awang Damit Transport Company. Somehow I can really remember that day as if it happened only yesterday.

The wooden topped bus would take us by the sandy, beach road to Miri. Every year for the next 10 years I would make that annual trip to Miri by the same bus.

The road was bumpy and the bus was dusty and sandy as we moved along. I had the taste of sand in my mouth once in a while. This would be changed when progress set in years later.

At first changes were slow but towards the 70's and 80 changes were amazing!