Book Review
Dragons and ghosts
The children of Papan
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Book Review
Dragons and ghosts |
| A good read Ho Thean Fook’s "God of the Earth" is a laid back story of innocent children of immigrants in Papan, Perak, at the turn of the century. These children learn to eat the local fruits of the neighbourhood, like buah machang and chempedak. They get to identify Papan's birds and animals; and enjoy exotic meats like cobras and iguanas and they get used also to leeches. Papan 
The kids learn to read and write in a school known only by the name of teacher/owner. It cost 50 cents every month plus 10 cents a month for bench and table. The learning method is memorizing. Samples of what they memorized (in English). You may know person's features but may not know what is in his heart A person cannot be well for a thousand days A flower cannot be red for a hundred days Although there may be thousand year old trees in the jungle It is difficult to come across a hundred year old man in this world When a person starts to study he does not work hard enough Because he does not realise there is treasure in books The teacher must have been exceptionally kind. None of the children were beaten. Free time means spider fights and games with stones; the older ones play football |
| Their houses are of nipah
and bamboo. Their parents search for tin, often working without a licence;
rearing chicken and ducks and pigs or tend to their vegetable plots. Wild
boar ravage their plants. The Malays and the “Sakai” are friendly and comfortably
work with them. In the town there are paper shops making grand cars and swanky bungalows destined to perish in the flames of ceremonies for the dead. Relaxation for the adults is the tea house and Cantonese opera. The frugal and hard working immigrants continue with the festivals they have brought with them like the Chung Festival, and of the Nine Emperor Dukes. Excitement is provided by the yearly dragon boat race Fear is provided by the tigress that roams in search of her kidnapped cubs which a woman is planning to sell. The kidnapper is persuaded to return them to the distraught mother after which the tigress prowls no more. Then there is that terrible giant of a dragon which was thankfully destroyed by the Thunder God. And that is not all. There is a devil who causes a man to wonder lost in the Underworld. Ho Then Fook describes to us a beautiful and innocent life. Except for some wicked kidnappers, whose capture made the children of the book heroes, everyone is nice including the White man. So naive is Ho Thean Fook’s narrative that it supplies an improbable excuse for the compulsory tin licence. The author claims that licensing for tin digging was needed because of its dangerous nature. But the truth is that the object of licence registration was to control production in the interests of the British mining, so much so that even the bottom-of-the-ladder dulang washer was restricted to defined amounts of tin panned.# Lim Kean Chye Book reviewed: God of the Earth by Ho Thean Fook The Perak Academy |
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24-D Jones Road
Penang A voluntary, non-profit
organisation dedicated to enhancing women's status in society and supporting
women and children in crisis
Telephone 604 228 0342 Fax 604 228 5784 Email wcc@wccpenang.org |
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| _____________________ The Penang File Issue 46 |